My April 2019 Running Report

April continued with more of the kinds of positive running experiences I experienced in  March: I ran a total of 126 miles for the month, my longest single run being for 10 miles...and I missed one day of running.  Last Saturday morning I ran in a new race for me, the Run the Good Race 5K/10K held in town at the North Florida Regional office park...I ran the 10K event.  I believe I have the energy and fitness level to begin to regularly tackle longer distance training runs...I'd like to get back up to daily 6-mile+ runs with occasional peak runs of around 10-13 miles, running through my own designed courses I used to extensively train on in years gone by.  No, I don't plan to run a 26.2-mile marathon, but I do think that I am suited for about half that distance...I've run 11 half-marathon races since 2010 and don't see any reason to stop.  But for the next few months, the only races I'll run will be the 5K variety.  For example, next Saturday evening on May 4th at the town of Tioga west of Gainesville on Newberry Road they'll hold their annual May Day Glow Run 5K, which I've run before...I plan to enter it again.  And each Saturday morning at 7:30 there is the free Depot Parkrun 5K, held at that city park off Main Street and Depot Road.  I would like to get my 5K time back down to a more respectable level, and this race gives me the chance to do something more sociable with my running through the hot summer months.  But first let's see what May has in store for me...

The No-Crime, So No-Obstruction Argument About Trump

I've heard from more than one opinion source that it was ridiculous (I think Senator Lindsey Graham used the word "absurd") to consider whether Donald Trump was guilty of obstruction during the Mueller investigation into the extent of Russian interference in the 2016 and whether Trump or his campaign conspired with this adversarial foreign power.  Since the final report stated that there was insufficient evidence to charge the president or his campaign with conspiracy, some of his vocal supporters are claiming that since there was no crime, then how could he have been obstructing the investigation of one?  The logical fallacy of such an argument is easy for me to see...let me explain...

If I am pulled over by the police for a traffic violation that the officer later decides not to ticket me for...but I am uncooperative and disrespectful during our interaction and, say, call his boss to get him to back off or try giving a bribe, that officer is justified with charging me with resisting an officer...tantamount to an obstruction charge.   Sitting there screaming "witch hunt!" or "hoax!" and personally insulting the officer likewise mitigates against me...as well as not presenting my current driver's license or auto registration. Never mind that the original charge is dropped...I've created a new one by my subsequent behavior.  Now to Trump: there are two periods for which his behavior has been scrutinized and reported on: the original target of the investigation, that is the 2016 election campaign, and then the investigation itself.  It matters not what the final results about 2016 are...the question is whether Trump improperly interfered with the investigation itself.  And that's where all the hullaballoo about "obstruction" is coming from.  But of course, if you're a "forever Trumper", unquestioningly believing carte blanche anything he says because he's your idol above all idols and is standing firm against all those evil communist Democrats, you'll never believe anything negative anyone says about him...or even what you see and hear with your own senses for that matter.  I am no expert in the law, but at this stage the obstruction question seems more a political one than a legal one, anyway...it's all in the hands of Congress to deal with according to the Constitution, something that our president seems to have a great deal of difficulty grasping...

Alachua County Friends of the Library Sale Going On Through Wednesday

This afternoon Melissa and I paid a visit to the Alachua County Friends of the Library book sale, held every April and October at a warehouse on the 400 block of North Main Street.  It's fun to go in there and browse around...you never know what you'll find.  Melissa found several books of interest and I bought three for myself: A Separate Peace by John Knowles and two novels of Joseph Conrad: Victory and The Secret Agent...all three for a total of 75 cents!  I also picked up an interesting looking 300-piece jigsaw puzzle for a couple of bucks...this is the place to go for puzzle enthusiasts: there is a large assortment to choose from and you can't beat the prices.  This sale is a big event in Gainesville, lasting from Saturday through Wednesday...the large room houses all genres of used books and includes sections like the aforementioned jigsaw puzzles, audiobooks, DVDs, music CDs, vinyl records, old magazines, and a "collectibles" book section where the prices are a little steeper.  During the opening Saturday and Sunday of the sale this place is usually packed with people, so if you're a bit phobic about crowds you might want to avoid it...or if you're like me and simply dislike being in midst of jostling, coughing, and sniffling multitudes, you ought to limit your visit time.  Within each genre section books are displayed in no particular order...to cover it all you have to read each title, which can get tedious in a hurry...especially when people are crowding all around you, some blocking your access.  Since I already have plenty of reading material at my disposal, I just browsed around and kept my eyes open for anything of special interest...we'll see how good these books are that I purchased...

Ran the "Run the Good Race" 10K This Morning

Local physicians Kathy and Peter Sarantos in 2016 began what has become a running tradition here in Gainesville.  Each April they organize the Run the Good Race 5K/10K racing event, with proceeds donated to organizations committed to fighting human trafficking...in today's politically split world, here's one issue everyone can get together on.  I finally got around to entering it this year and just finished running the 10K (6.2 miles) distance.  The course is near I-75 in the North Florida Regional Medical Center office park and residential area behind, across the street from the Oaks Mall...both races began and ended in front of the NFR Cancer Center.  I ran this course before...or something close to it...when I participated in the Run Amuck With the Duck 5K back in 2010.  Today's 10K course was simply a doubling over of the 5K...everyone started off at 8.  Since it was Saturday and the roads were relatively empty due to the medical offices being closed, there was very little traffic to be concerned about.  What I loved about this course was the many hills and slopes, something strikingly missing from my neighborhood self-designed courses.  That residential backstretch on NW 18th Avenue had one monster in particular...I humbly admit to walking part of the way up it.  Race time temperature and humidity both averaged around 60...ideal running conditions for me.  The sky was cloudless and some of us, I'm sure, regretted not having thought of wearing sunglasses...

In a way, the start of the these races tends to be more of a challenge to me than the other parts due to the extreme crowdedness of the runners, walkers, dogs, strollers...and a little girl on a scooter.  Eventually, though, it thinned out to the point where I didn't have to constantly restrain my running in order to avoid suffering catastrophic collisions with others.  I ran at my training pace and finished the race with a time of 61:52...the second half was much faster than the first and despite the hills I felt I could keep on running strong long after it was over.  I was surprised a few minutes later to discover that I had actually won my age category (Men's 60-69) and went up onstage to get my little medal and photo opportunity with Dr. Kathy. This was one of my better public runs of late and I feel encouraged.  263 runners and walkers completed the 5K event and 50 the 10K...I was the oldest 10K runner...

There were little things about the way this race was handled that runners like me notice and appreciate.  Indoor bathrooms, a place to stand inside before the race while it was still chilly outside, the positive energy coming from the Sarantos and the volunteers, recovery food and water available afterwards, water stations at strategic distances during the race, extremely convenient parking...I could go on.  It's definitely a race I'd like to make into my own tradition...a real class act. Kathy and Pete attend the same church as me and many others there who chose to run or walk the 5K as a team...I was the only one of the bunch taking on the 10K distance...

Here's a link to the race results: [start2finish race management]...

Quote of the Week...from Marcus Aurelius

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to alive.
                                                                                --Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius was the Roman Emperor from AD 161-180, presiding over a period of relative peace and prosperity while credited with being something of a philosopher, with his own written works.  In perspective I'm sure that he was flawed and did some things...like persecuting Christians, for example...these actions we today look back upon most unfavorably: not cool at all.  But in case you never met me, I also happen to be flawed in my own ways and I bet you are in yours, too.  So anyway, I read some of his more famous quotes and found three especially worth mentioning...they mesh quite well with other and with Aurelius' recurring theme of personal responsibility.  The first heads this article...here are the other two:

It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinions than our own.

The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts.

All three statements rely on the presumption that I always have a choice in our present moment as to what I think and that the fruits (or harm) of my resulting action (or inaction) that affect my welfare and attitude is, in the end, my own personal responsibility.  This stands directly in opposition to popular narratives circulating around society today such as the notion that I'll never get a fair shake in this world due to my demographic group and how it's been treated in the past as well as the present.  Or how about the idea that I am a slave of my own childhood treatment and the core of my subconscious is hidden away in distant past traumas...there may be some objective truth to one or both of these notions, but dwelling on them will only frame myself as a passive victim of fate instead of a proactive conscious entity with the power to shape my own life and affect the world around me in a positive way.  So each new day is also a new beginning, a convenient time marker to press the personal "reset" button and start afresh.  Sure, it's healthy to take into consideration others' feelings and opinions, but I need to be grounded and centered about my own foundational principles and not just flow with the latest fads and nonsense because that's what the crowd is doing.  And ultimately I do have the free choice to determine what I am thinking and as a result live a creative life with the inner contentment and joy that I am responsible for it... 

Just Finished Reading Sad Cypress by Agatha Christie

One of my deficiencies in reading is that somehow I have missed on reading some authors who are renowned in their craft.  Mystery writer Agatha Christie is one of these, and I just finished reading only her second Hercule Poirot story, Sad Cypress from 1940.  Poirot is the Belgian detective who adds a facet of humanity to the mystery sleuth, a more compelling character than Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.  He is enlisted by a physician concerned that a young woman on trial for murdering a romantic rival by poison is innocent.  The defendant in question is Elinor Carlisle, whose engagement to her longtime friend from childhood Roddy gets broken off after he goes for pretty Mary Gerrard, who has been caring for Elinor's ill aunt Laura Welman.  Someone has sent Elinor an anonymous note claiming that Mary appears to be ingratiating herself to the very wealthy invalid in hope of receiving some of her inheritance...Elinor is widely considered to be Mrs. Welman's closest relative and the primary beneficiary should she pass away.  And with the other characters involved, the mystery develops as to who the real murderer is.  Don't worry, I haven't given away too much of the story...barely scratched the surface as a matter of fact...

I like these short mystery novels...I read through Sue Grafton's entire Alphabet Mystery series featuring California private eye Kinsey Millhone.  Sad Cypress...the title is derived from a line in a Shakespeare play...is just one of 33 Christie wrote with Hercule Poirot.  I think I'll be reading more and more of his exploits in the future...

Weekly Short Stories: 1946 Science Fiction, Part 1

This week marks Part One in my look back at some of the standout short science fiction from the year 1946, as compiled in the book Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 8 (1946).  World War II had ended the previous year with the explosion of atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki...much of the ensuing stories in this genre pertain to problems the Bomb would generate in the years to come.  Of the first four stories, three directly relate to this topic while the other...the opening story...eerily portends the digital reality we're living through right now...

A LOGIC NAMED JOE by Will F. Jenkins (Murray Leinster)
Personal computers...in this story attributed to the groundbreaking Carson Circuit instead of digital microtechnology...have permeated the culture of the near future (from the perspective of 1946).  In the comfort of your own living room you can get the news and weather, watch movies, listen to music, do business, communicate with others...who would have thought this possible?  The flip side of this is twofold: the ensuing destruction of personal privacy and the use of this system to criminal and/or destructive ends...exactly the situation we see with the Internet today.  And on top of it all, a freak computer (Jenkins calls computers "logics") trains itself as an "Alexa", inviting users to ask any question they want, no matter how scientifically impossible, intrusive, or criminal...and then relies on all the other logics in the worldwide system to come up with solutions.  Yes, this is another one of those bizarre, prescient stories that make you wonder whether the author wasn't a time traveler...

MEMORIAL by Theodore Sturgeon
A nuclear scientist/engineer turned pacifist hits upon an idea to turn the bellicosity of Earth's population in this nuclear age into one of emphasizing world peace over everything else.  How will he accomplish this?  By exploding his own atomic device...in the remote desert...creating a deep pit of reactivity that will remind humanity of the horrors of this type of warfare for thousands of years.  Will he get to do this and if so, will it work?  After all, there is another way people could respond to his planned act...

LOOPHOLE by Arthur C. Clarke
Civilized, intelligent Martians have been observing humanity's progress on Earth and are dismayed when they see them using atomic bombs in warfare.  So they build a fleet of fighting ships and send them to encircle our planet, warning us that each launch of a rocket into space will result in the destruction of one of our cities.  But the Martians know that it will only be a matter of time before humans try to get around their edict, so they plot for the complete destruction of human life on Earth.  This story...with a wild ending...is the first one contributed by Arthur C. Clarke of 2001: A Space Odyssey fame and is accompanied by two others in this anthology, to be reviewed at a future date...

THE NIGHTMARE by Chan Davis
Another creepily prophetic story, The Nightmare delves into the subject of nuclear terrorism as, somewhere in the Bronx of densely populated New York City, Geiger counters are picking up telltale readings of a nuclear bomb.  Will the investigators get to it in time...and what does it all have to do with the idea that dispersing the population instead of concentrating them in centers like New York would serve as a deterrent to nuclear attack? This notion was also propounded by Clifford Simak in his story City...

Next week: more of my reactions from the 1946 sci-fi anthology...

Music As I See It in 2019 So Far

I was planning to devote this article to listing various upcoming album releases this year from different acts I've come to like and follow.  Unfortunately, the only album I could identify is Beck's Hyperspace: he just released a single from it, while at the same time announcing the new album...and I don't know when it's coming out.  That's okay, there is so much old music I haven't heard from my favorite bands and solo artists that I can occupy my listening time with them.  I just checked out Simon and Garfunkel's penultimate album Bookends...it's long been my favorite of this duo from the 60s, containing brilliant songs like America, Bookends, Hazy Shade of Winter, and Fakin' It.  I've also been listening a bit to the great 1968 Rolling Stones album Beggars Banquet, featuring my own personal favorites Street Fighting Man and Prodigal Son. And, of course, I do very much like Paul McCartney's 2018 album Egypt Station, the track Caesar Rock still my favorite song of 2019 so far with his Happy With You a solid second.  And I'm also listening to Antonin Dvorak's 9th "New World" Symphony in E-Minor...the second "Largo" movement is very compelling, but the whole thing is incredible, quickly becoming one of my all-time favorite classical works...

It's a shame, I suppose, that I never did get to care very much for either country or hip-hop music, since especially here in northern Florida these two genres dominate the popular music scene.  This past weekend C&W icon Garth Brooks gave a concert at the University of Florida football stadium and you would have thought it was the Second Coming by how folks reacted to it on Facebook...I never did care for Brooks and this adulation hit me hard that the kind of music I like is no longer widely followed by the population at large.  Well, they can have theirs and I'll enjoy mine...as long as they don't impose their tastes on me, that's all I ask: it's bad enough to hear crap that now passes as "popular" music on so many commercials nowadays...

Just Finished Reading City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare

City of Ashes is Cassandra Clare's second book, published in 2008, of her six-part series The Mortal Instruments.  Once again sixteen-year old Clarey, still progressively discovering her supernatural talents, finds herself in another string of life-or-death adventures with her friends Simon, Jace, Isabelle, and Alec as they fight their nemesis Valentine.  The setting once again is New York City as the angelic Shadowhunters...assigned to Earth to destroy demons...find themselves in a developing civil war between those who follow Valentine's mission to destroy non-demonic "downworlders" like werewolves and vampires and the "good guys" who want to preserve and respect them, of which Jace and Clarey stand out as the heroes.  It's hard to reveal the plot beyond this since by doing so I might not only be spoiling the book for potentials readers (like you) but also would be unwittingly spoiling the first book in the series, City of Bones.  Instead, I'll just post some general reactions...

Stephanie Meyer, in my opinion, did a much better job with her Twilight series of presenting a young adult fiction series that vividly painted a picture of an alternative culture where vampires and werewolves thrived.  And as for that genre of fiction in general, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling are the gold standards...The Mortal Instruments to me falls short to a degree.  Still, it's entertaining escapist reading although I wished that the author had invested more time and energy in developing the main characters' personalities before undertaking the numerous plot and identity twists prevalent in the stories...and some of the dialog seems stilted and unnatural.  Well, that's just my opinion...why don't you read it and share yours?  In any event, I'm going to read on to the end of the series: the next book is titled City of Glass...

Mueller Report, A.G. Barr, Political Social Media

With the release of Independent Counselor Robert Mueller's report on Russian interference in our 2016 elections, almost all of the media and popular attention has been on the level of culpability on the part of Donald Trump, his campaign, and decisions made during his presidency so far.  There has been much criticism...misguided, in my opinion...about Attorney General William Barr's handling of the report and his press conference before its release.  But Barr has made good on his promise and efforts to release this report, something that he legally did not have to do.  As the nation's chief law official he had to look at Mueller's findings through the prism not of whether Trump behaved well...or even ethically, but rather whether, based on the investigation's results, charging him with conspiracy or obstruction was recommended.  Since Mueller himself made no conclusion to that effect, and Donald Trump is an active, sitting president, there is a legitimate Constitutional question about going forward with legal action of any kind against him.  There is, though, the Constitutionally-amenable avenue of impeachment, which Congress may or may not choose to pursue...that is, though, a political and not legal process, and not under the authority of the Attorney General.  But Barr, whether or not you happen to agree with his legal philosophy, has acquitted himself well here and I'm tired of hearing people on TV running him down.  Now back to the "Russian" investigation results...

There is a very clear lesson ordinary folks like you or me can draw from the report's conclusion that Russia interfered with the 2016 elections by dumping phony websites and messages on social media in targeted states, largely through its so-called Internet Research Agency...I'm sure they (as well as other countries) are still up to their mischief under new names.  When reading my newsfeed on Facebook I'm continually coming across certain posts by Facebook friends who have a very emotionally-invested take on politics, the posts they pick up and copy from other sources.  Also, with some of their comments I've read with a strong political flavor they will place links to Internet websites affirming and expanding on their viewpoints, as if doing this in itself proves their point for them.  I would be very, very skeptical and careful about reposting others' politically-charged posts or links to sources whose legitimacy might be suspect...like picking up food off the floor and eating it, you don't know where they've been.  I have a better idea: for a change, why not do what I do and just write out your own opinion and philosophy without hiding behind somebody else's?   Just a suggestion, but it seems to me that if you're one of these people with such strong feelings about politics and you're capable of writing, then you would want others to know your thoughts to better persuade them...and you can write to your heart's content on Facebook, or like me start up your own blog...

Severe Squall Line and Storm Blasts Gainesville

I had quite a little adventure yesterday afternoon in my quest to drive the eight miles from my home to my workplace, extending the final total distance covered by several miles.  A severe storm front, headed by an intense squall line "highlighted" by torrential rain, strong winds, tornadoes, and lightning, swept through the area, starting at about 11 in the morning.  I had planned on staying home and driving to work later when the weather was less threatening, but almost immediately after the squall line hit, our power went out...something unusual for my subdivision since we have underground lines.  So with no electricity I decided to get ready for work and head on out, a little earlier than planned.  That was fortuitous since I had no idea how bad it was outside on the road.  At least from NW 34th Street on west all the traffic lights were out, and 34th was blocked by the police south of 39th Avenue...apparently an accident or fallen tree down the road.  So I went west and found myself in a succession of traffic standstills while steering to avoid fallen branches and emergency vehicles.  I even tried driving down a stretch of I-75, entering at 39th Avenue.  The traffic there was relatively light and smooth-running until about a mile short of the Newberry Road exit, where a small sign flashed, "Road Closed 1 Mile Ahead: Crash".  Fortunately, the exit occurred before the crash site and I left at Newberry Road.  As I was turning off, I noticed none of the vehicles around me were heeding that sign and saw them all coming to a sudden halt down the road where emergency vehicles were flashing their lights...oh well, you can lead a horse to water...  On Newberry Road it was bumper-to-bumper traffic and I turned off at Perkins Restaurant and snuck my way through the back of the Oaks Mall Plaza and through the Oaks Mall parking lot to SW 62nd Blvd.  At the SW 20th Avenue intersection a car nearly rammed me as I was turning left and already clearly in the middle of the intersection...I had the impression they weren't looking where they were going. Eventually I made my way down to SW 43rd Street and noticed as I approached Wal-Mart that the traffic light was working...hooray! From that point onward the drive to work was routine. The power in my house was out until early evening, and as I drove by around 10:15 after work I noticed power crews heavy at work on a line at NW 34th St and 16th Ave.  Today many of the streets are strewn with small branches, leaves, and pine needles...other than that you wouldn't know that anything had happened the day before.  After getting home from work, I flicked my TV on Channel 20 for the local Gainesville news at 11 and, after the lead story briefly mentioning...in words, no pictures...that a storm had swept through, they quickly passed on to other stories that were of much less immediate interest...I wish they would prioritize their news better.  Maybe I'll start watching their competitor from now on...I switched over and they at least showed some of the roadside debris...

I'm sitting here writing this and basking in this pleasant, meteorologically unremarkable day...not to mention being off from work...

Quote of the Week...from John Bingham

If you run, you are a runner.  It doesn't matter how fast or how far.  It doesn't matter if today is your first day or if you've been running for twenty years.  There is no test to pass, no license to earn, no membership card to get.  You just run.                             ---John Bingham

John Bingham is a marathon runner...now in his 70s...who has promoted marathon and distance running for the masses, stressing the activity itself and not competitiveness in races.  He and his followers have been dubbed "penguins" because of their slowness and tendency to take walking breaks in the middle of races.  Some in the sport object to its growing appeal to slower runners, but I believe they're not thinking this out correctly.  In order for a sport's championship to mean anything, it is important that underneath that excellence is a mountain of lower achievers...a sport that no one engages in is one whose elite is the elite...of what?!!  Running is an activity you just need some good shoes to invest in and...you're a participant!  Some of my more memorable runs have just been me stepping out my front door and going off on long runs up and down the streets of my neighborhood and those nearby.  I don't try to run fast...and if I feel like it, I'll take a minute or so here and there and walk a bit.   As for races, like Bingham I'm getting along in years and don't see me making the local news for excelling in my age category in a race even if I trained with winning them as my primary goal.  My priority when running in a race is first to finish it and second to maintain a pace in line with my level of practice...besides that I'm just there to savor the experience.  So Bingham and I are in total agreement with our running philosophies...neither of us need to prove anything to anybody else, and if others don't like running slowly, then who's forcing them to?  If they don't like my strategy in a race, then they can dang well pay my entry fee for me before telling me how to run...

Mueller Report Just Out

The redacted version of independent counselor Robert Mueller's report about his investigation of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election came out around 11 this morning...I was watching the lead-up to the release, including the press conference by Attorney General William Barr and the cable news channels talking heads' reactions.  As expected, Barr restated his earlier summary's position that there was no demonstrated collusion on the part of Donald Trump or his campaign with the Russians and that regarding obstruction, the evidence did not rise to the standard of warranting prosecution.  Barr did...and I think to his credit...candidly reveal that his views of the theory of illegal obstruction did vary with that of the independent counselor, but of course we already knew that. Barr's press conference performance was roundly criticized by CNN and MSNBC panelists for being too sympathetic to the President while Fox was generally supportive of Barr.  Someone on CNN did correctly mention that attorneys general in the past have often been seen, besides serving as the country's chief law enforcement official, as politically supportive of the sitting president...examples on the Democratic side are Obama's Eric Holder and Lorretta Lynch, Clinton's Janet Reno, and John F. Kennedy's own little brother Robert.  I'm no fan of Trump but I always felt that Barr has done his best to be fair and impartial...I saw nothing in his press conference to take issue with. I heard that, in accordance with the law, he did allow a Trump attorney to see the redacted version without comment or revision a few hours before it was released to Congress and the public, but now that everyone can see it I look at that preview as a moot point...

So now anyone who wants to can read the Mueller Report...Barr stated in his press conference that it would be made available on the Justice Department's website.  I'm sure that in the next few hours and days a lot of it will come to the forefront of the news.  And after everyone gets to examine the document, it would be a good idea for Robert Mueller to testify before Congress to clarify different sections that many assuredly will have questions about.  But there's one overriding element of this news story on which everyone agrees but gets very little coverage: the Russian government massively interfered in our 2016 election.  And that is what I am the most interested in learning about, especially with another election looming before us...

Weekly Short Stories: 1945 Science Fiction, Part 3

Today I finish looking back at the year 1945 and its best short science fiction, as appearing in the anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 7 (1945).  Here are my reactions to those five stories...

THE POWER by Murray Leinster
In late-fifteenth-century Italy a man writes another about discovering a great power from a mysterious teacher/guru type.  Through successive correspondences he reveals his conclusion that his benefactor is a kind of fallen soul with dark knowledge...but our hero is too tempted by the riches the Power brings him to reject him.  The Power is about how a different, alien culture is inevitably filtered though one's own  "home culture" narrative...which tends to distort the motives and reality of who the other party is and what they have to offer.  The close-mindedness of those living five hundred years ago is obvious in this story, but how presumptuous would we be in our world today should something similar happen to us?

GIANT KILLER by A. Bertram Chandler
My least favorite story of this bunch, it is also the longest.  Often in short science fiction the author will trick...or least try to trick...the reader by making an alien society or species the protagonists...I've seen this done in more than one Twilight Zone episode as well.  The hero in Giant Killer is young Shrick, one of the People, as Chandler puts it, who not only has to fight the Giants in the wide open spaces but also survive the murderous wrath of his own, who have condemned him for being one of the Different.  Intrigued?  Then please read it...who knows, you may like it more than I did...

WHAT YOU NEED by Henry Kuttner
Speaking of the 1960s television series The Twilight Zone, there was one episode with the same title as this story...no wonder since it was an adaptation.  The written version goes into greater detail about how the seller of curious ordinary items that mysteriously seem to come into use at crisis moments is able to match his products with his customers...I probably would have enjoyed Kuttner's original story more had I not already seen the Twilight Zone version, which turned out to be one of the great, classic episodes of that wonderful series...

DE PROFUNDIS by Murray Leinster
Another one of those "see things from the alien's viewpoint" stories, this one is set down deep in an alien world's ocean as an intelligent, telepathic...but very ferocious...serpent creature encounters an human underwater exploration vessel accidentally broken from its cable leading to the surface.  Like the same author's story The Power, once again we're treated to a native culture filtering input about aliens and the unknown through their own pre-taught narrative, eventually arriving at preposterously wrong conclusions...

PI IN THE SKY by Fredric Brown
One night the brightest stars in the sky...468 of them to be exact...begin to move very quickly, appearing to defy the speed of light limitation in their motion.  Their night sky destination seems to be in the general area between the constellations Ursa Major and Leo...what's going on?  One of those wily old scientists common in sci-fi tales extrapolates the stars' motions and arrives at an impossible conclusion, leading to an old apartment building in Boston.  An impossible story with a semi-plausible explanation, more than anything it is a satire about our market culture and one of the funniest...

Next week I begin to look at the year 1946 in the universe of short science fiction literature...

Lyndon Johnson Biographer Robert Caro's Writing Suggestion

The other day I was listening to my local Public Radio station and they were interviewing Robert Caro, best known for his series of biographies about former president Lyndon Baines Johnson.  He was promoting his new book Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing and the discussion went back and forth between Johnson's presidency, his early life, and Caro's philosophy about writing.  With me being a history buff and having first broken into a sense of political awareness while still a little kid during Johnson's presidency in the mid-to-late 1960s, Caro was riveting with some of the stories.  But what made this interview memorable was his revelation about writing...

When Robert Caro was in college, he attended a creative writing course in which his professor assigned the students one short story per week.  Being a procrastinating crammer by nature as well as a gifted writer, Caro would wait until the night before it was due, conjure up a tale, and whip up a paper...always receiving a good grade.  But at the end his professor admonished him, saying that he needed to slow his writing down if he wanted to truly be great in the craft.  Later, while working as a journalist, Caro naturally had to write fast and to the point.  But when he set out to produce a book, he decided to write out his first drafts in longhand, which he says slowed down his writing enough to allow more of his thoughts to come through and influence it. That struck me as I had been under the impression that undertaking any lengthy, ambitious writing venture would naturally entail wanting to speed up the writing process...but Robert Caro's comments do make sense, now that I look at it...

I am so accustomed now to writing on a keyboard now that the idea of taking out pen and paper seems to be a challenge...after all, it's a lot easier to edit my spelling, grammar, and word choices in a word processor setting.   But I don't see why I necessarily have to abandon the computer with my writing.  Instead, since the goal is to slow things down, I could develop and employ a writing structure that forces me to pause and reflect on what I am writing and allow ideas that enrich the text to arise from the dark recesses of my mind.  Worth pursuing...

NBA and NHL Playoffs Worth Watching

The National Basketball Association and National Hockey League have finally begun their playoffs after regular seasons spanning more than 80 games, many of them played by teams "tanking" in order to receive higher draft picks next year as a reward for finishing lower in the standings.  Also, these regular season games have often featured marquee players sitting out entire games as a coaching strategy, in spite of the fact that they were the main factor drawing people to spend their hard-earned money to attend their games...what a ripoff.  One of the biggest stars, Lebron James, was actually shut down for the final games of the Los Angeles Lakers schedule after it became clear that they wouldn't make the playoffs.  Even if you ignore the letdown to Lakers fans (and those in cities the Lakers visited) with this decision, it also affected the other teams as those playing Los Angeles dealt with a lower level of competition when many were vying either to reach the playoffs or attain a higher seeding.  I'm not familiar with whether the NHL has these problems, but I imagine something similar has been going on as well.  But now we're in the playoffs and tanking and shutdowns are over...and that makes the games legitimate, finally...

I don't really have any teams in the playoffs that I am strongly rooting against, but I will note that for a number of seasons the Philadelphia 76ers had allegedly deliberately lost games during their lean years in order to secure higher draft picks and build the team that way...well, they have a strong team now and I don't feel like rewarding them for doing it that way.  In the NBA East the nearby Orlando Magic not only made the playoffs for the first time since 2012, they also surged at the season's end to finish with a winning record and beat the #2 seed Toronto Raptors on the road in the series' first game.  In the West I traditionally root for San Antonio and, like Orlando, the lower seeded Spurs upset their opponent Denver in their first game...go Spurs and Magic!  I also enjoy sitting back and savoring the excellence of the Golden State Warriors whenever they're on the air.  In the NHL I was going to pull for Tampa Bay throughout the playoffs, but the Lightning can't seem to score against a surging, defensively tough Columbus team in the first round and are behind 3 games to 0 and likely to exit the playoffs way too early.  After the Lightning, I don't have any particular favorite although for some reason I feel drawn to Boston and Vegas...let's see whether they get to the finals and make me appear psychic...

During this time there's almost always a playoff game going on late in the evening when I get off from work...ahh, games that actually matter with the coaches and players giving it their all, for a change...

Impending Storm and Some Personal Thoughts About Work

I sitting here at the Magnolia Parke Starbucks in northwestern Gainesville looking out the window, at the increasingly stormy-looking weather approaching us from the west.  We're supposed to get a storm passing through in the next hour or so...should be interesting to watch.  I'm enjoying this day off from work...that reminds me, a respected co-worker the other day posted on Facebook some sage advice about work that bears repeating.  Here are his four points: (1) Not everyone at your workplace is your friend. (2) Do your job. (3) Get paid. (4) Go home.  Just speaking for myself and my own work experiences, I think some good folks expect too much socially from their work environment and need to recognize that while we're all here together on the job it is much more important to be polite and respect others, both face-to-face and behind their backs...given that I'm certainly not anywhere near perfect myself in this area.  I don't automatically have to be a close friend in the workplace to others and they aren't in turn obligated to be overly friendly...and it doesn't have any bearing on our respective personalities, just our priorities.  Better that I'm the adult in the room and practice politeness, patience and discretion...while focusing on the tasks that I am there to perform in the first place.  In other words, a little professional detachment can go a long way toward making one's job not only bearable, but actually enjoyable and fulfilling.  And to my colleague's four points I'd like to add one that I've long adopted (and recently written about) from Max Ehrmann's prose poem Desiderata: Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexatious to the spirit. At least that's how it all seems to me...you and others are entitled to your own opinions on the subject based on your experiences...

Y'know, I think instead of just sitting here looking out the window at everything blowing around in the wind I'll go to my local gym and hit the treadmill and elliptical for a while.  Yes, it's good to be off from work, although it is a good job...

Just Finished Reading City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

I was doing my usual wandering-around browsing thing in Books-a-Million the other day when I turned down the "young adult" aisle of fiction.  There was a series, The Mortal Instruments, as well as other books by Cassandra Clare.  Inside the first book, titled City of Bones, was a rough map of New York City with various scenes from the story marked as to their location.  I decided to check it out, and just finished reading it.  The protagonist is Clary, a Manhattan teen, just turning 16, whose father had earlier mysteriously died and whose mother is suddenly very secretive about something.  On a lark of disobedience, Clary one night goes with her best friend, nerdy video-game enthusiast Simon, to Pandemonium, a local night club where teens are allowed.  She witnesses what appears to be the murder of a blue-haired boy by two other boys...and who is that mysterious girl who accompanied him to that back room where the killing occurred?  Incredibly, although Clary sees it all, no one else...including Simon...sees any of the people or events she describes.  The three perpetrators see her, though, and eventually reveal themselves as Jace, Alec, and Isabelle...Shadowhunters, whose mission as descendants of the Biblical angelic Nephilim is to seek out and destroy demons, of which that blue-haired "boy" was one.  And there is a reason for Clary's ability to see them while others can't...but that's later and I'm not giving away the story.  Instead, let me describe my general reactions to this book...

In at least this first book of the series, I suspect that the author was trying to capitalize on the success of the Harry Potter series, while using themes from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Star Wars. Valentine, the name of the villain here, sounds like Potter's nemesis Voldemort: starts with V, nine letters, three syllables, stress on the first one.  Plus,Valentine, like Voldemort, stresses the need for "purity" of paranormal beings...an allegory to racial bigotry.  As for Buffy, the combat is on as it's open season on those nasty demons.  And regarding Star Wars, remember all that convoluted stuff about whose father was who and who was brother and sister?  City of Bones is loaded with that sort of intrigue, which to me got quickly annoying.  For a young adult level of reading, though, I liked the story and want to see what happens to the various characters in the series...so I've already begun reading the next book, City of Ashes...

Later...I get home after writing this, turn on the TV, and what's on the Sy Fy channel?  Nothing other than the movie adaptation to City of Bones!  I'm not watching the whole thing, but it seems to me that they did a pretty impressive job with the beginning...

Quote of the Week...from Donald Trump

Little pencil-neck Adam Schiff.  He's got the smallest, thinnest neck I've ever seen.
                                                           Donald Trump, President of the United States of America

The above quote capsulizes why I will NEVER vote for Donald Trump for president...for that matter, not even for neighborhood poop-scooper if such an ignominious office ever existed.  Here is a standing president with all the responsibility, power, and authority which that important, historic office entails, repeatedly stooping to his comfort-zone level of schoolyard bully...I know because the low-lifes at my old school bus stop used to tag their targets with derogatory, demeaning nicknames...and the spineless kids around them, wanting to ingratiate the bullies, would repeat the insults.  Much like the grinning, nodding, cheering crowd of "adults" assembled behind Trump as he delivered the above quote to them at a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan on Thursday evening, March 28th.  You see, Adam Schiff is the Democratic chairman on the House Intelligence Committee and as such represents oversight and political opposition to our president, who through a number of statements has revealed his authoritarian tendencies as well as his open admiration of dictators worldwide...Trump has often described his political opposition as treasonous, even when Democrats didn't applaud some of his statements at the last State of the Union address before Congress.  The sad fact is that on some issues I happen to agree with our president, and on others that the far left in the Democratic Party have espoused I find myself I bit taken aback by their extremeness.  But serving as president of my United States of America is more than political ideology or even personal intelligence...character is involved here as well.  It's one thing that Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, and other presidents during their tenures would personally deride others in private conversations with confidants...it's entirely something else for a president to use the bully pulpit of his office to vociferously, publicly rally others to his hate-filled and offensive words targeting individuals who may have rubbed him the wrong way.  Ideology and issues fade in contrast with this president's disgusting behavior and attitude...it's a complete embarrassment to have him as my leader.  Donald Trump gets his fair share of criticism in the media, some of it personal...so did Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and so on.  There are established professional insulters on TV and radio like Stephen Colbert and Rush Limbaugh, some on the left and some on the right, who can engage in political tit-for-tat verbal scuffles and defend or attack the president and his opposition...Mr. Trump, who may have been received 62 million votes in the 2016 election, nevertheless represents the interests of all 300+ million of us... and does not need to be wallowing around himself in the mud. Then again, that seems to be what he likes doing the most...

Just Finished Reading (Again) Lisey's Story by Stephen King

I first read Stephen King's novel Lisey's Story in 2008, two years after it was first published. Considering it one of his greatest works, I returned and just finished rereading this tale of a woman's grief over her recently departed husband, a successful novelist, and her struggle against those trying to steal away his papers.  The story can be a bit difficult to read in that King jumps around frequently from one time period to another...usually in mid-sentence!  As the title intimates, it is Lisey's story, but it is also that of Scott, going back to his childhood and examining his family history of insanity as well as hitting upon different pivotal points in his marriage.  And of course there is the ongoing, horribly scary drama...as only Stephen King can write it...of a madman stalking Lisey for those papers.  In the backdrop is an imaginary place called "Boo'ya Moon"  to where, from childhood onward, Scott could retreat from the hostile real world, as well as draw out ideas for his stories...but how imaginary is it?  Lisey knows the answer, and her emotionally disturbed sister Amanda may as well...but I'll leave this mystery to you, the potential reader, to unravel at your own convenience...

Stephen King has long claimed that we all have a source within ourselves...like Scott's Boo'ya Moon...to which we can visit and replenish our imagination.  With each person it looks different, but King has pointed out in Lisey's Story that it also contains its own dangers, one of which is that it can be very tempting to remain there too long, making it difficult to return to the real world.  On the other hand, I think that while that may be true for a few, the problem with most of us is that we rarely get to know our own Boo'ya Moon...

More than anything, Lisey's Story is about a relationship of love, between Lisey and Scott Landon over the course of their lives together...and even beyond.  The level of honesty and intimacy between them makes this one of the most compelling love stories of our age.  But developing characters and making them seem so real has always, in my opinion, been Stephen King's greatest gift as a writer...

By the way, Lisey's Story is yet another one of those Stephen King novels set in the problematic small Maine town of Castle Rock...and, yes, my "favorite" King locale, Derry, is also referenced.  And it looks as if an eight-part TV miniseries based on the book is in the works...

Weekly Short Stories...1945 Science Fiction, Part 2

I continued looking back at 1945 and that year's best short science fiction which was selected for the retrospective anthology Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 7 (1945). These stories I have been reviewing almost all first appeared in monthly pulp publications like Astounding Science Fiction,  by far the most prominent sci-fi magazine of the time.  Here are the next four tales...with familiar authors as well..

FIRST CONTACT by Murray Leinster
First Contact is a story I first read before the others, many years ago.  It postulates what would happen if human explorers in deep space suddenly encountered a completely alien ship for the first time.  Leinster suggests that self-preservation...not only for the ship's crew but also for the home planet...would be the primary, overriding concern and that each ship would be duty-bound to destroy the other before it could signal or return back to its own world.  In the Crab Nebula, this scenario takes place as ships from Earth and the "other world" find themselves at an impasse, both completely understanding their predicament but unable to trust the other party enough to take steps to solve it.  Is there a reasonable resolution?  Guess you'll have to read it to find out...

THE VANISHING VENUSIANS by Leigh Brackett
I can't help thinking that Brackett had a strong allegory in mind by writing this tale of human pioneers from Earth struggling to find a place on oceanic, swampy Venus on which to establish their future homeland.  But the native life has different ideas and the humans find themselves in a life-or-death struggle...with consequences reminding me of what often happens to the indigenous inhabitants of a region when pioneers (or "aliens") pass through (or "invade") their land...

INTO THY HANDS  by Lester del Rey
Foreseeing the imminent destruction of humanity through mass robot-engineered planetwide warfare, a scientist invents three special robots, each with a special gifting, and entombs them in order that at a later date they will arise and help bring back civilization from the ashes.  Into Thy Hands is the story of these three as they emerge and struggle to discover their identities and purpose.  The ending is a complete surprise, totally brilliant...

CAMOUFLAGE by Henry Kuttner
Henry Kuttner's wife Catherine Moore the previous year wrote a short story (which I recently reviewed) titled No Woman Born in which a famous entertainer, after suffering through a tragic fire, has her brain placed in a robot's body.  Something similar to this happens in Camouflage as Quentin is the cyborg in question.  A plotting group of criminals hijacks a spaceship carrying an atomic plant to Jupiter's moon Callisto, but Quentin has been planted somewhere on it and controls the ship.  The race is on to find the metallic cylinder containing the cyborg's brain before he can kill them all and foil their plot.  Camouflage gave me the insight that when we're in vehicles like cars (or spaceships) we ourselves are much like cyborgs as our vehicles function as technological extensions to our own senses and appendages...and while we're in them we are just as much dependent on them for our survival as was Quentin in his cylinder...

Next week I'll conclude this look way back to 1945 in the intriguing universe of short science fiction...

Some Football, Basketball, Soccer, and Hockey Comments

The Association of American Football, a first-year pro league playing its season immediately following the Super Bowl and designed for football fans not quite ready to call an end to the sport until late summer, has cancelled the remainder of its schedule, reportedly with no more money to continue and dashed hopes of achieving its desired "minor league" recognition and support from the National Football League and players' union.  The little action I saw...largely because nearly all of the games were broadcast on obscure TV channels I didn't pick up...demonstrated a competitive level of play and the promise of interesting developing rivalries.  Well, that's too bad...I guess our Old Ball Coach Steve Spurrier, coach of the winning Orlando team, will be returning to his glory town of Gainesville to support the Gators...

The National Basketball Association regular season will soon end and lo and behold, the Orlando Magic have actually made the playoffs!  Hovering around a .500 record and destined to play either Milwaukee, Toronto, or Philadelphia in the first round, the cheering may be short-lived. Still, I'm proud of this franchise for finally lifting themselves up into contention after so many mediocre seasons...

Last night the Virginia Cavaliers won an exciting overtime game to become the 2018-19 NCAA Mens' Division I basketball champions over an overachieving, surging Texas Tech squad.  During the tournament the Red Raiders demonstrated one of the greatest, most tenacious defenses I've ever seen in college basketball...we haven't heard the last from them, I'm sure...

My interest in watching soccer matches and following the various international pro leagues has waned a bit this year...I'm still following the Mexican Liga MX, though, and it looks as if "my" UANL Tigres may be challenging for yet another championship in a few weeks...

And the National Hockey League is finally closing out its extremely tedious regular season, about to commence with what really counts (and what is really interesting): the playoffs.  The Tampa Bay Lightning have the league's best record, but can they translate their regular season success into a string of best-of-seven series wins?  We're about to find out...

Well, that's it for a while with sports. Until tomorrow...

Double Standard Between Treatment of Biden and Other Democratic Candidates

First of all, let me correct the error embedded with this article's title.  Joe Biden is not yet a candidate for president, but since the polls, media, and other candidates are already regarding him as one...and he's going around the country making political speeches like he's running, I'm going to join the pack and treat him like a candidate, too.  As soon as it was established that he would likely enter the race...and polls showed him with a clear lead over second-place Bernie Sanders, the darling of the far left, a Nevada state legislator, for whom Biden had campaigned in 2014, came out alleging he once touched her inappropriately onstage by kissing the back of her head.  Now pictures are coming out with her, an outspoken supporter of Bernie Sanders, in full-hug mode with her chosen candidate, their physical proximity apparently not an issue at all to her...how convenient for the both of them.  Biden, who has suffered heart-breaking tragic deaths within his own family, has long reached out to others in grief, physical hugging often accompanying their meetings.  I see folks in campaigns and rallies embracing all the time...including the expedient far left candidates who've expressed criticism of Biden recently, and it seems that this story of Biden's excesses is a phony, concocted one, to (1) get rid of the one strong, relatively moderate liberal in the race and (2) clear the field of the early leader to allow others a better chance of winning.  Sanders himself probably feels entitled to the 2020 Democratic Party nomination for president, this in spite of the fact that he has refused to actually become a member of the party and that Hillary Clinton...in spite of all the accusations of "rigging" the primary process...received more votes than him in 2016.  But I see in Bernie Sanders supporters a lot of that ominous blind allegiance that Donald Trump engendered during his campaign and thereafter.  Ol' Bernie can do no wrong in their minds...from my perspective he's just as sneaky as Trump, refusing to release his income tax returns.  I am sick and tired of people voting by cultish adoration of idols instead of judging the candidates by their records, character, and stances on the issues that matter most to them.  For those who supported Barack Obama's presidency, backing Joe Biden...or at least giving the dude the benefit of the doubt...would be a step in restoring a sense of honor and hope to that high office...the other Democratic candidates have yet to convince me that they deserve being elected, only that they're better than the current sitting president.  And that's a pretty low bar to boast about clearing...

Just Finished Reading Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

A few weeks ago I was browsing the shelves at my local Books-a-Million when, in the General Fiction section, I discovered several beautiful-looking books by Diana Gabaldon: the Outlander series.  I picked up the 1991 title novel in this eight-part series and stood there reading through the first chapter.  Very well written with compelling characters and told from the point of view of Claire Randall, the protagonist, I decided to take on the book and the greater series.  Well, I just finished reading Outlander and naturally have a few reactions...

Claire Randall is a British nurse who has just returned from duty in 1945 at the close of World War II.  She and her recently married husband Frank had been separated due to the war...she was stationed at medical facilities in France tending to wounded soldiers.  But now they are reunited and decide to spend a second honeymoon in Inverness, Scotland, where Frank, a professor of history, wants to do research on his family tree.  They discover a distant ancestor, John Randall, who was an English army captain stationed in Scotland in the 1740s...which incidentally was also the time of the Scottish uprising against English rule and the brutal war which took place there.  It's all interesting family history to Claire, but nothing more...until while collecting flowers around a group of ancient standing stones, she is suddenly transported back to that exact time.  The adventure ensues as Claire has to come to grips with the fact that she is a stranger in time...and suspicious to all in this polarized era of nationalism and Scottish clan factionalism.  That's about all I can reveal except to say that Outlander isn't just historical fiction and adventure crossed with a dab of science fiction and fantasy: a great part of the narrative reads like a romance novel...y'know, lurid, explicit scenes and all.  Which is fine if you're into that sort of thing, but I found it a bit tedious to get through...

I don't know what to expect for the rest of the series, which I'm planning to resume in the near future, but I do know that Gabaldon did a masterful job of presenting what must have been a very difficult task: going back 250 years in time to a different culture and society and making me, the reader, feel that I was back then and there as well.  Her characters are very believable and she delves deeply into their various personalities and backgrounds.  Besides Claire, the second most important character is a young Scotsman named Jamie Fraser, who is wanted by the English for various crimes and who especially arouses the wrath...among other things...of Captain Randall, who turns out to be a sadistic villain.  Well, here I go revealing more than I intended...I think I'll just let it go at that and move on to reading the next book in the series, titled Dragonfly in Amber.  By the way, I read that Starz has begun a series based on Outlander...but I'm not watching it until I finish reading the rest of the book series.  After all, I've seen how the Sy Fy Channel completely mutilated Lev Grossman's fantastic The Magicians series with their so-called "adaptation"...

NCAA Basketball Final Four This Evening

The Final Four of the 2019 NCAA Men's Basketball Championship Tournament commences this event, the 6:09 game featuring Auburn against Virginia, followed at 8:49...presuming the first game ends in regulation...by Texas Tech vs. Michigan State.  Minneapolis, Minnesota is the site for these games, which culminate Monday evening at 9 when today's winners face off for the championship...all three games will be shown on CBS...

I was disappointed that North Carolina, my tournament favorite after my Florida Gators got knocked out by Michigan in the round of 32, lost to Auburn.  But I'm gratified to see both Duke and Kentucky...respectively the main rivals of the Tar Heels and Gators...bow out before reaching the Final Four.  I'm left with Michigan State, a traditional favorite of mine due to their exuberant and brilliant head coach Tom Izzo, to cheer on the rest of the way.  These four surviving teams promise very competitive and close games, which has been the rule more than the exception during the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight rounds.  Auburn and Texas Tech seem to be surging and peaking...if I went on my gut instinct I'd say that these two advance after today with Tech winning it all.  But most sports pundits are running with top-seeded Virginia...other than the Spartans winning, I just want to see some exciting, well-played basketball...

Quote of the Week...from Max Ehrmann

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.                                            --Max Ehrmann, Desiderata

I first heard the prose poem Desiderata, composed nearly a century ago by writer Max Ehrmann, on the radio in 1972.  Disc jockey Les Crane, with a instrumental and choral background, recorded and released then a popular single (which I own) on which he recited the entire piece...it made a deep impression on me then and throughout the subsequent years.  The above excerpt is perhaps the most powerful part of Desiderata as it gives very practical advice for dealing with potentially adversarial and destructive relationships...both to see trouble coming and to avoid becoming complicit in it.  As for the first part about loud and aggressive persons, I tend to avoid them like the plague, recognizing in the process that perhaps there is a useful place in the world for this personality type...but not around me.  If you're pushing a point for me to consider and being forceful about it, you've lost the argument before you've even made it...maybe that's not one of my "good" points, but there you are.  As for comparing myself with others, I've found that my problem hasn't been so much me doing the comparing about them but rather them doing the comparing about me...and then letting me know (sometimes in a loud and/or aggressive manner) their "verdicts".  As I tend to be singular and task-oriented about how I structure my activities, work, and goals and am not excessively concerned about how I stack up about what I do (or am) in others' estimations, I'm sure that quite a few folks come to the conclusion that I don't care about their opinions of me.  But like just about everyone else on this planet, I want to be accepted and esteemed by others...but only up to a point.  Spending my time obsessing on how I stand in someone else's evaluation of me seems like a monumental waste of a perfectly good life, and I've seen enough in the media over the years of great achievers, be it in entertainment, government, the intellect, adventures, athletics, amassing wealth, or any other area our society places value on, whose lives apart from their area of accomplishment are complete shambles...I'm content with being the person I am, thank you...

About Biden's Public Physicality

I’ve been seeing some of the footage, some of it several years old and often openly, publicly available, of former vice-president and presumed 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden getting close to various women, leaning over them and whispering, and the like. The “scandal” about Joe’s “creepy” behavior was sparked by a Nevada state legislator for whom he campaigned in 2014 and who claimed that he kissed the back of her head onstage...this she now says bothered her. Of course, nothing was said at the time and guess what! it turns out she’s a big supporter of Bernie Sanders, second in the polls right now to Biden. How cynical...Biden’s been on visual record as being close and familiar with everyone...male and female...although his contacts with women seem more intimate. Back in 2015 Jon Stewart made fun of him for this tendency on his Daily Show comedy program,.  But now he’s being crucified, especially by the Democratic left and its plethora of frustrated presidential candidates, for just being himself. In public.  Yes, I think Biden overstepped, but did so in innocence in spite of the self-serving, expedient political correctness going on now to knock him out of the race before he's even started. I’d like to assemble a video recording of all those politicians criticizing Biden’s behavior showing all the times THEY are publicly, physically close with those around them...

Now that I've dispensed with the political spin on Biden's obvious public physicality, let me address my own feelings about public embracing and people getting into each others' physical spaces.  I remember the old opening segment of The Mary Tyler Moore Show where Lou, Murray, and Ted are taking turns hugging Mary...seems like this kind of set in motion the idea that in order to express simple friendship, folks have to get into it physically...Biden seems to have adopted this notion, one with which I strongly disagree.  But whereas a simple, brief hug...and my preferred, more respectful alternative, the half-hug...have been largely accepted as common social discourse, there are people who regularly tend to get too close as well as those who feel the need to "reach out and touch" when they are engaged in dialogue.  In this I'm like the women complaining about Biden...get out of my space!  But I'm not going to act at the time like everything's hunky-dory and then come out years later like it was some kind of traumatic event...if this is part of the "Me Too" movement, then they need to sort out their priorities.  Personally, I don't even like to shake hands, preferring instead to give a friendly wave of my hand or the "thumbs up" sign.  But I'm just one person in the ocean of humanity and sometimes "going with the flow" is dictated...

Weekly Short Stories: 1945 Science Fiction, Part 1

I continue my look far back into the past as I go through the anthology series Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories, starting on the book of science fiction short stories from 1945.  Here are the first five stories from that book...

THE WAVERIES by Fredric Brown
This story is set in the present...meaning 1945 when radio is the dominant broadcasting medium.  One day Morse code begins to interrupt and override programming on all frequencies...George Bailey, an advertising executive for a large firm, jumps into the mystery.  After a while and further shutdowns of radio and the electric grid, he and others discover the cause: alien life forms from a system light-years distant that subsist on radio waves and electricity have arrived on Earth.  It seems that when the first Morse code transmissions eventually reached them years earlier, they detected "food" and rushed across space at the speed of light to Earth.  The author examines the ramifications of this on human society...talk about sugar-coating a monumental disaster...

THE PIPER'S SON by Lewis Padgett
After the big nuclear war and its accompanying radiation, a mutant race of telepathic humans...marked by their baldness...arises.  Realizing that their ability makes them look threatening to many in "normal" society and this in turn could threaten their own existence, most of them have adopted strict codes of behavior to moderate and restrict their mind-reading in the presence of others.  But there are renegade "Baldies" that demand full rights and the complete expression of their talents.  This story reminded me how sometimes smart kids feel the need to mask their superior intelligence in order to "fit in" with others and not be isolated and bullied...

WANTED---AN ENEMY by Fritz Leiber
A pacifist, with the aid of a mysterious device that transports him to Mars and insulates him in a protective bubble, asks the inhabitants there to please invade Earth in order to unite his home planet against a common enemy and in the process end its self-destructive wars.  That attack need not be extensive, he stresses, and they can take back "loot" if they want.  The Martians, who had in the distant past been at peace with the Venusians after their own war, listen to this proposal with skepticism...and then offer their own plan.  The story's surprise ending completely upends the idealistic man's mission as he utters a memorable closing line...

BLIND ALLEY by Isaac Asimov
Asimov examines here the gobbledygook that typifies bureaucratic communications as an entrenched bureaucrat in the Galactic Empire, thoroughly adept in the art of working the system, devises an intricate plan to further his own agenda regarding the fate of a non-human race of intelligent beings seeking a better life and future.  It was funny reading the obscurely-worded messages going back and forth between him and "headquarters"...

CORRESPONDENCE COURSE by Raymond F. Jones
This is a story that starts out about one thing, a convalescing soldier, presumably during the ongoing World War II, whose love Ruth was killed during a bombing raid on a medical camp.  Back home again, Jim drags his injured leg with his cane down his long driveway, encountering the mailman, who hands him his mail: an ad for a correspondence course from an Iowa school touting "power coordination" and how it will be the energy and technology future for us all, promising to train enrollees to be proficient in it.  First rejecting the offer, then on a whim enrolling, Jim discovers that this is a bona-fide course, learning incredibly new and exciting things about math and technology.  But when he tries to trace back to the school's location he gets stymied...that's when the story begins its strange turns.  And the ending is a bit shocking, to say the least.  If I had to recommend one of these five stories, Correspondence Course would be first and foremost...

Next week: more about short science fiction from 1945...

Some Comments About the United States Senate

As you might already know if you regularly read this blog, I am an avid fan of the United States Senate floor proceedings, broadcast live on C-Span2 (Cox Channel 81 in Gainesville). The United States Senate "usually" convenes on Monday at 3 pm and Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 9:30 or 10 am...not a lot of action for a body that complains of not having enough time to do all its work. At the opening of each session is a prayer, thoughtfully and reverently delivered usually by Senate Chaplain Barry Black, followed by the Pledge to the Flag and an opening statement by the Majority Leader, usually later followed by the Minority Leader and/or assistant leaders.  It is these speeches that I tune in to hear, for they reflect to a great degree what the two major parties are up to with their visions and agendas.  Later today, for example they will hold a floor vote...doubtlessly split along party lines...that will drastically reduce the debate time before final confirmation vote for the President's nominees that are not for the Supreme Court or Cabinet-level positions, going from 30 hours to only 2.  I support this move as far as departmental bureaucratic leadership positions are concerned since they are pertinent only to the ongoing administration.  But for lifetime positions on the Federal Court, prospective judges should receive greater time and scrutiny as once they are confirmed they will wield enormous power over all Americans...and that should concern you regardless of your political orientation.  It's even more imperative to have more time to look at and discuss their records because after then-Majority Leader Harry Reid (a Democrat) got rid of the 60-vote threshold in 2014 to end debate on this level of judicial nomination and the current Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell (a Republican) refuses to honor the Blue Slip tradition of both senators having to sign off on a nominee from their state before he or she can be considered, more ideologically and judicially extreme and less qualified candidates have a much easier time getting a simple majority to pass and be confirmed to their life-long posts.  But McConnell is determined to see this bill passed, and much like Reid's earlier mistake will probably see his adversary party, the Democrats, eventually take full advantage of the ill-advised change when they take back power, which is only a matter of time and probably sooner than the Majority Leader shortsightedly imagines...

The United States Senate's website, which you can access by click on the link US Senate, provides up-to-date information on all the senators and recent votes...as well as providing information about the sometimes curious way by which this body of Congress operates.  I wish more senators would make floor speeches about their views on different issues...if seems that most of the Senate's time is spent in quorum calls as the chamber is empty other than the Senate staff and the presiding officer...

Rain, Rain, and More Rain in Gainesville Today

In Gainesville, today is one of those days when the rainy, intermittently stormy weather makes me glad to be spending most of it indoors at work...although I have to admit I am enjoying the cool temperatures.  This has been a peculiar winter/spring: in February we saw temperatures climb into the nineties and yet may see it dip into the forties later this week.  Besides the ground around my house getting oversaturated with water, it looks as if I'm going to need to mow the lawn soon since the grass seems to visibly grow overnight after this kind of downpour, which seems to have become relatively commonplace during the past few years.  It's forecast to rain all day, lighten up later at night, and then resume tomorrow morning.  Then, after it's all over, I plan to go out for a good, long neighborhood run...assuming that happens before I have to go back to work...