Now that the group stage is over and half of the FIFA Men's World Cup of soccer's teams are down to sixteen survivors, it is time for the "knockout" stage of the tournament, whereby countries face off each round in single elimination until only two are left to play the championship match. Most of the favorites in the group stage made it this far, the stunning exception being defending World Cup champion Germany, a favorite this year as well, losing their final group stage match to South Korea 2-0, with Sweden that group's surprise winner. Also unexpected, albeit not as much of a shock, was Japan surviving their group while Poland went down. Well, that's over and it's time for some more exciting high-level international soccer...starting later this morning (this article was published shortly after midnight Saturday, June 30). Here's the schedule for the eight matches in the "round of sixteen" for the next four days, with the starting times given in Eastern Daylight Time...
Saturday, June 30: FRANCE vs. ARGENTINA, 10 am
URUGUAY vs PORTUGAL, 2 PM
Sunday, July 1: SPAIN vs. RUSSIA, 10 am
CROATIA vs. DENMARK, 2 pm
Monday, July 2: BRAZIL vs. MEXICO, 10 am
BELGIUM vs. JAPAN, 2 pm
Tuesday, July 3: SWEDEN vs. SWITZERLAND, 10 am
COLOMBIA vs. ENGLAND, 2 am
Fox and Fox 1 Sports channels are showing the games live...I've enjoyed watching the World Cup so far. It's hard to tell at this point which teams will keep playing well enough to advance, but at least in the group stage Croatia, Uruguay, and Belgium have impressed me the most. Brazil should be playing better than they have, and this is doubly true with Argentina, which just barely passed the group stage. We'll see whether they can get their acts together as they face stiffer competition than ever before. I'm a bit disappointed in the matchups this week...I wanted both Brazil and Mexico to advance far into the tournament: instead they're playing each other. The same is true for Colombia and England. The one team I'd really like to get booted out the most is Russia, the automatic entry because it is the host nation. Nothing personal...and I really love the Russian language, music to my ears whenever I hear it...but it's bad enough that this country, which has been interfering in our politics while threatening or invading its neighbors, is getting all this free positive publicity...
Saturday, June 30, 2018
Friday, June 29, 2018
Quote of the Week...from Senator Chuck Schumer
Our Republican colleagues should follow the rule they set in 2016: not to consider a Supreme Court justice in an election year. Charles Schumer.
Charles "Chuck" Schumer is not only the senior United States senator from New York, but is also that body's minority leader for the Democrats. He was there under ineffective then-minority leader Harry Reid when majority leader, Republican Mitch McConnell, decided to announce only some three hours after learning of Justice Antonin Scalia's death in February 2016 that he would flatly refuse to consider any replacement nominee from then-Democratic president Barack Obama...in spite of the president's strongly expressed desire to work with the Republican Senate leadership to come up with a nominee more fitting to their ideological orientation. This unprecedented (and, in my opinion, disgraceful) shunning paid off for McConnell and his party...at least in the short run... after Donald Trump unexpectedly beat Hillary Clinton in the November presidential election and the winner nominated very conservative Neil Gorsuch for the position. Obama, following the refusal of McConnell...and Senate Judiciary Committer Chairman Charles Grassley...to respect the U.S. Constitution regarding their duties in this regard, had gone ahead anyway and nominated Merrick Garland, a federal judge with no ideological trail to speak of. McConnell wouldn't even show the common decency of meeting with this distinguished judge, at least for the sake of politeness, when he visited the Senate after being nominated. So with this disgusting spectacle behind us, why is it then that I totally disagree with Schumer's statement? Well, it's like this...
The whole controversy about McConnell's 2016 decision to stonewall Obama's Supreme Court nominee was based on it being a presidential election year. After all, every two years all of the House of Representative seats are up for election, as well as one third of the Senate seats...under Schumer's suggestion justices should only be nominated in odd-numbered years, an asinine idea. I sympathize with the minority leader's criticism of McConnell...but I also feel it is completely legitimate to go ahead with the nomination and hearings process for the nominee to replace Anthony Kennedy, who just announced his retirement. Trump will doubtless pick the next justice from a much-publicized list that is full of very conservative judges and politicians likely to vote to overturn Roe vs. Wade and Obamacare, among other issues...here is the crux of where the Democrats are concerned, not the timing: it is unlikely, in my opinion, that the upcoming election will see them take the majority from the Republicans...if anything McConnell's GOP will probably increase their margin of control, so stalling this nomination until after the election is just delaying the inevitable...
McConnell's action in 2016 to me smacks more of personal animosity against President Obama than any desire to be "fair". Obama was the duly, constitutionally elected president when Scalia died and vacated his seat, and was thus the one who legitimately had the duty to select Scalia's replacement, just as the Senate in turn had the duty to consider his nominee through advice and consent. As for precedents in history, when Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. retired early in 1932...also a presidential election year...Republican president Herbert Hoover wasted no time in nominating a liberal Democrat, Benjamin Cardozo, to replace him. That process went smoothly...Obama was conducive to something similar in 2016 but McConnell's spitefulness went so far as risking a much more liberal justice later being installed by Hillary Clinton, who at the time was leading the polls. My concern about all this, and the true test as to whether Senator McConnell is a hypocrite as Chuck Schumer just accused him of being, may come in 2020...
In 2020, the next presidential election year, the Republicans under Mitch McConnell probably will still have the majority in the Senate. Should a Supreme Court justice die or resign during that year, will the majority leader stay true to his stated principles he claimed to follow in 2016 by delaying any Trump replacement pick until after that election? Now that's a cut-and-dry indicator of McConnell's integrity level...I expect him to try to weasel out of it all with a lame excuse should that scenario develop, considering his long record of cloaking political expediency in "principles" he makes up as he goes along...
Charles "Chuck" Schumer is not only the senior United States senator from New York, but is also that body's minority leader for the Democrats. He was there under ineffective then-minority leader Harry Reid when majority leader, Republican Mitch McConnell, decided to announce only some three hours after learning of Justice Antonin Scalia's death in February 2016 that he would flatly refuse to consider any replacement nominee from then-Democratic president Barack Obama...in spite of the president's strongly expressed desire to work with the Republican Senate leadership to come up with a nominee more fitting to their ideological orientation. This unprecedented (and, in my opinion, disgraceful) shunning paid off for McConnell and his party...at least in the short run... after Donald Trump unexpectedly beat Hillary Clinton in the November presidential election and the winner nominated very conservative Neil Gorsuch for the position. Obama, following the refusal of McConnell...and Senate Judiciary Committer Chairman Charles Grassley...to respect the U.S. Constitution regarding their duties in this regard, had gone ahead anyway and nominated Merrick Garland, a federal judge with no ideological trail to speak of. McConnell wouldn't even show the common decency of meeting with this distinguished judge, at least for the sake of politeness, when he visited the Senate after being nominated. So with this disgusting spectacle behind us, why is it then that I totally disagree with Schumer's statement? Well, it's like this...
The whole controversy about McConnell's 2016 decision to stonewall Obama's Supreme Court nominee was based on it being a presidential election year. After all, every two years all of the House of Representative seats are up for election, as well as one third of the Senate seats...under Schumer's suggestion justices should only be nominated in odd-numbered years, an asinine idea. I sympathize with the minority leader's criticism of McConnell...but I also feel it is completely legitimate to go ahead with the nomination and hearings process for the nominee to replace Anthony Kennedy, who just announced his retirement. Trump will doubtless pick the next justice from a much-publicized list that is full of very conservative judges and politicians likely to vote to overturn Roe vs. Wade and Obamacare, among other issues...here is the crux of where the Democrats are concerned, not the timing: it is unlikely, in my opinion, that the upcoming election will see them take the majority from the Republicans...if anything McConnell's GOP will probably increase their margin of control, so stalling this nomination until after the election is just delaying the inevitable...
McConnell's action in 2016 to me smacks more of personal animosity against President Obama than any desire to be "fair". Obama was the duly, constitutionally elected president when Scalia died and vacated his seat, and was thus the one who legitimately had the duty to select Scalia's replacement, just as the Senate in turn had the duty to consider his nominee through advice and consent. As for precedents in history, when Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. retired early in 1932...also a presidential election year...Republican president Herbert Hoover wasted no time in nominating a liberal Democrat, Benjamin Cardozo, to replace him. That process went smoothly...Obama was conducive to something similar in 2016 but McConnell's spitefulness went so far as risking a much more liberal justice later being installed by Hillary Clinton, who at the time was leading the polls. My concern about all this, and the true test as to whether Senator McConnell is a hypocrite as Chuck Schumer just accused him of being, may come in 2020...
In 2020, the next presidential election year, the Republicans under Mitch McConnell probably will still have the majority in the Senate. Should a Supreme Court justice die or resign during that year, will the majority leader stay true to his stated principles he claimed to follow in 2016 by delaying any Trump replacement pick until after that election? Now that's a cut-and-dry indicator of McConnell's integrity level...I expect him to try to weasel out of it all with a lame excuse should that scenario develop, considering his long record of cloaking political expediency in "principles" he makes up as he goes along...
Thursday, June 28, 2018
6/24 Sermon: Upward Habits, Pt. 2
At the Family Church here in Gainesville last Sunday, senior pastor Philip Griffin continued his series Upward Habits with a sermon titled Meditation on Scripture. For the scripture of focus he used Psalm 1...click on it to read it through Bible Gateway. Meditation is a word bandied about a lot in our society...Pastor Philip used the term in its Christian context: the object of meditation is to consider God's word and to be filled with it...
Pastor Philip, in looking at meditation on scripture through Psalm 1, listed four outgrowths: true contentment, joyful obedience, lasting stability, and genuine prosperity. With contentment, he noted that our culture ties happiness and contentment to superficial, transitory, and circumstantially-based things and makes "happiness" a goal...but it isn't really a goal, is it, but rather a product...a product of a relationship with God lived out. With obedience to God, Our pastor pointed out four things that will change: the advice we follow, the way we live, the conclusions we settle into, and the desires of our hearts...and those desires fulfilled, i.e. our delights, will change as we meditate on scripture. For stability, Philip painted a word picture of a tree standing strong and stable in the desert because its roots go down into streams of water...we need to be rooted in Christ's living water. And with prosperity, its genuine form is not the material wealth we sometimes claim to be important but rather the blessings God gives us, especially through hard times which he uses to strengthen us, and the assurance that he has a place and a great use for us, both in this world and beyond...
As Pastor Philip concluded his message, he stressed that meditation is not the way to become righteous...only through faith in Christ is that possible. What meditation does accomplish is to make us spiritually mature as we seek what God has in store for us...
You can watch this message on the church's YouTube video website: [TFC Videos]. The Family Church, at 2022 SW 122nd Street, holds its Sunday morning services at 9 and 10:30. They include the sermon, praise and worship music, prayer, fellowship, and discipleship and learning opportunities. Snacks and coffee are provided before and between services, and there are always friendly folks around to talk with and get to know. The series continues this Sunday...
Pastor Philip, in looking at meditation on scripture through Psalm 1, listed four outgrowths: true contentment, joyful obedience, lasting stability, and genuine prosperity. With contentment, he noted that our culture ties happiness and contentment to superficial, transitory, and circumstantially-based things and makes "happiness" a goal...but it isn't really a goal, is it, but rather a product...a product of a relationship with God lived out. With obedience to God, Our pastor pointed out four things that will change: the advice we follow, the way we live, the conclusions we settle into, and the desires of our hearts...and those desires fulfilled, i.e. our delights, will change as we meditate on scripture. For stability, Philip painted a word picture of a tree standing strong and stable in the desert because its roots go down into streams of water...we need to be rooted in Christ's living water. And with prosperity, its genuine form is not the material wealth we sometimes claim to be important but rather the blessings God gives us, especially through hard times which he uses to strengthen us, and the assurance that he has a place and a great use for us, both in this world and beyond...
As Pastor Philip concluded his message, he stressed that meditation is not the way to become righteous...only through faith in Christ is that possible. What meditation does accomplish is to make us spiritually mature as we seek what God has in store for us...
You can watch this message on the church's YouTube video website: [TFC Videos]. The Family Church, at 2022 SW 122nd Street, holds its Sunday morning services at 9 and 10:30. They include the sermon, praise and worship music, prayer, fellowship, and discipleship and learning opportunities. Snacks and coffee are provided before and between services, and there are always friendly folks around to talk with and get to know. The series continues this Sunday...
Wednesday, June 27, 2018
Weekly Short Story: The Waveries by Fredric Brown
I have read The Waveries, a 1945 science fiction short story by Fredric Brown, a number of times. Its ramifications are especially important in our digital era...but perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself. Since the rest of this article will probably give away the story, I suggest you first read it for yourself...it's now in the public domain, so you can read it online...just click on the following link: [you-books]. I also recommend the book From These Ashes, which is the collected short science fiction of this terrific author whose works I have enjoyed since I was about twelve and began reading his stories from a couple of cheap old paperbacks my father had. But back to The Waveries...
Back in 1945 there was no internet, and computers were a project in the early stages of development. But electricity and radio had been around for decades, and society had dramatically transformed itself wherever in the world they had taken hold. It's a funny thing about us humans: whenever a great new innovation comes into existence, like the telephone, radio, automobile, airplane, television, computers, smart phones, the internet, and so on, we marvel at it in the very beginning but then very quickly adapt ourselves to its use to the point where it is taken for granted as being an absolute necessity. When The Waveries came out 73 years ago there was no internet or smart phone and computers were in their primitive, fledgling stage of development. But they still had radio and electricity (and automotive travel, which depends on electricity). If they were suddenly gone, we're talking about a major stepdown in our civilization, right? Fredric Brown comes to a different conclusion as an exotic form of interstellar life that feeds on radio waves and electricity is attracted by signals coming from Earth and descends upon the planet, causing no direct harm to our life forms but putting a permanent end, first to radio transmissions and then anything depending on electronics or electricity...even lightning from storms gets eaten up by these strange entities. How the author portrays humanity reacting to this apparent calamity seems counterintuitive, but I kind of liked it anyway. Do we really need all this "stuff" that keeps coming out, or are these "needs" artificial creations of our consumer-based society that marginalizes those who either refuse or are unable to keep up with the trends? I strongly suspect that the latter is closer to the truth...
Back in 1945 there was no internet, and computers were a project in the early stages of development. But electricity and radio had been around for decades, and society had dramatically transformed itself wherever in the world they had taken hold. It's a funny thing about us humans: whenever a great new innovation comes into existence, like the telephone, radio, automobile, airplane, television, computers, smart phones, the internet, and so on, we marvel at it in the very beginning but then very quickly adapt ourselves to its use to the point where it is taken for granted as being an absolute necessity. When The Waveries came out 73 years ago there was no internet or smart phone and computers were in their primitive, fledgling stage of development. But they still had radio and electricity (and automotive travel, which depends on electricity). If they were suddenly gone, we're talking about a major stepdown in our civilization, right? Fredric Brown comes to a different conclusion as an exotic form of interstellar life that feeds on radio waves and electricity is attracted by signals coming from Earth and descends upon the planet, causing no direct harm to our life forms but putting a permanent end, first to radio transmissions and then anything depending on electronics or electricity...even lightning from storms gets eaten up by these strange entities. How the author portrays humanity reacting to this apparent calamity seems counterintuitive, but I kind of liked it anyway. Do we really need all this "stuff" that keeps coming out, or are these "needs" artificial creations of our consumer-based society that marginalizes those who either refuse or are unable to keep up with the trends? I strongly suspect that the latter is closer to the truth...
Tuesday, June 26, 2018
Tuesday's List: US Senate Seats Up for Election in 2018
Every two years, we Americans who actually bother to get out and vote elect one third of the United States Senate (about 33-34 seats). This November most American voters will have the opportunity to either reelect their senator, vote for the opponent, or in three races, pick a brand new one. Although the Republicans currently hold a narrow 51-49 majority in the United States Senate over the Democrats (and their two Independent senators), this coming election sees a whopping 25 Democrats standing for reelection while the Republicans are trying to hold on to just 8 seats...a monumental challenge for the Democrats who face many difficult contests in states that Donald Trump handily won in 2016. Besides these races there are special elections in Minnesota and Mississippi to determine whether the appointed senators, one from each party, will retain their seats. Three Senate seats are open through retirement and are guaranteed a new senator: Arizona, Tennessee, and Utah...
The following list uses information from the great website RealClearPolitics, which I've found to be the best source of polling results. They rated each of the Senate seats for the upcoming election as being "safe", "likely", "leaning", or "toss-up"...
DEMOCRATIC SEATS
"SAFE DEMOCRAT" (13 seats)
California: DIANNE FEINSTEIN
Connecticut: CHRIS MURPHY
Delaware: TOM CARPER
Hawaii: MAZIE HIRONO
Maine: ANGUS KING (Independent)
Maryland: BEN CARDIN
Massachusetts: ELIZABETH WARREN
Minnesota: AMY KLOBUCHAR
New Mexico: MARTIN HEINRICH
New York: KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND
Rhode Island: SHELDON WHITEHOUSE
Vermont: BERNIE SANDERS (Independent)
Washington: MARIA CANTWELL
"LIKELY DEMOCRAT" (7 seats)
Michigan: DEBBIE STABENOW
Minnesota: TINA SMITH (special election)
New Jersey: BOB MENENDEZ
Ohio: SHERROD BROWN
Pennsylvania: BOB CASEY
Virginia: TIM KAINE
Wisconsin: TAMMY BALDWIN
"LEANING DEMOCRAT" ( 1 seat)
Montana: JON TESTER
"TOSS-UPS" (5 seats)
Florida: BILL NELSON
Indiana: JOE DONNELLY
Missouri: CLAIRE MCCASKILL
North Dakota: HEIDI HEITKAMP
West Virginia: JOE MANCHIN
REPUBLICAN SEATS
"SAFE REPUBLICAN" (4 seats)
Mississippi: ROGER WICKER
Nebraska: DEB FISCHER
Utah: open seat (Orrin Hatch retiring)
Wyoming: JOHN BARRASSO
"LIKELY REPUBLICAN" (1 seat)
Mississippi: CINDY HYDE-SMITH (special election)
"LEANING REPUBLICAN" (1 seat)
Texas: TED CRUZ
"TOSS-UPS" (3 seats)
Arizona: open seat (Jeff Flake retiring)
Nevada: DEAN HELLER
Tennessee: open seat (Bob Corker retiring)
So when you consider how many more Senate seats the Democrats have to defend than the Republicans, it is actually pretty amazing that of the most contested races...the ones that could go either way...Democrats have only five races like this while Republicans have three. Of course, a lot can change between now and November. But assuming for now that those races labeled "leaning", "likely", and "safe" go as predicted, we're left with eight toss-up contests that will ultimately determine the composition and control of the Senate. For the Democrats to regain control, they will need to win at least seven of these eight elections, not impossible but highly improbable. At this point in time I'm seeing a Republican pickup of two or three Senate seats, regardless what happens in the House of Representatives...some believe that the Democrats will regain control of that legislative body...
The following list uses information from the great website RealClearPolitics, which I've found to be the best source of polling results. They rated each of the Senate seats for the upcoming election as being "safe", "likely", "leaning", or "toss-up"...
DEMOCRATIC SEATS
"SAFE DEMOCRAT" (13 seats)
California: DIANNE FEINSTEIN
Connecticut: CHRIS MURPHY
Delaware: TOM CARPER
Hawaii: MAZIE HIRONO
Maine: ANGUS KING (Independent)
Maryland: BEN CARDIN
Massachusetts: ELIZABETH WARREN
Minnesota: AMY KLOBUCHAR
New Mexico: MARTIN HEINRICH
New York: KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND
Rhode Island: SHELDON WHITEHOUSE
Vermont: BERNIE SANDERS (Independent)
Washington: MARIA CANTWELL
"LIKELY DEMOCRAT" (7 seats)
Michigan: DEBBIE STABENOW
Minnesota: TINA SMITH (special election)
New Jersey: BOB MENENDEZ
Ohio: SHERROD BROWN
Pennsylvania: BOB CASEY
Virginia: TIM KAINE
Wisconsin: TAMMY BALDWIN
"LEANING DEMOCRAT" ( 1 seat)
Montana: JON TESTER
"TOSS-UPS" (5 seats)
Florida: BILL NELSON
Indiana: JOE DONNELLY
Missouri: CLAIRE MCCASKILL
North Dakota: HEIDI HEITKAMP
West Virginia: JOE MANCHIN
REPUBLICAN SEATS
"SAFE REPUBLICAN" (4 seats)
Mississippi: ROGER WICKER
Nebraska: DEB FISCHER
Utah: open seat (Orrin Hatch retiring)
Wyoming: JOHN BARRASSO
"LIKELY REPUBLICAN" (1 seat)
Mississippi: CINDY HYDE-SMITH (special election)
"LEANING REPUBLICAN" (1 seat)
Texas: TED CRUZ
"TOSS-UPS" (3 seats)
Arizona: open seat (Jeff Flake retiring)
Nevada: DEAN HELLER
Tennessee: open seat (Bob Corker retiring)
So when you consider how many more Senate seats the Democrats have to defend than the Republicans, it is actually pretty amazing that of the most contested races...the ones that could go either way...Democrats have only five races like this while Republicans have three. Of course, a lot can change between now and November. But assuming for now that those races labeled "leaning", "likely", and "safe" go as predicted, we're left with eight toss-up contests that will ultimately determine the composition and control of the Senate. For the Democrats to regain control, they will need to win at least seven of these eight elections, not impossible but highly improbable. At this point in time I'm seeing a Republican pickup of two or three Senate seats, regardless what happens in the House of Representatives...some believe that the Democrats will regain control of that legislative body...
Monday, June 25, 2018
Just Finished Reading The Outsider by Stephen King
Once when I was in the seventh grade in school, an unknown kid a couple of years ahead of me suddenly approached me with a giant, friendly grin on his face, erroneously recognizing me as an old buddy of his. As I watched his face change from joy to confusion to downright anger and contempt, I realized how generally stupid my classmates were...it wasn't my fault that he screwed up. After all, we could have ourselves ended up becoming friends. I'm relating this because it does happen from time to time that some of us...including myself...find ourselves mistaken for another, a "dead ringer". Alfred Hitchcock's terrific 1955 Henry Fonda movie The Wrong Man is a case example of this, with serious consequences. Yet Fonda's character, wrongfully accused and convicted of a bank robbery mainly through the mistaken testimony of eyewitnesses, suffers little in comparison to The Outsider's Terry Maitland, who is directly implicated in the brutal murder of a little boy...
The question Stephen King raises in The Outsider is this: when two diametrically contradictory scenarios are presented, where will people come down when it comes to making judgments? Terry Maitland has not only been identified by eyewitnesses as being around the scene of the crime when it occurred, but was also seen wearing bloody clothing. The van he was seen in also bore his own fingerprints, as well as those of the victim...and DNA samples matched as well. Pretty convincing, except that at the time of the crime Terry Maitland had an ironclad alibi, being many miles away at a writers' convention with even himself shown on video asking a question from the audience to the speaker. Yet police detective Ralph Anderson simply refuses to believe in Maitland's innocence...after all, he has evidence supporting his guilt. And so the story progresses as the town seems to have tried and convicted the accused in advance, with Maitland's wife and kids being shunned by former friends. And it is here that I'll let you read what happens for yourself. I will say this much: an old, familiar character from some of Stephen King's more recent novels resurfaces and provides a sense of sanity to it all...
As a sidelight, The Outsider discusses the caves of Texas that are in the vicinity of Austin. As a recent visitor, I was impressed: I actually stepped down into one while I was there last year...I wonder how Stephen King, whom I had previously stereotyped as being just an expert on Maine and Florida (his summer and winter homes), managed to get into Texas caves...of course, the dude by this time has had many folks willing and able to perform some adroit advance research on whatever he wanted to write about...
Going off on a little tangent, I find it interesting how, in our country, one is supposed to be presumed innocent of a crime until convicted in a court of law...yet our law enforcement sometimes sees itself as judge, jury, and executioner. Numerous television series show us the criminals in their heinous acts, so as viewers we already know they're guilty without the need of a trial: we just need to bring on the cops to settle the score, right? Wrong! The police can arrest and charge...and use force, even lethal force, to protect themselves and the public. But they are not there to judge others and carry out their judgments. I remember the first Superman movie when Christopher Reeve catches a cat burglar climbing the outside of a skyscraper. After startling him, Reeves flies down and catches him just before he splats on the ground. Our hero then hands him over to a cop, telling him to "lock him up"...say what? Yet that's how a lot of us see our police...but not me. Unfortunately, Ralph Anderson, the police detective in King's story, is one of those who feels the need to exercise his moral judgment over others is rightfully within the bounds of the exercise of his duty. Sure, what results in The Outsider is fictional, but I believe that this sort of thing goes on all the time around us...
The question Stephen King raises in The Outsider is this: when two diametrically contradictory scenarios are presented, where will people come down when it comes to making judgments? Terry Maitland has not only been identified by eyewitnesses as being around the scene of the crime when it occurred, but was also seen wearing bloody clothing. The van he was seen in also bore his own fingerprints, as well as those of the victim...and DNA samples matched as well. Pretty convincing, except that at the time of the crime Terry Maitland had an ironclad alibi, being many miles away at a writers' convention with even himself shown on video asking a question from the audience to the speaker. Yet police detective Ralph Anderson simply refuses to believe in Maitland's innocence...after all, he has evidence supporting his guilt. And so the story progresses as the town seems to have tried and convicted the accused in advance, with Maitland's wife and kids being shunned by former friends. And it is here that I'll let you read what happens for yourself. I will say this much: an old, familiar character from some of Stephen King's more recent novels resurfaces and provides a sense of sanity to it all...
As a sidelight, The Outsider discusses the caves of Texas that are in the vicinity of Austin. As a recent visitor, I was impressed: I actually stepped down into one while I was there last year...I wonder how Stephen King, whom I had previously stereotyped as being just an expert on Maine and Florida (his summer and winter homes), managed to get into Texas caves...of course, the dude by this time has had many folks willing and able to perform some adroit advance research on whatever he wanted to write about...
Going off on a little tangent, I find it interesting how, in our country, one is supposed to be presumed innocent of a crime until convicted in a court of law...yet our law enforcement sometimes sees itself as judge, jury, and executioner. Numerous television series show us the criminals in their heinous acts, so as viewers we already know they're guilty without the need of a trial: we just need to bring on the cops to settle the score, right? Wrong! The police can arrest and charge...and use force, even lethal force, to protect themselves and the public. But they are not there to judge others and carry out their judgments. I remember the first Superman movie when Christopher Reeve catches a cat burglar climbing the outside of a skyscraper. After startling him, Reeves flies down and catches him just before he splats on the ground. Our hero then hands him over to a cop, telling him to "lock him up"...say what? Yet that's how a lot of us see our police...but not me. Unfortunately, Ralph Anderson, the police detective in King's story, is one of those who feels the need to exercise his moral judgment over others is rightfully within the bounds of the exercise of his duty. Sure, what results in The Outsider is fictional, but I believe that this sort of thing goes on all the time around us...
Sunday, June 24, 2018
Looks Like a Long, Hot Summer in North Florida (Again)
It looks like we're in for a long, hot summer here in northern Florida...including the nights as well as the days. Last night on the 11 o'clock local news they said the current temperature in Gainesville was 83...ouch! The morning lows have been dipping lately only to the upper 70s...time for around-the-clock air conditioning! On the other hand, I am a lifelong Floridian who grew up in a non-air conditioned home in south Florida, so I'm well accustomed to enduring sweltering summers. And I've been known in the recent past to go out on long distance runs when the temperatures were climbing into the 90s, so my level of discomfort in the heat is largely psychological. Still, I do always carry with me some Powerade or Gatorade when I'm running and take care not to unduly exert myself whenever hot conditions combine with excessive humidity...a toxic brew with the air moisture conspiring to impede proper perspiration, causing body temperatures to surge to possibly dangerous levels. At work we're often presented with talks about heat stress...although they're intended primarily for employees working outdoors, the principles are still applicable to everyone. It's good to get outdoors and experience the wonderful summertime weather...but I admit to enjoying "hunkering down" in a well-cooled room as well afterwards...now where did I put that remote?
Saturday, June 23, 2018
Just Finished Reading Death in the Clouds by Agatha Christie
Death in the Clouds is a 1935 mystery novel by English author Agatha Christie (1890-1976), featuring the mustachioed, soft-spoken Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot, more widely known in stories like Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile (neither of which I've read). It's a pretty standard story in this genre, with the setting and the particulars of the characters being the innovations: someone is murdered and there is a list of people who could have been culpable, some more suspicious than others. After going through the different clues revealed over time, Detective Poirot comes up with the unlikely murderer and reveals his train of thought in solving the mystery...totally different than what the author had been leading us poor reader dupes to believe. In Death in the Clouds, the crime takes place on a plane flight from France to England, in the rear passenger compartment involving only eleven possible people. One of the passengers, a woman with a cryptic past who has recently made a fortune lending money, is found dead by one of the stewards...a wasp had been seen flying around, could she have died from its sting? But Poirot discovers a poisoned dart beneath her seat, and this turns out to be the murder weapon. But who blew it...all sorts of misdirection ensues, with the good detective himself being suspected by some...
Death in the Clouds is not intended as much to enlighten us about history, society, philosophy, human nature, relationships, or the other sorts of themes present in great literature. Instead it serves as an enjoyable game, a puzzle to be solved. The trick is to catch on to the trail of the guilty party before Poirot spills the beans...I admit that this time Hercule beat me to it. Still, I got a kick out of this story, and plan to delve further into Agatha Christie's bibliography, in which many other tales have been written around Hercule Poirot and another detective, Miss Marple. Other than a short story I read many years ago, it's amazing that I'd never gotten around to Agatha Christie's large collection of works before...
Death in the Clouds is not intended as much to enlighten us about history, society, philosophy, human nature, relationships, or the other sorts of themes present in great literature. Instead it serves as an enjoyable game, a puzzle to be solved. The trick is to catch on to the trail of the guilty party before Poirot spills the beans...I admit that this time Hercule beat me to it. Still, I got a kick out of this story, and plan to delve further into Agatha Christie's bibliography, in which many other tales have been written around Hercule Poirot and another detective, Miss Marple. Other than a short story I read many years ago, it's amazing that I'd never gotten around to Agatha Christie's large collection of works before...
Friday, June 22, 2018
Quote of the Week...from Isaac Asimov
People think of education as something they can finish. ---Isaac Asimov.
Isaac Asimov (1920-92), author of the science fiction Foundation, Empire, and Robot series, is one of the most beloved science fiction writers of the twentieth century. Besides these fictional works and others, he wrote many books on general science, math, and other topics, with a targeted audience of adults. Asimov was one of the early proponents of life-long learning and did not believe that one's education ends upon graduation from school, crystallized by the above quote. And while I agree with this notion wholeheartedly, I still feel a bit out of place whenever I'm in public and begin to practice writing out sentences in Chinese or Russian, or start to work on math problems in...say, linear algebra or probability. That's because once you're out of school, you can nowadays still be "allowed" to be learning things...only they need to have some sort of "application" in your life that you can justify your learning to others, as if there were really any need for an excuse...
But aside from the cognitive reverie that I find myself in from time to time, along with quirky interests like foreign languages or treating math problems as fun puzzles to solve, I also keep up with events around me and their historical foundations and causes. After all, I am a voting participant in this representative form of society called a republic and to fully be able to understand the important issues of our time and how they affect me. my family, and my country, I need to be continually studying and learning. I do also read a lot as well as engage in daily practice expressing my thoughts on this blog...that's all part of lifelong learning. And I also firmly believe that keeping myself informed and interested in the news helps to protect me from demagogic politicians and media figures who play upon people's fears and prejudices in order to build up support. But beyond this, I have a natural curiosity about things and like to learn...applications or not. I consider it all as simply being a necessary, basic element of life...
Isaac Asimov (1920-92), author of the science fiction Foundation, Empire, and Robot series, is one of the most beloved science fiction writers of the twentieth century. Besides these fictional works and others, he wrote many books on general science, math, and other topics, with a targeted audience of adults. Asimov was one of the early proponents of life-long learning and did not believe that one's education ends upon graduation from school, crystallized by the above quote. And while I agree with this notion wholeheartedly, I still feel a bit out of place whenever I'm in public and begin to practice writing out sentences in Chinese or Russian, or start to work on math problems in...say, linear algebra or probability. That's because once you're out of school, you can nowadays still be "allowed" to be learning things...only they need to have some sort of "application" in your life that you can justify your learning to others, as if there were really any need for an excuse...
But aside from the cognitive reverie that I find myself in from time to time, along with quirky interests like foreign languages or treating math problems as fun puzzles to solve, I also keep up with events around me and their historical foundations and causes. After all, I am a voting participant in this representative form of society called a republic and to fully be able to understand the important issues of our time and how they affect me. my family, and my country, I need to be continually studying and learning. I do also read a lot as well as engage in daily practice expressing my thoughts on this blog...that's all part of lifelong learning. And I also firmly believe that keeping myself informed and interested in the news helps to protect me from demagogic politicians and media figures who play upon people's fears and prejudices in order to build up support. But beyond this, I have a natural curiosity about things and like to learn...applications or not. I consider it all as simply being a necessary, basic element of life...
Thursday, June 21, 2018
6/17 Sermon: Upward Habits, Pt. 1
On Father's Day last Sunday at the Family Church here in Gainesville, senior pastor Philip Griffin delivered his first message in a new series, titled Upward Habits, and tied it around Psalm 63, which you can read via Bible Gateway by clicking on the passage. In Psalm 63, King David of Israel has been overthrown by his own son Absalom and has fled to the desert. His attitude toward his circumstances, his own role as a father, and his relationship with God form the basis of this message...
As Pastor Griffin said, David knows that he bore responsibility for Absalom's rebelliousness from his own earlier sins. He could have let himself be overcome by fear, worry, or anger: instead he focuses on his relationship with God...and provides some direction for ourselves in our times. As Pastor Philip pointed out, when we ask ourselves the questions "what is our deepest need, our most valuable prize, and our greatest hope", we can...like David...choose to answer them according to either our earthly circumstances or from our deep spiritual thirst for an experiential relationship with God. As for the need, desiring rescue, strength, and courage are all legitimate but fall short of the ultimate need, our Lord. The prize we should seek is God's love...it is more important than life itself. And about that hope, Philip explained that our mistakes do not define us since, from our relationship with God, he has forgiven us: our living hope is with God...
Pastor Philip used this inaugural sermon in the new series to begin within the congregation a program whereby we purpose to develop the habits that will make God first in our lives, be they expressed within our hearts, the start of our days, in our daily considerations, or with our finances. Using the Gospel of John and providing a reading plan suited to morning devotions, the hope is to inculcate a spirit of trust and reliance on God instead of letting the world dictate our needs and hopes. This sixty-day challenge is to change habits, and to direct them "upward"...
You can watch the video of this sermon on the church's YouTube video website...click on the following link: [TFC Videos]. The Family Church, at 2022 SW 122nd Street, meets Sunday mornings at 9 and 10:30 for its weekly services, featuring the message, praise and worship music, prayer, and discipleship and fellowship opportunities. A hospitality room has coffee and treats before and between services, a place to get to meet some friendly and interesting folks. Let's see what the message will be this coming Sunday...
As Pastor Griffin said, David knows that he bore responsibility for Absalom's rebelliousness from his own earlier sins. He could have let himself be overcome by fear, worry, or anger: instead he focuses on his relationship with God...and provides some direction for ourselves in our times. As Pastor Philip pointed out, when we ask ourselves the questions "what is our deepest need, our most valuable prize, and our greatest hope", we can...like David...choose to answer them according to either our earthly circumstances or from our deep spiritual thirst for an experiential relationship with God. As for the need, desiring rescue, strength, and courage are all legitimate but fall short of the ultimate need, our Lord. The prize we should seek is God's love...it is more important than life itself. And about that hope, Philip explained that our mistakes do not define us since, from our relationship with God, he has forgiven us: our living hope is with God...
Pastor Philip used this inaugural sermon in the new series to begin within the congregation a program whereby we purpose to develop the habits that will make God first in our lives, be they expressed within our hearts, the start of our days, in our daily considerations, or with our finances. Using the Gospel of John and providing a reading plan suited to morning devotions, the hope is to inculcate a spirit of trust and reliance on God instead of letting the world dictate our needs and hopes. This sixty-day challenge is to change habits, and to direct them "upward"...
You can watch the video of this sermon on the church's YouTube video website...click on the following link: [TFC Videos]. The Family Church, at 2022 SW 122nd Street, meets Sunday mornings at 9 and 10:30 for its weekly services, featuring the message, praise and worship music, prayer, and discipleship and fellowship opportunities. A hospitality room has coffee and treats before and between services, a place to get to meet some friendly and interesting folks. Let's see what the message will be this coming Sunday...
Wednesday, June 20, 2018
Weekly Short Story: The Engineer and the Executioner by Brian M. Stableford
Last week I discussed P.J. Plauger's tale Child of All Ages...today I'm looking at another short story entry in the science fiction anthology Donald Wollheim Presents The 1976 Annual World's Best SF: The Engineer and the Executioner by Brian M. Stableford. The characters in it are unnamed, and only one is human as an asteroid is hurtling inward toward the sun, its final destination. The cause for this is a device that a robot from Earth...which has landed on the asteroid to bring it, along everything it contains to destruction...has set off. Remaining on it is the engineer, originally sent to this asteroid with instructions for creating a environment inside it that would harbor and nurture the evolution of life...but on a molecularly-engineered fast track, with each succeeding generation making way for a new species directed in a certain fashion. While the engineer is very proud and possessive of his little world, back on Earth fears had arisen that these new life forms would eventually penetrate the safety barriers containing them and eventually reach Earth, destroying all life on it and replacing it with its own. And so arrives the robot, i.e. the "executioner". The engineer seems less concerned about his own demise as he is that of his created world, and the two adversaries go back and forth in discussion about why it is so necessary to destroy his project. Being a short story as it is, expect a surprise ending, which I'll leave for you to discover should you ever chance to come across it. But I'd instead like to bring up something else...
Many years after it came out in the mid-1950s, I finally got around to seeing the incredible World War II movie The Bridge on the River Kwai, starring Alex Guinness and William Holden. Guinness's character is a British army officer interned with his men in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in occupied Burma, in the middle of the war. Determined to maintain his authority with his unit, he stands up to the Japanese camp commandant, who wants all prisoners...including officers...to perform manual labor building a strategic bridge. Finally winning out in a monumental battle of wills, Guinness himself takes on the overseeing of the bridge project with unvarnished zeal, much to the amazement of both his own men and the Japanese. And when the threat of destruction to the finally finished, beautiful bridge comes about at movie's end, he reacts in much the same defensive, short-sighted manner that I noticed in The Engineer and the Executioner. The bottom line in both stories is that people can get so personally invested in things that they are doing to the point where they may lose perspective and find it next-to-impossible to let it all go when higher matters (such as the outcome of the war or the survival of life on Earth) present themselves. I wonder whether, on a smaller level, each of us in turn are holding on to things that would be better left adrift for the "better good"...
Many years after it came out in the mid-1950s, I finally got around to seeing the incredible World War II movie The Bridge on the River Kwai, starring Alex Guinness and William Holden. Guinness's character is a British army officer interned with his men in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in occupied Burma, in the middle of the war. Determined to maintain his authority with his unit, he stands up to the Japanese camp commandant, who wants all prisoners...including officers...to perform manual labor building a strategic bridge. Finally winning out in a monumental battle of wills, Guinness himself takes on the overseeing of the bridge project with unvarnished zeal, much to the amazement of both his own men and the Japanese. And when the threat of destruction to the finally finished, beautiful bridge comes about at movie's end, he reacts in much the same defensive, short-sighted manner that I noticed in The Engineer and the Executioner. The bottom line in both stories is that people can get so personally invested in things that they are doing to the point where they may lose perspective and find it next-to-impossible to let it all go when higher matters (such as the outcome of the war or the survival of life on Earth) present themselves. I wonder whether, on a smaller level, each of us in turn are holding on to things that would be better left adrift for the "better good"...
Tuesday, June 19, 2018
Tuesday's List: My Top Ten Favorite Alfred Hitchcock Movies
The great English director Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) made around 53 movies, going way back into the silent film era and ending in the mid-1970s. Most of these I haven't seen, but for the ones I have I came away with the impression that he was the best director of his time, responsible for some of my all-time favorite movies. Hitchcock had a penchant for certain actors...like James Stewart, Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly, and Cary Grant...and they kept popping up in his films. Below is the list of my top ten favorite Hitchcock movies, each followed by its year of release and main actors...
1 NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959)…..Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint
2 VERTIGO (1958)…..James Stewart, Kim Novak
3 REAR WINDOW (1954).....James Stewart, Grace Kelly
4 PSYCHO (1960).....Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh
5 SPELLBOUND (1945).....Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck
6 THE BIRDS (1963).....Tippi Hedren, Rod Taylor
7 THE WRONG MAN (1956)…..Henry Fonda, Vera Miles
8 THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1956).....James Stewart, Doris Day
9 FRENZY (1972)…..Jon Finch, Alex McCowen
10 THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY (1955).....Edmund Gwenn, John Forsythe
Besides the above, there are some noted Alfred Hitchcock movies I haven't yet seen, but plan to. I'd better get started soon, though, for there are several: Suspicion, Notorious, Rope, Strangers on a Train, Dial M for Murder, To Catch a Thief, and Marnie...
1 NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959)…..Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint
2 VERTIGO (1958)…..James Stewart, Kim Novak
3 REAR WINDOW (1954).....James Stewart, Grace Kelly
4 PSYCHO (1960).....Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh
5 SPELLBOUND (1945).....Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck
6 THE BIRDS (1963).....Tippi Hedren, Rod Taylor
7 THE WRONG MAN (1956)…..Henry Fonda, Vera Miles
8 THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1956).....James Stewart, Doris Day
9 FRENZY (1972)…..Jon Finch, Alex McCowen
10 THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY (1955).....Edmund Gwenn, John Forsythe
Besides the above, there are some noted Alfred Hitchcock movies I haven't yet seen, but plan to. I'd better get started soon, though, for there are several: Suspicion, Notorious, Rope, Strangers on a Train, Dial M for Murder, To Catch a Thief, and Marnie...
Monday, June 18, 2018
An Example of Why I Like Ted Cruz
When Ted Cruz entered the United States Senate as junior senator from Texas in 2013, he ran roughshod over that body's established norms of behavior...newly installed senators are NOT supposed to make waves. Instead he openly clashed, not just with the Democrats on the other side of the aisle, but also with his own party leader, Mitch McConnell...as well as pressuring likeminded representatives in the House to shut down the government. Cruz's politics have been consistently on the Tea Party end of the conservative spectrum...and although I disagree with some of their stances on different issues, I also recognize that they legitimately speak to a significant spectrum of the voting electorate. I initially despised Cruz because his speaking demeanor seemed to me extremely patronizing...and, quite frankly, his very smile made me cringe. But when he ran for president in 2015-16 and came up against Trump and his shamelessly insulting ways, Ted Cruz didn't crumble. Instead he showed a great deal of self-deprecatory humor and class...and his defiant-yet-diplomatic speech at the Republican National Convention stands out to me in terms of courage, considering how the entire hall seemed to be booing him at the end. Well, Cruz is still around and he's running for reelection for his Senate seat against a strong Democratic challenger. Were I in Texas instead of Florida I'd probably vote for Beto O'Rourke, but that doesn't mean I don't respect Cruz. A recent example demonstrates this...
Recently posted on my MSN desktop newsfeed (here's the link) is an article about a one-on-one charity basketball game played this past Saturday between late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel and Cruz. Kimmel, who is known for going off on acerbic political rants against Trump and Republicans on his show, had said that Senator Cruz resembled an ocean bottom-dwelling blobfish. Had this depiction been leveled against our president, he probably would have gotten personally indignant and tweeted something doubly insulting back, throwing in allegations of treason coupled with a lawsuit threat. Instead, Ted Cruz took advantage of the opportunity to challenge Kimmel to that basketball game, played at Texas Southern University with the proceeds going to charity. Now that's a class act...if I'm going to have a conservative Republican sitting in the White House, why couldn't it have been him instead of the unstable, narcissistic, and probably compromised character we're saddled with?
Recently posted on my MSN desktop newsfeed (here's the link) is an article about a one-on-one charity basketball game played this past Saturday between late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel and Cruz. Kimmel, who is known for going off on acerbic political rants against Trump and Republicans on his show, had said that Senator Cruz resembled an ocean bottom-dwelling blobfish. Had this depiction been leveled against our president, he probably would have gotten personally indignant and tweeted something doubly insulting back, throwing in allegations of treason coupled with a lawsuit threat. Instead, Ted Cruz took advantage of the opportunity to challenge Kimmel to that basketball game, played at Texas Southern University with the proceeds going to charity. Now that's a class act...if I'm going to have a conservative Republican sitting in the White House, why couldn't it have been him instead of the unstable, narcissistic, and probably compromised character we're saddled with?
Sunday, June 17, 2018
World Cup of Soccer Now Center Stage
Well, now that the National Basketball Association and National Hockey League playoffs are finally over and done with, we've entered the summer phase of the sports year, when Major League Baseball supposedly dominates. Yet there is also the USA/Canada pro soccer league Major League Soccer, the National Women's Soccer League, the Women's NBA, and the Canadian Football League, all with their respective regular seasons going on strong...not to mention the world series in college for men's baseball and women's softball. But this year the FIFA Men's World Cup of soccer is taking place (the women's version the following year), this year's host nation being Russia. America didn't qualify for the 32-team field, so folks here have to select another country to root for...I chose Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia...in that order. And then England, if none of those work out. I thought that the recent matches between Portugal and Spain (3-3 draw) and Iceland and Argentina (1-1) were exciting, but Croatia/Nigeria and Morocco/Iran were worth watching as well. Now that I'm entering my work week, however, I probably won't see much action for a while...
The World Cup is being televised on Fox and Fox 1 Sports channels (13 and 62 here in Gainesville on Cox Cable). They've been good so far about showing replays, though, so I might still be able to catch up on some of the earlier matches after I get off from work. I'm also pretty impressed with the commentators on Fox's World Cup wrap-up show...
The World Cup is being televised on Fox and Fox 1 Sports channels (13 and 62 here in Gainesville on Cox Cable). They've been good so far about showing replays, though, so I might still be able to catch up on some of the earlier matches after I get off from work. I'm also pretty impressed with the commentators on Fox's World Cup wrap-up show...
Saturday, June 16, 2018
Just Finished Reading Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
Sure, I'm aware of the musical Oliver!, in which little orphaned Oliver Twist pleads for some more bread to the consternation of his adult "benefactors", and I even watched the Disney movie Oliver and Company that adapted Charles Dickens' 1838 novel Oliver Twist to an animated tale about a kitten and some dogs...but I never did get around to reading the original book until just now. Since the late 1960s I even carried with me the esoteric concept of "Fagin's henchmen" that narrator Frank Baxter promoted in the Bell Science educational film The Strange Case of the Cosmic Ray that I watched several times during elementary school, describing subatomic particles while trying to tie it all in with a novel about the institutional abuse of children and crime in early nineteenth-century England...that's a stretch if I ever heard one. So when I picked up the actual book, I was already familiar with the general outline...now it was time to get acquainted with the particulars...
Little Oliver's mother dies while giving birth to him, and without a father present he is sent through the bureaucratic channels to which orphans like himself were subject during that era in England...leading to a life of institutionalization, malnutrition, and abuse. After being sold into an apprenticeship with a mortician and being maltreated there, Oliver runs away, encountering the criminal organization run by Fagin, an elderly man that Dickens continually refers to as "the Jew" (much to my irritation). The rest of the story concerns itself with how Oliver alternately escapes and gets taken back in by Fagin's gang, the little boy's true family origins, and two very sympathetic young people, Rose and Harry. The author paints a relentlessly brutal picture of how orphans and poor children were treated in 1830s England as well as portraying the criminal element in that society in stark, uncompromising terms. Overall I liked Oliver Twist for all these reasons...but that constant reference to "the Jew" to describe a character as dastardly as Fagin smacks of anti-Semitism, especially without the presence of a more positive Jewish character to counteract this stereotypical image. After I finished reading it I discovered that while Dickens was writing and publishing this novel in serial form, he received some angry reaction about this very thing from someone he respected...and apparently cut back on his usage of this epithet toward the story's end. So this isn't a case of someone in a later, more enlightened era looking back at writing from a bygone period that indicates insensitivity...there were those in Dickens' own time who raised objections...
Since I never actually watched the entire musical Oliver!, I might find it interesting to do so and compare it with what I just read...that Disney cartoon movie as well. Come to think of it, why not also excavate that old Bell Science movie and watch Dr. Frank Baxter, the kindly old bald professor with glasses, go on about the mysterious world of pi and mu mesons and the like...
Little Oliver's mother dies while giving birth to him, and without a father present he is sent through the bureaucratic channels to which orphans like himself were subject during that era in England...leading to a life of institutionalization, malnutrition, and abuse. After being sold into an apprenticeship with a mortician and being maltreated there, Oliver runs away, encountering the criminal organization run by Fagin, an elderly man that Dickens continually refers to as "the Jew" (much to my irritation). The rest of the story concerns itself with how Oliver alternately escapes and gets taken back in by Fagin's gang, the little boy's true family origins, and two very sympathetic young people, Rose and Harry. The author paints a relentlessly brutal picture of how orphans and poor children were treated in 1830s England as well as portraying the criminal element in that society in stark, uncompromising terms. Overall I liked Oliver Twist for all these reasons...but that constant reference to "the Jew" to describe a character as dastardly as Fagin smacks of anti-Semitism, especially without the presence of a more positive Jewish character to counteract this stereotypical image. After I finished reading it I discovered that while Dickens was writing and publishing this novel in serial form, he received some angry reaction about this very thing from someone he respected...and apparently cut back on his usage of this epithet toward the story's end. So this isn't a case of someone in a later, more enlightened era looking back at writing from a bygone period that indicates insensitivity...there were those in Dickens' own time who raised objections...
Since I never actually watched the entire musical Oliver!, I might find it interesting to do so and compare it with what I just read...that Disney cartoon movie as well. Come to think of it, why not also excavate that old Bell Science movie and watch Dr. Frank Baxter, the kindly old bald professor with glasses, go on about the mysterious world of pi and mu mesons and the like...
Friday, June 15, 2018
Quote of the Week...from Joe Scarborough
Vladimir Putin did nothing to elect Donald Trump...James Comey did. ---Joe Scarborough
Joe Scarborough cohosts the MSNBC show Morning Joe along with his wife Mika Brzezinski. By political philosophy a conservative, he has been for many years a Republican...including a stint as a Congressman...until just recently, when his many objections to Donald Trump led him to switch his status to Independent. He made the above quote on his Twitter account, and I have to hand it to him: he's right on target...
During the last weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign there had been allegations of Russian interference on behalf of the Trump campaign and against Hillary Clinton's. The WikiLeaks release of illegally hacked emails pertaining to the Democratic National Committee carried with it much openly discussed suspicion that Putin's Russia was behind the hacking...the released material may have reaffirmed to Trump's already established voting base negative thoughts about the "other" side, but it wasn't likely to switch undecided voters or those leaning to Clinton. James Comey, on the other hand...
The Department of Justice Inspector General's report on the Hillary Clinton email investigation...some 900 pages long...just came out, accusing then-FBI Director Comey of acting out of line with the organization's policies when he publicly came out in July of 2016 and berated Clinton for her emails...the FBI had always carefully avoided that kind of grandstanding. He then compounded the effect of his interference into the campaign by revealing to Congress that the Weiner emails...related to Clinton...were being investigated...just ten days before the election and immediately following the presidential debate after which Hillary surged to a big lead over Trump...12 points in one poll. Americans may have been suspicious of WikiLeaks or a lot of the crap circulating on Facebook, but Comey was considered by millions to be beyond reproach, a man of high integrity...hence, many took his renewed investigation to heart as they reconsidered Clinton's fitness for the high office. And it didn't help one bit that, in that last week and a half, the campaign, instead of being able to clearly state its own vision for the future under a Clinton presidency, instead had to answer question after relentless question related to that Weiner email investigation. The campaign stalled and Trump's surged...and you know the rest of the story...
After Trump fired Comey last year, I was glad he was gone...but the president may well have been trying to impede the developing investigations about possible collusion between him and the Russians in the election. I personally don't believe that Putin got Trump elected, but I do strongly suspect that he has something very damaging on our president, and many things that Trump says or does relating to Russia seem to confirm this. Whether this will ever be conclusively proven or refuted...I don't know. What I do know is that pious, sanctimonious, self-righteous James Comey grossly interfered in the 2016 presidential election against one candidate, only one candidate: Hillary Clinton...
Joe Scarborough cohosts the MSNBC show Morning Joe along with his wife Mika Brzezinski. By political philosophy a conservative, he has been for many years a Republican...including a stint as a Congressman...until just recently, when his many objections to Donald Trump led him to switch his status to Independent. He made the above quote on his Twitter account, and I have to hand it to him: he's right on target...
During the last weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign there had been allegations of Russian interference on behalf of the Trump campaign and against Hillary Clinton's. The WikiLeaks release of illegally hacked emails pertaining to the Democratic National Committee carried with it much openly discussed suspicion that Putin's Russia was behind the hacking...the released material may have reaffirmed to Trump's already established voting base negative thoughts about the "other" side, but it wasn't likely to switch undecided voters or those leaning to Clinton. James Comey, on the other hand...
The Department of Justice Inspector General's report on the Hillary Clinton email investigation...some 900 pages long...just came out, accusing then-FBI Director Comey of acting out of line with the organization's policies when he publicly came out in July of 2016 and berated Clinton for her emails...the FBI had always carefully avoided that kind of grandstanding. He then compounded the effect of his interference into the campaign by revealing to Congress that the Weiner emails...related to Clinton...were being investigated...just ten days before the election and immediately following the presidential debate after which Hillary surged to a big lead over Trump...12 points in one poll. Americans may have been suspicious of WikiLeaks or a lot of the crap circulating on Facebook, but Comey was considered by millions to be beyond reproach, a man of high integrity...hence, many took his renewed investigation to heart as they reconsidered Clinton's fitness for the high office. And it didn't help one bit that, in that last week and a half, the campaign, instead of being able to clearly state its own vision for the future under a Clinton presidency, instead had to answer question after relentless question related to that Weiner email investigation. The campaign stalled and Trump's surged...and you know the rest of the story...
After Trump fired Comey last year, I was glad he was gone...but the president may well have been trying to impede the developing investigations about possible collusion between him and the Russians in the election. I personally don't believe that Putin got Trump elected, but I do strongly suspect that he has something very damaging on our president, and many things that Trump says or does relating to Russia seem to confirm this. Whether this will ever be conclusively proven or refuted...I don't know. What I do know is that pious, sanctimonious, self-righteous James Comey grossly interfered in the 2016 presidential election against one candidate, only one candidate: Hillary Clinton...
Thursday, June 14, 2018
6/10 Sermon: God's Vision for the Church
Last Sunday at the Family Church here in Gainesville, senior pastor Philip Griffin asked a question: how much do we look like our picture? He showed an old image of his family from years earlier and compared it to the way they look now...Christians today also have an old picture to compare notes with, from Jerusalem just weeks following the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. The apostles were assembled, hidden in an upstairs room...and the Holy Spirit descended upon them, empowering them with the power of God to go out and build his kingdom. Pastor Philip's scripture of focus is Acts 2:42-47, which you can read through Bible Gateway by clicking on the passage...
Emboldened and equipped by God, the apostles set out to build their fellowship. Pastor Philip listed six areas that the Bible passage showed their focus: they were intentional about making disciples, they were dependent on prayer, they served each other as family, they were multi-ethnic and did it well, they were incredibly generous, and they loved those far from God. Initially, Peter, John, James and company had been ruled by their faults, fears, and failures, relying on their own strength and not God to advance his kingdom. But with the Holy Spirit they quickly set out on their mission: to make believers and disciples out of others. Pastor Philip believes that it wasn't just a matter of conversion of these people from all parts of the earth, but rather that those who were saved that day were also assigned to the apostles for discipleship. God intends for us to either be disciples...or be making disciples, and that has been the direction our church has taken in the past few years. Attending church on Sunday is fine, our pastor stressed, but there is a lot more to it than that and that true fellowship as practiced in the early Christian church necessitates a greater commitment of time and one's self than just sitting through a weekly service...definitely some food for thought...
You can watch Pastor Philip's sermon by clicking on the following link to the church's YouTube video website: [TFC Videos]. The Family Church, at 2022 SW 122nd Street, meets each Sunday morning at 9 an 10:30 for the weekly message, praise and worship music, prayer, fellowship, discipleship, and learning. Lots of friendly people there...looking forward to the next message...
Emboldened and equipped by God, the apostles set out to build their fellowship. Pastor Philip listed six areas that the Bible passage showed their focus: they were intentional about making disciples, they were dependent on prayer, they served each other as family, they were multi-ethnic and did it well, they were incredibly generous, and they loved those far from God. Initially, Peter, John, James and company had been ruled by their faults, fears, and failures, relying on their own strength and not God to advance his kingdom. But with the Holy Spirit they quickly set out on their mission: to make believers and disciples out of others. Pastor Philip believes that it wasn't just a matter of conversion of these people from all parts of the earth, but rather that those who were saved that day were also assigned to the apostles for discipleship. God intends for us to either be disciples...or be making disciples, and that has been the direction our church has taken in the past few years. Attending church on Sunday is fine, our pastor stressed, but there is a lot more to it than that and that true fellowship as practiced in the early Christian church necessitates a greater commitment of time and one's self than just sitting through a weekly service...definitely some food for thought...
You can watch Pastor Philip's sermon by clicking on the following link to the church's YouTube video website: [TFC Videos]. The Family Church, at 2022 SW 122nd Street, meets each Sunday morning at 9 an 10:30 for the weekly message, praise and worship music, prayer, fellowship, discipleship, and learning. Lots of friendly people there...looking forward to the next message...
Wednesday, June 13, 2018
Weekly Short Story: Child of All Ages by P.J. Plauger
When I read P.J. Plauger's 1975 science fiction short story Child of All Ages (appearing in the anthology Donald Wollheim Presents The 1976 Annual World's Best SF (DAW Books), it quickly reminded me of an early Twilight Zone episode from 1960 titled Long Live Walter Jameson, featuring a history teacher with a big secret: he is immortal. The little girl Melissa in Plauger's tale has the same secret, but although he may have derived some inspiration from the TV show, Plauger nevertheless did a very masterful job of handling the subject...
Supposedly fourteen...although she looks much younger...little Michelle keeps getting into trouble at school. Finally, after sharply disagreeing with her history teacher about the Industrial Revolution in England and how children were treated back then, she finds herself interviewed by a school counselor, Meg Foster. After telling her of her true age (2,400 years) and that her father was a wizard who had shown her how to stay a child and not age, Meg invites her to dinner along with her husband, a history professor and his aging father, a biochemist. After her made-up story of living with someone else unravels, Michelle persuades these good people to take her in as their "daughter"...and yes, they believe her story. What makes Child of All Ages work for me is how Michelle's thought processes have developed over the ages to the point where she can predict with a fair degree of accuracy when her relationships with others start to deteriorate, usually after just a few years, and she finds herself compelled to "move on"...
I could go into more detail about my reactions from this significant story, but that would entail revealing more than I am willing, since I encourage you to first read it for yourself. But I will repeat something I wrote about many years ago on this blog: if you or I possessed some special ability, seemingly magical in nature, that no one else had and it gave us a marked advantage in our lives over others, then the very last thing we would want to do would be to share that ability. For doing so would put us in grave danger as eventually the governing authorities would at the very least deprive of our freedom and at the worst seek to destroy us. That's why I have to chuckle when I see someone openly claiming to have special powers like reading others' minds, telekinesis, and the like: were they for real, you wouldn't be hearing from them very long...
Supposedly fourteen...although she looks much younger...little Michelle keeps getting into trouble at school. Finally, after sharply disagreeing with her history teacher about the Industrial Revolution in England and how children were treated back then, she finds herself interviewed by a school counselor, Meg Foster. After telling her of her true age (2,400 years) and that her father was a wizard who had shown her how to stay a child and not age, Meg invites her to dinner along with her husband, a history professor and his aging father, a biochemist. After her made-up story of living with someone else unravels, Michelle persuades these good people to take her in as their "daughter"...and yes, they believe her story. What makes Child of All Ages work for me is how Michelle's thought processes have developed over the ages to the point where she can predict with a fair degree of accuracy when her relationships with others start to deteriorate, usually after just a few years, and she finds herself compelled to "move on"...
I could go into more detail about my reactions from this significant story, but that would entail revealing more than I am willing, since I encourage you to first read it for yourself. But I will repeat something I wrote about many years ago on this blog: if you or I possessed some special ability, seemingly magical in nature, that no one else had and it gave us a marked advantage in our lives over others, then the very last thing we would want to do would be to share that ability. For doing so would put us in grave danger as eventually the governing authorities would at the very least deprive of our freedom and at the worst seek to destroy us. That's why I have to chuckle when I see someone openly claiming to have special powers like reading others' minds, telekinesis, and the like: were they for real, you wouldn't be hearing from them very long...
Tuesday, June 12, 2018
Tuesday's List: The Groups in the Upcoming FIFA Men's World Cup of Soccer
The FIFA Men's World Cup of soccer, held every four years, with begin on June 14th with 32 national teams playing a round-robin schedule in eight groups of four countries each. Each team within a group will play each of the others once, and after this stage ends on June 28th, the top two finishers within each group will advance to the "knockout" rounds, starting with 16 teams on June 30th and progressing up to the championship match on July 15th. Russia is the host nation and as such has automatically qualified as one of the group stage teams. The matches will be played in various Russian cities, culminating with the championship to be played in Moscow. The United States pitifully failed to qualify for this 2018 World Cup...Chile, Netherlands and Italy were also surprise failures. I'll be rooting for all the Western Hemisphere countries to succeed, with Mexico as my top team. The following list shows the eight groups, each designated by a letter in the alphabet. I highlighted each group's generally-acknowledged favorite in red, while I marked the second-place favorites in blue. It should be interesting over the next two-to-three weeks to see which teams advance and which ones choke. The 2018 FIFA World Cup will be televised in the U.S. on Fox and Fox 1 Sports. Looking forward to some exciting high-level soccer, although I'll miss most of it due to work...and life in general. Still, I'm confident I'll catch some action here and there...
GROUP A
URUGUAY
RUSSIA
EGYPT
SAUDI ARABIA
GROUP B
SPAIN
PORTUGAL
IRAN
MOROCCO
GROUP C
FRANCE
DENMARK
AUSTRALIA
PERU
GROUP D
ARGENTINA
CROATIA
ICELAND
NIGERIA
GROUP E
BRAZIL
SWITZERLAND
COSTA RICA
SERBIA
GROUP F
GERMANY
MEXICO
SOUTH KOREA
SWEDEN
GROUP G
BELGIUM
ENGLAND
PANAMA
TUNISIA
GROUP H
COLOMBIA
POLAND
JAPAN
SENEGAL
GROUP A
URUGUAY
RUSSIA
EGYPT
SAUDI ARABIA
GROUP B
SPAIN
PORTUGAL
IRAN
MOROCCO
GROUP C
FRANCE
DENMARK
AUSTRALIA
PERU
GROUP D
ARGENTINA
CROATIA
ICELAND
NIGERIA
GROUP E
BRAZIL
SWITZERLAND
COSTA RICA
SERBIA
GROUP F
GERMANY
MEXICO
SOUTH KOREA
SWEDEN
GROUP G
BELGIUM
ENGLAND
PANAMA
TUNISIA
GROUP H
COLOMBIA
POLAND
JAPAN
SENEGAL
Monday, June 11, 2018
Trump's Approach Opposite That of Teddy Roosevelt's
Theodore Roosevelt, generally regarded as one of the most successful presidents in our history...even to the point that his image is on Mount Rushmore alongside Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson...had a famous quote: "Speak loudly and insultingly and carry a small, bending twig". Wait...that wasn't it: he said "Speak softly and carry a big stick". Donald Trump, our current president, who doubtless would tell you that he considers himself to be the greatest president of all time...past, present, or future...actually practices the first quote. He's loud and insulting to just about everyone who disagrees with him, with the consistent exception of Russia and China's autocratic leaders Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. He once referred to North Korea's repugnant and murderous dictator Kim Jong Un as "little rocket man", but now is honoring him with a high-level summit in Singapore. Meanwhile, he and his staff are on a trashing campaign against our Western allies and their leaders over trade. The problem is, when you get down to the substance of the matter, our president has a point: he just obscures it with his rhetoric, designed to appeal to his base of around 35% of the voting electorate. And with that problem comes another: the leaders he is insulting are also freely elected in democratic elections, and their infuriated and offended electorate put them in a position now in which they will never negotiate with him, much less concede on matters of our interest. How foolish...an autocratic or totalitarian ruler like Kim can brush off Trump's taunts because he is unaccountable to his people, but Canadians, Germans, and others are in a position to make sure Trump gets NOTHING from them...
Now to the actual issue involved here: even though the generally accepted idea is that we live in a world of free trade, in truth the various countries we do business with...both our allies and adversaries...have become accustomed to imposing higher import tariff rates on various commodities than those we impose on them, with our trade representatives signing off on these inequities...hardly free trade. Also, some countries like China have a reputation for stealing our patented innovations and capitalizing on them without due compensation. A truly great leader...which Trump erroneously sees himself as...would calmly lay out the facts of the inequities of our international trading relationships while being as universally complimentary in general terms of these other nations and their leaders. Instead, the reverse is going on as an ugly trade war seems inevitable...
Now to the actual issue involved here: even though the generally accepted idea is that we live in a world of free trade, in truth the various countries we do business with...both our allies and adversaries...have become accustomed to imposing higher import tariff rates on various commodities than those we impose on them, with our trade representatives signing off on these inequities...hardly free trade. Also, some countries like China have a reputation for stealing our patented innovations and capitalizing on them without due compensation. A truly great leader...which Trump erroneously sees himself as...would calmly lay out the facts of the inequities of our international trading relationships while being as universally complimentary in general terms of these other nations and their leaders. Instead, the reverse is going on as an ugly trade war seems inevitable...
Sunday, June 10, 2018
Just Finished Reading Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) is the author responsible for the 1969 novel Slaughterhouse Five, which was later made into a film...I've experienced both and give two "thumbs up". So I thought I'd venture into another of the late writer's books, this time his 1973 short novel Breakfast of Champions. In it Vonnegut lets loose all of his criticisms about America...I guess back in the early seventies that was a fashionable, lucrative thing to do in the world of literature but nowadays it comes across (at least to me) as cynical, overgeneralized, and condemnatory. The premise of the story is simple enough: two middle-age men meet in a diner and have a conversation, causing one to go mad and the other to go down the path of literary fame. The writer of the two, Kilgore Trout (who also has a small role in Slaughterhouse Five), has been frustrated all his career with his science fiction stories, with only porno magazines willing to publish them. But he has a mysterious, wealthy benefactor, a Mr. Rosewater, who behind Trout's back has been promoting his works...to the point where he is invited to speak at a writer's convention in the town of Midland City, Ohio. Determined to show everyone how depraved a writer he really is, Trout goes out of his way to present a poor appearance as he steps into the diner upon arriving in town. Also there is Dwayne Hoover, a very successful Pontiac salesman with a charismatic personality...and on the edge of sanity. When Trout lets Hoover...who happens to be a speed-reader...read one of his sci-fi books...that pushes the latter over the edge. Trout's story's premise is that the "creator" of everyone made everyone, except the reader, as nothing more than biological machines, whose interactions through history and the present are only there to cause reactions from the only entity with free will in the universe. Hoover takes the story literally and sees himself as that one truly living being...and goes berserk with those around him. Although this narrative in Breakfast of Champions gets presented at the novel's end, it's also revealed early on...so I'm not giving anything away...
Vonnegut made Breakfast of Champions as idiosyncratic as he could, interspersing the text with his own crude illustrations, along for some reason with the measurements of the male characters' private parts (to ridicule the obsession among some about this, I suppose). He wrote both as the "creator" and as someone who is explaining the events and their context to someone far off in the future and in another place. It was a little disconcerting that the author decided to insert himself later on into the story among his own characters...but I've read something very similar when Stephen King did the same toward the end of his Dark Tower series: I find it all very self-indulgent of Vonnegut (as well as King). Vonnegut did provide a worthy service to me, though, when he defined alcoholic drinks as "yeast excrement"...yes that's a good, negative-imagery deterrent if I ever heard one...
If you like a heavily sardonic, brutally critical short novel that beats up on your own culture, then Breakfast of Champions is the book for you...I found it left me with a case of literary indigestion...
Vonnegut made Breakfast of Champions as idiosyncratic as he could, interspersing the text with his own crude illustrations, along for some reason with the measurements of the male characters' private parts (to ridicule the obsession among some about this, I suppose). He wrote both as the "creator" and as someone who is explaining the events and their context to someone far off in the future and in another place. It was a little disconcerting that the author decided to insert himself later on into the story among his own characters...but I've read something very similar when Stephen King did the same toward the end of his Dark Tower series: I find it all very self-indulgent of Vonnegut (as well as King). Vonnegut did provide a worthy service to me, though, when he defined alcoholic drinks as "yeast excrement"...yes that's a good, negative-imagery deterrent if I ever heard one...
If you like a heavily sardonic, brutally critical short novel that beats up on your own culture, then Breakfast of Champions is the book for you...I found it left me with a case of literary indigestion...
Saturday, June 9, 2018
Can Justify Win Triple Crown at Belmont Today?
At the Belmont Stakes in New York later today, Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Justify has the chance to accomplish one of the greatest feats in horse racing: win the Triple Crown for three-year-old thoroughbreds. In the previous two races, the conditions were wet and the track was muddy...today the prediction is for a dry surface and no precipitation. The Belmont is a longer race than the other two...that may present a problem for Justify, which might not have been able to withstand gaining challenger Bravazo in the Preakness had that race gone on for any longer. Justify was able to get out front early in the first two races, but the fear with the Belmont is that its #1 post position may leave it boxed in if faster starters in nearby positions get ahead early on. Besides the Preakness number two finisher Bravazo is the Kentucky Derby runner-up Good Magic...and a new entry, Gronkowski. I'm especially concerned about the latter, since fresh horses that haven't been going through this grueling schedule of high-stakes races bunched so closely together tend to do well against Triple Crown aspirants: I remember how Tonality accomplished this by thwarting California Chrome's hopes for that title back in 2014. The Belmont will have ten horses competing...post time has been set at 6:37 pm and the television coverage will be from 2 to 4 this afternoon on the NBC-Sports channel and from 4 onward on NBC. I'll be rooting for Justify, not just because of its Triple Crown run but also for its 52-year-old jockey Mike Smith...middle-age athletes rock! But I'm a bit apprehensive about Bravazo and especially Gronkowski...
Later...Justify won it, leading all the way. As it turned out, longshot Gronkowski, after a terrible start, came back to finish a strong second. Bravazo, an early challenger to Justify, faded a bit and finished back in the pack...
Later...Justify won it, leading all the way. As it turned out, longshot Gronkowski, after a terrible start, came back to finish a strong second. Bravazo, an early challenger to Justify, faded a bit and finished back in the pack...
Friday, June 8, 2018
Quote of the Week...from Anthony Bourdain
If I'm an advocate for anything, it's to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. The extent to which you can walk in someone else's shoes or at least eat their food, it's a plus for everybody. Open your mind, get up off the couch, move.
---Anthony Bourdain
I am deeply saddened to read this morning of the death...apparently from suicide...of renowned chef, traveler, and television star Anthony Bourdain. CNN News, which features his long-running, award-winning show Parts Unknown and in which Bourdain would visit different exotic places across the world to get to know their people, culture, and cuisine, has been careful to present on the air the national suicide hotline number. I suppose that since this public figure was so widely followed, they feared some might emulate his example...I'll repeat it: 1-800-273-8255. I'm not going to get into Mr. Bourdain's spiritual state, although once the details of his death have been fully ascertained, that may well have played some role in it. We do know that he was very public in that travel and food reigned paramount on his priority list...I regarded him as a bit fearless in his ongoing quest to immerse himself in the cultures of others, sometimes in very dangerous circumstances in remote and even warring locales. That's why, at this early time of knowing about his demise, I wonder...admittedly in abject ignorance...if he had decided to end it all, then why not instead go out performing something heroic for the benefit of others? I liked Anthony Bourdain and thought that his show was the class act of television...but I have a different way from him of seeing the world and my place in it...
I disagree with the above quote of Anthony Bourdain in that I don't think it's necessary to constantly be on the move, hopping from one flight to the next, in order to understand others from their own perspective...to me that's more of a personal character or spiritual matter. After all, in many of the places that Bourdain visited the people there were rooted in their homelands, often living out generations of lifetimes in small localities...yet they were complete in themselves, not wanting for lack of worldwide travel or incapable of gracious hospitality to strangers like Bourdain and his entourage. I think a lot of folks, especially in this age of Facebook and Instagram where their friends can instantly post pictures of their exciting travel experiences, feel pressured to follow suit...lest they begin to feel that their own lives are humdrum and meaningless. This to me is a false notion...but I have a different problem: I'm the diametric opposite of Anthony Bourdain when it comes to travel...
If you read or watched J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, you'll know that the protagonist, Bilbo Baggins, is quite content staying in his home in the Shire, never wanting to venture out away from his community. But the wizard Gandalf changes all that and spurs him on to go with the dwarfs to retake their Lonely Mountain from the evil dragon Smaug. He manages to survive his adventure, returns home, and then true to his nature remains there until his 111th birthday at the start of another Tolkien work, Lord of the Rings. I'm like Bilbo in my tendency to be a homebody, only unlike him I have had no Gandalf knocking on my door and stirring me to travel and adventure. But I'm getting along in years, being 61 (the same age as Anthony Bourdain), and I can't wait for any old wizard to get me "moving"...so I'll have to purpose to do it myself. Step one is to finally get off my butt and get a passport...
---Anthony Bourdain
I am deeply saddened to read this morning of the death...apparently from suicide...of renowned chef, traveler, and television star Anthony Bourdain. CNN News, which features his long-running, award-winning show Parts Unknown and in which Bourdain would visit different exotic places across the world to get to know their people, culture, and cuisine, has been careful to present on the air the national suicide hotline number. I suppose that since this public figure was so widely followed, they feared some might emulate his example...I'll repeat it: 1-800-273-8255. I'm not going to get into Mr. Bourdain's spiritual state, although once the details of his death have been fully ascertained, that may well have played some role in it. We do know that he was very public in that travel and food reigned paramount on his priority list...I regarded him as a bit fearless in his ongoing quest to immerse himself in the cultures of others, sometimes in very dangerous circumstances in remote and even warring locales. That's why, at this early time of knowing about his demise, I wonder...admittedly in abject ignorance...if he had decided to end it all, then why not instead go out performing something heroic for the benefit of others? I liked Anthony Bourdain and thought that his show was the class act of television...but I have a different way from him of seeing the world and my place in it...
I disagree with the above quote of Anthony Bourdain in that I don't think it's necessary to constantly be on the move, hopping from one flight to the next, in order to understand others from their own perspective...to me that's more of a personal character or spiritual matter. After all, in many of the places that Bourdain visited the people there were rooted in their homelands, often living out generations of lifetimes in small localities...yet they were complete in themselves, not wanting for lack of worldwide travel or incapable of gracious hospitality to strangers like Bourdain and his entourage. I think a lot of folks, especially in this age of Facebook and Instagram where their friends can instantly post pictures of their exciting travel experiences, feel pressured to follow suit...lest they begin to feel that their own lives are humdrum and meaningless. This to me is a false notion...but I have a different problem: I'm the diametric opposite of Anthony Bourdain when it comes to travel...
If you read or watched J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, you'll know that the protagonist, Bilbo Baggins, is quite content staying in his home in the Shire, never wanting to venture out away from his community. But the wizard Gandalf changes all that and spurs him on to go with the dwarfs to retake their Lonely Mountain from the evil dragon Smaug. He manages to survive his adventure, returns home, and then true to his nature remains there until his 111th birthday at the start of another Tolkien work, Lord of the Rings. I'm like Bilbo in my tendency to be a homebody, only unlike him I have had no Gandalf knocking on my door and stirring me to travel and adventure. But I'm getting along in years, being 61 (the same age as Anthony Bourdain), and I can't wait for any old wizard to get me "moving"...so I'll have to purpose to do it myself. Step one is to finally get off my butt and get a passport...
Thursday, June 7, 2018
6/3 Sermon on Daniel, Pt. 9
At the Family Church here in Gainesville last Sunday, senior pastor Philip Griffin wrapped up his message series, titled Counter-Culture, about the Old Testament book of Daniel and how this figure's example of living as an exile in a strange land is applicable to us today. In living "counter-culturally", Pastor Philip summarized in four parts how Daniel was able to accomplish this through his faith in God and God's intervention into his life: don't isolate or assimilate but participate with a purpose, live to point others to God, know the future of all kingdoms and governments, and choose faith over fear. Our pastor pointed out that, as believers, we have dual citizenship: primarily that of the city of God and secondarily that of our earthly city...we don't set ourselves apart from the world nor do we adopt its ways and beliefs. Instead, like Daniel in Babylon, we participate and work to bless and prosper it while presenting ourselves as a light pointing the way to God. And while engaging in responsible civic activity such as politics is an element of participating in this earthly dwelling of ours, we should not place too much store on our governments, all of which are destined to crumble according to God's timing, not our own as Philip emphasized. So in the end, we need to recognize that God is in control and while we should work to glorify him in our daily lives by making the world a better place in which to live, we have the choice as to whether we will demonstrate that our faith in him is much stronger and more important than any fear about what is going on around us...
I've found that Bible Gateway is a great website to get access to the Bible...just click on this link to reach it: [Bible]. The Family Church meets each Sunday morning at 9 and 10:30, with the weekly sermon, praise and worship music (always different each time), prayer, fellowship, and discipleship opportunities. There's also a hospitality room where they serve coffee and refreshments before and between services...a good place to meet some really friendly people. Next Sunday begins a new message series...
If you'd like to view Pastor Philip's message, just click on the following link to the church's YouTube video website: [TFC Videos]...
I've found that Bible Gateway is a great website to get access to the Bible...just click on this link to reach it: [Bible]. The Family Church meets each Sunday morning at 9 and 10:30, with the weekly sermon, praise and worship music (always different each time), prayer, fellowship, and discipleship opportunities. There's also a hospitality room where they serve coffee and refreshments before and between services...a good place to meet some really friendly people. Next Sunday begins a new message series...
If you'd like to view Pastor Philip's message, just click on the following link to the church's YouTube video website: [TFC Videos]...
Wednesday, June 6, 2018
Weekly Short Story: The Thing on the Doorstep by H.P. Lovecraft
Had anything with the title The Thing on the Doorstep been written in our times, it doubtless would initially be considered to be a parody...but it's a serious short story written by horror writer H.P. Lovecraft back in 1933. I first read it back around 2005-07...it was the first story by Lovecraft I had ever read. Turns out it was a pretty good one at that, although I admit that his style and genre take getting used to...
While not wanting to give away the story in case you might want to read it for yourself, I'll just give the basic setting. It's presented in the first person by the narrator, Daniel Upton, whose good friend Edward Derby...a shy and unassuming young man...has married a woman, Asenoth, who is a dabbler into the dark arts. Daniel notices from time to time that Edward seems to undergo severe personality changes...the most remarkable is his sudden ability to drive a car, which he sometimes does with reckless abandon whenever he goes into one of those "states". Why this is all happening, what is the "thing on the doorstep"...and why does the story open with the narrator declaring that he just shot his best friend...is something that I leave to anyone interesting in reading it. Instead...leading me to warn any prospective readers of this story of a plot spoiler in the next paragraph... I'll bring up a theme I discovered in it: the undue influence over others that some people feel is their due...even to the point of insisting they control what others think...
In The Thing on the Doorstep (don't read this unless you either have read the story or plan to) the identities of two different people get switched...one moment Edward is Edward...the next he's Asethon and she is Edward. If you've encountered this tired old fictional device before, in movies like Freaky Friday or Trading Places, or in old television series episodes such as Star Trek, The Prisoner, or The Avengers (to mention the ones I remember), rest assured that at least ol' H.P. had a better claim on it in terms of originality...although my ignorance of literature being what it is, he probably himself lifted the idea off someone else. But Lovecraft made it into a better story than all the others, and for this I commend him (or at least his memory). As far as I can tell in this little life of mine, I don't think it's scientifically possible for two people to switch identities, but unfortunately there are some disturbed souls who act as if they have the right to someone else's identity. That's too bad...for them and for those they prey upon...
By the way, you might be able to access an audio version of this story...which I believe is in public domain...through YouTube...
While not wanting to give away the story in case you might want to read it for yourself, I'll just give the basic setting. It's presented in the first person by the narrator, Daniel Upton, whose good friend Edward Derby...a shy and unassuming young man...has married a woman, Asenoth, who is a dabbler into the dark arts. Daniel notices from time to time that Edward seems to undergo severe personality changes...the most remarkable is his sudden ability to drive a car, which he sometimes does with reckless abandon whenever he goes into one of those "states". Why this is all happening, what is the "thing on the doorstep"...and why does the story open with the narrator declaring that he just shot his best friend...is something that I leave to anyone interesting in reading it. Instead...leading me to warn any prospective readers of this story of a plot spoiler in the next paragraph... I'll bring up a theme I discovered in it: the undue influence over others that some people feel is their due...even to the point of insisting they control what others think...
In The Thing on the Doorstep (don't read this unless you either have read the story or plan to) the identities of two different people get switched...one moment Edward is Edward...the next he's Asethon and she is Edward. If you've encountered this tired old fictional device before, in movies like Freaky Friday or Trading Places, or in old television series episodes such as Star Trek, The Prisoner, or The Avengers (to mention the ones I remember), rest assured that at least ol' H.P. had a better claim on it in terms of originality...although my ignorance of literature being what it is, he probably himself lifted the idea off someone else. But Lovecraft made it into a better story than all the others, and for this I commend him (or at least his memory). As far as I can tell in this little life of mine, I don't think it's scientifically possible for two people to switch identities, but unfortunately there are some disturbed souls who act as if they have the right to someone else's identity. That's too bad...for them and for those they prey upon...
By the way, you might be able to access an audio version of this story...which I believe is in public domain...through YouTube...
Tuesday, June 5, 2018
How Alachua and Broward Counties Voted for President Since 1960
I was wondering not only how my home state of Florida voted in past presidential elections, but also about my home counties of Broward in south Florida, where I lived from 1960 to 1977, and Alachua, where I've been since 1977. As you can see below for the elections since 1960, sometimes my counties went along with the state's voting...and sometimes they diverged. When I grew up there, Broward was widely considered a Republican county, even going for Barry Goldwater in 1964 and being greatly responsible for the election in 1966 of Claude Kirk, the first Republican governor of Florida since Reconstruction. But since 1992, both Broward and Alachua counties have gone strictly Democratic in presidential elections regardless how the rest of the state went...or the country, for that matter...
The Democratic winners are highlighted in blue while the Republicans are in red, with the names listed by national, Florida, Alachua, Broward, and my "winners"...although of course in the end only the national winner really counted. In making this list I'm presuming you know who these names represent. Major party losers not appearing are McGovern-D (1972), Ford-R (1976), McCain-R (2008), and Romney-R (2012). I got the data from a great archives site...click on its name to access it: Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Since this list is more of a chart, you might read it better on a smartphone by turning it sideways. Finally, regarding the final column showing how I personally voted during those years, I wasn't of voting age until the 1976 election.
Well, here it is...
YEAR U.S. WINNER FLORIDA ALACHUA BROWARD ME
1960 KENNEDY-D NIXON-R NIXON-R NIXON-R ---
1964 JOHNSON-D JOHNSON-D JOHNSON-D GOLDWATER-R ---
1968 NIXON-R NIXON-R HUMPHREY-D NIXON-R ---
1972 NIXON-R NIXON-R NIXON-R NIXON-R ---
1976 CARTER-D CARTER-D CARTER-D CARTER-D CARTER-D
1980 REAGAN-R REAGAN-R CARTER-D REAGAN-R did not vote
1984 REAGAN-R REAGAN-R REAGAN-R REAGAN-R MONDALE-D
1988 BUSH-R BUSH-R BUSH-R BUSH-R DUKAKIS-D
1992 CLINTON-D BUSH-R CLINTON-D CLINTON-D CLINTON-D
1996 CLINTON-D CLINTON-D CLINTON-D CLINTON-D DOLE-R
2000 BUSH-R BUSH-R GORE-D GORE-D BUSH-R
2004 BUSH-R BUSH-R KERRY-D KERRY-D KERRY-D
2008 OBAMA-D OBAMA-D OBAMA-D OBAMA-D OBAMA-D
2012 OBAMA-D OBAMA-D OBAMA-D OBAMA-D OBAMA-D
2016 TRUMP-R TRUMP-R CLINTON-D CLINTON-D CLINTON-D
The Democratic winners are highlighted in blue while the Republicans are in red, with the names listed by national, Florida, Alachua, Broward, and my "winners"...although of course in the end only the national winner really counted. In making this list I'm presuming you know who these names represent. Major party losers not appearing are McGovern-D (1972), Ford-R (1976), McCain-R (2008), and Romney-R (2012). I got the data from a great archives site...click on its name to access it: Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Since this list is more of a chart, you might read it better on a smartphone by turning it sideways. Finally, regarding the final column showing how I personally voted during those years, I wasn't of voting age until the 1976 election.
Well, here it is...
YEAR U.S. WINNER FLORIDA ALACHUA BROWARD ME
1960 KENNEDY-D NIXON-R NIXON-R NIXON-R ---
1964 JOHNSON-D JOHNSON-D JOHNSON-D GOLDWATER-R ---
1968 NIXON-R NIXON-R HUMPHREY-D NIXON-R ---
1972 NIXON-R NIXON-R NIXON-R NIXON-R ---
1976 CARTER-D CARTER-D CARTER-D CARTER-D CARTER-D
1980 REAGAN-R REAGAN-R CARTER-D REAGAN-R did not vote
1984 REAGAN-R REAGAN-R REAGAN-R REAGAN-R MONDALE-D
1988 BUSH-R BUSH-R BUSH-R BUSH-R DUKAKIS-D
1992 CLINTON-D BUSH-R CLINTON-D CLINTON-D CLINTON-D
1996 CLINTON-D CLINTON-D CLINTON-D CLINTON-D DOLE-R
2000 BUSH-R BUSH-R GORE-D GORE-D BUSH-R
2004 BUSH-R BUSH-R KERRY-D KERRY-D KERRY-D
2008 OBAMA-D OBAMA-D OBAMA-D OBAMA-D OBAMA-D
2012 OBAMA-D OBAMA-D OBAMA-D OBAMA-D OBAMA-D
2016 TRUMP-R TRUMP-R CLINTON-D CLINTON-D CLINTON-D
Monday, June 4, 2018
Just Finished Reading One Summer by David Baldacci
I've earlier read a David Baldacci novel, from his Camel Club spy series and out of sequence...afterward I promised myself to first check whether the book I'm picking up is in a series. When I discovered his 2011 One Summer at my local public library, I examined it: no series, just a standalone novel. It's a story about a military man who valiantly served in Iraq and Afghanistan, thrice decorated. Jack Armstrong has returned to his family in Cleveland and adores his wife Lizzie and their three children. Sadly, though, he has now contracted a terminal illness and isn't expected to survive to Christmas...I'd better warn you now that what follows can be regarded as plot spoilers, although I'm not going to reveal the book's ending. In what amounts to an incredible twist of fate, Jack and Lizzie's fortunes are suddenly switched and he finds himself in the role of a single father and dealing with some serious issues with his kids, especially his rebellious and cynical teenage daughter Michelle. Also, Lizzie's mother Bonnie presents herself as an impediment to Jack regaining his role as an active father to his children...so there's quite a bit of interpersonal angst going on between the characters in this book if that's your "cup of tea": it certainly isn't mine...
While Jack lay dying, Lizzie had planned to take the children with her the following summer to her grandmother's house on the South Carolina shore where she had spent a significant period in her childhood. Instead Jack takes them there as he tries to reconcile himself with his grief for his wife while honoring her memory and learning how better to bond with his children. Jack is an honorable and likeable character whose war-trained toughness and task orientation get him over his illness but present obstacles in his relationships with others, especially his kids. I checked out some of the reviews of One Summer and discovered that readers tended to either love or despise it. To me, it's just a sweet, albeit a little bittersweet, tale of folks just trying to make the best of their often difficult circumstances while looking out for each other. And we can all relate to that, whether we fought in a war overseas or not...
While Jack lay dying, Lizzie had planned to take the children with her the following summer to her grandmother's house on the South Carolina shore where she had spent a significant period in her childhood. Instead Jack takes them there as he tries to reconcile himself with his grief for his wife while honoring her memory and learning how better to bond with his children. Jack is an honorable and likeable character whose war-trained toughness and task orientation get him over his illness but present obstacles in his relationships with others, especially his kids. I checked out some of the reviews of One Summer and discovered that readers tended to either love or despise it. To me, it's just a sweet, albeit a little bittersweet, tale of folks just trying to make the best of their often difficult circumstances while looking out for each other. And we can all relate to that, whether we fought in a war overseas or not...
Sunday, June 3, 2018
Good Neighborhood Run Yesterday in the Pre-Summer Heat
A couple of days ago I wrote about how I want to raise the bar with my running, training to run longer distances and running my neighborhood courses which I did so effectively back in 2010-2013. Early yesterday (Saturday) afternoon I happened to be off from work and the local weather was giving us all a reprieve from the rainstorms we had recently been experiencing...but the temperature had climbed up to 90 degrees. No problem for me since the humidity was an acceptable 55%...I'd gone on many long runs before in the middle of the summer heat. So I decided to run my basic designed course of 3.3 miles that goes up and down streets through my subdivision and the adjacent one, carrying a full bottle of Powerade Zero in my right hand and a couple of paper towels in my left. I ran the course, taking short walking breaks every five minutes...and finished it easily while emptying that bottle, coming away with a sense of optimism about gradually increasing my distance over the next few runs. Today I rode the home exercise bike some at a high resistance setting...after I get off from work tonight, probably at ten, I plan to go to my local 24/7 gym and run a little on their treadmill and/or use their elliptical cross-trainer. I'm looking forward to getting back into better running shape. My plan is to alternate days of long distance road runs with days of limited runs combined with the exercise bike and elliptical cross-trainer. I'd really like to feel more confident about entering some of the longer races this fall, but more than anything I want to enjoy just getting out there on the road again and running for an hour or two...
Saturday, June 2, 2018
Just Finished Reading Sandworms of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
It took me a few years, but following my reading of Frank Herbert's opening novel Dune, I finally got around to the other books in his eight-part Dune science fiction series...with the final two installments written by his son Brian and sci-fi writer Kevin J. Anderson following the original author's death. I just finished reading that closing book, titled Sandworms of Dune, and feel convinced that Brian's dad would not have written this kind of ending. I'll explain why, but first you need to beware that I am going to play the plot spoiler with this article: if you haven't read the Dune series but plan to, you're better off for now just to stop reading at this point and go get the book...
Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson began writing Dune novels some ten years after Frank Herbert's death in 1996, by writing prequels first about the three main families of nobles in Dune and then about the Butlerian Jihad, the novel for which came out in 2002. They published the final two Dune novels in 2006 and 2007...I'm emphasizing the dates for a reason. While Frank Herbert was writing the first six novels of the series from 1969 to 1985, he did not discuss in any detail a war between artificial intelligence and humanity...only that the Butlerian Jihad, which had preceded the events in his first novel by some ten thousand years, had resulted in the universal banning of "thinking machines". When the movie The Matrix came out in 1999, the stage was set for a war between humanity and artificial intelligence...with one of the machine world's agents, Agent Smith (played by Hugo Weaving) declaring that humans were like viruses on Earth...and that they (the machines) were the cure. In the 2006 book Hunters of Dune, thinking machine leader Erasmus, earlier introduced in that 2002 prequel book by son Herbert and Anderson, makes an eerily similar comment that humans are germs invading the galaxy...a coincidence? Or may the Dune authors had picked up on the human/machine conflict from the Matrix series and used it, first to set the stage for the Dune conclusion with a prequel novel...and then to use that novel to set up the final resolution for the series, which, like in Matrix Revolutions, the 2003 conclusion of that film series, involved a singular human being with special qualities combining himself with the machines for that resolution. Sounds terribly, terribly derivative to me and while I enjoyed the writing style of Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Andersons, their ending to this series...at least to me...seems unimaginative and copied. No, I don't believe that Frank Herbert would have done it this way...maybe I was a little too quick in an earlier article to endorse the idea of another writer finishing recalcitrant "Games of Thrones" author George R.R. Martin's much-delayed series-ending books...
Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson began writing Dune novels some ten years after Frank Herbert's death in 1996, by writing prequels first about the three main families of nobles in Dune and then about the Butlerian Jihad, the novel for which came out in 2002. They published the final two Dune novels in 2006 and 2007...I'm emphasizing the dates for a reason. While Frank Herbert was writing the first six novels of the series from 1969 to 1985, he did not discuss in any detail a war between artificial intelligence and humanity...only that the Butlerian Jihad, which had preceded the events in his first novel by some ten thousand years, had resulted in the universal banning of "thinking machines". When the movie The Matrix came out in 1999, the stage was set for a war between humanity and artificial intelligence...with one of the machine world's agents, Agent Smith (played by Hugo Weaving) declaring that humans were like viruses on Earth...and that they (the machines) were the cure. In the 2006 book Hunters of Dune, thinking machine leader Erasmus, earlier introduced in that 2002 prequel book by son Herbert and Anderson, makes an eerily similar comment that humans are germs invading the galaxy...a coincidence? Or may the Dune authors had picked up on the human/machine conflict from the Matrix series and used it, first to set the stage for the Dune conclusion with a prequel novel...and then to use that novel to set up the final resolution for the series, which, like in Matrix Revolutions, the 2003 conclusion of that film series, involved a singular human being with special qualities combining himself with the machines for that resolution. Sounds terribly, terribly derivative to me and while I enjoyed the writing style of Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Andersons, their ending to this series...at least to me...seems unimaginative and copied. No, I don't believe that Frank Herbert would have done it this way...maybe I was a little too quick in an earlier article to endorse the idea of another writer finishing recalcitrant "Games of Thrones" author George R.R. Martin's much-delayed series-ending books...
Friday, June 1, 2018
Quote of the Week...from Arthur Lydiard
When aerobic running becomes a daily habit, strength and confidence follow. ---Arthur Lydiard
Arthur Lydiard was perhaps the greatest running coach in history, guiding his New Zealand runners to world championships in the 1960s. Not only did he strongly believe in aerobic running (as opposed to the high-speed anaerobic running that builds up oxygen debt in the runner), but he also popularized jogging back then as a health benefit when many around him disagreed. He also said "I have a saying: train don't strain," which he believed to be much more effective than the relatively masochistic, commonly-espoused American mantra "no pain, no gain". I owe a debt to him for his studies and innovations in running training...not that I am an athlete by any reasonable measure. I like to run and the longer the distance and the more regularly, the better. I've managed to cover two marathons (one official) and some eleven official half-marathon races in the last 8-9 years. I don't do marathons anymore, but I do try to get in at least one half-marathon per year. But what I want the most is to reestablish a more regular routine of personal distance running training, something I've drifted away from lately...partially because of the constraints of time and partially because of various injuries and maladies I've experienced. And now, because it is the first day of June, I'll insert here my personal running report for May...
In May, 2018 I ran a total of 64 miles with 3.3 miles being my longest single run...both figures pretty low by the standards I want to follow. I did manage to train more regularly, missing only two days during the month...my health was pretty good in May. I didn't participate in any races, and quite frankly the warm and muggy...if not stormy...weather conditions that typified this past month didn't make doing so all that attractive a prospect, anyway. On June 9 there is a 5K race in Gainesville...I guess I'll just have to see how I feel about running it when the time approaches. My main goal is to increase both my total monthly mileage as well as lengthen my individual runs...nothing dramatic, but as Coach Lydiard would agree, a gradual stepping-up into a higher level of training...
Arthur Lydiard was perhaps the greatest running coach in history, guiding his New Zealand runners to world championships in the 1960s. Not only did he strongly believe in aerobic running (as opposed to the high-speed anaerobic running that builds up oxygen debt in the runner), but he also popularized jogging back then as a health benefit when many around him disagreed. He also said "I have a saying: train don't strain," which he believed to be much more effective than the relatively masochistic, commonly-espoused American mantra "no pain, no gain". I owe a debt to him for his studies and innovations in running training...not that I am an athlete by any reasonable measure. I like to run and the longer the distance and the more regularly, the better. I've managed to cover two marathons (one official) and some eleven official half-marathon races in the last 8-9 years. I don't do marathons anymore, but I do try to get in at least one half-marathon per year. But what I want the most is to reestablish a more regular routine of personal distance running training, something I've drifted away from lately...partially because of the constraints of time and partially because of various injuries and maladies I've experienced. And now, because it is the first day of June, I'll insert here my personal running report for May...
In May, 2018 I ran a total of 64 miles with 3.3 miles being my longest single run...both figures pretty low by the standards I want to follow. I did manage to train more regularly, missing only two days during the month...my health was pretty good in May. I didn't participate in any races, and quite frankly the warm and muggy...if not stormy...weather conditions that typified this past month didn't make doing so all that attractive a prospect, anyway. On June 9 there is a 5K race in Gainesville...I guess I'll just have to see how I feel about running it when the time approaches. My main goal is to increase both my total monthly mileage as well as lengthen my individual runs...nothing dramatic, but as Coach Lydiard would agree, a gradual stepping-up into a higher level of training...
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