My August 2019 Running Report

In August I ran for a total of 70 miles, 7 of them on the 1st...my longest single run of the month.  I missed running on 11 days, having taken some time off for our trip to Indiana and Chicago and some as a reaction to respiratory allergy attacks after our return to the Pollen State of Florida. No, this past month wasn't one of my best, but I plan to work on training for longer distances in September and the months beyond, God willing.  I still would like to run in the Tom Walker Memorial Half-Marathon in November...

Quote of the Week...from Nick Saban

If you want to talk s___ to the other team, join the g-- d---- debate team.       ---Nick Saban

You can fill in the appropriate blanks to get what Alabama head football coach Nick Saban really said in a comment about some of his players to an Alabama website to get the full impact of his barely-repressed anger about competitive athletes...especially those under his authority...who are completely into trash talking their opponents, rivals, and critics.  In the age of Twitter and Facebook, a player no longer needs to wait for an interview in order to make his or her views known, and often on a very immature and insult-laden level.  When I heard of Saban's comment this morning on my MSN newsfeed, I was immediately reminded of how last Saturday our own University of Florida quarterback Feleipe Franks, already in his junior year, couldn't resist turning around on his sideline bench and shouting down some Miami fans.  Franks has a problem about perceiving disrespect, and it seems to pervade every aspect of his game...he's been known to verbally go at it with officials when a call goes against him.  But when players conduct themselves with dignity and focus on what the chain of command on their team is communicating to them instead of distractions from the outside, then they will automatically engender not only a greater sense of personal dignity but also resistance to worrying about being "dissed".  It's a vicious cycle, demanding that others respect you while you retaliate against perceived sleights...real or imagined...by going after others.  It's the complete reversal of the Biblical "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" mantra...unfortunately, our president seems to be suffering from the same problem and is only encouraging others to emulate him through his poor example. Then again, Saban himself could probably benefit by pausing and reflecting on his own sometimes bellicose and undignified behavior toward his perceived adversaries...

Approaching, Dangerous Hurricane Dorian Ruins Labor Day

This week has been...and will continue to be...all about Hurricane Dorian as it first passed through as a strong tropical storm through the Windward Islands and then veered more northerly just east of Puerto Rico as it attained hurricane strength.  Although its projected strength upon mainland U.S. landfall has changed a lot...from Tuesday morning to 24 hours later it jumped from 70 to 115 mph sustained winds and now it is at 125...the dreaded red "cone of probability" has consistently been the entire Florida peninsula, with the most likely area of its eye's landing being the central part of the state.  Talk about ruining a perfectly good holiday, Labor Day: its landfall is forecast to take place that Monday.  As for Gainesville, I don't think we've yet experienced hurricane-force winds since I moved here in 1977, although Irma in 2017 and Frances and Jeanne in 2004 produced sustained tropical storm levels.  Hopefully, the storm will quickly pass on through, while being inland in the middle of the peninsula helps us with the winds, which if it strikes us will have diminished a bit from the level it was at on the shore...but now is the time to stock up and make preparations.  And there are plenty more days till Monday for the Weather Channel to "up" its predicted intensity.  Wonder which beaches the celebrity meteorologists will be assigned to...

Now it's 11 am and the new forecast has Dorian reaching maximum sustained winds of 130 mph at landfall.  Maybe I should just stop watching the Weather Channel, sigh...

Weekly Short Stories: 1950 Science Fiction, Part 4

I continued reexamining my old anthology of outstanding science fiction tales as published in the paperback Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 12 (1950) with four more entries to discuss today.  So without any further ado, here they are...

MISBEGOTTEN MISSIONARY...Isaac Asimov
The notion of an entire planet under a collective consciousness...even encompassing inorganic matter...is the focus here as a second exploratory mission from Earth desperately tries to avoid contamination and ultimate incorporation into the mass entity after the first failed and had to destroy themselves and their ship.  I wonder whether the Star Trek: The Next Generation folks picked up on this theme more than thirty years later when they invented the Borg, another aggressive mass consciousness.  Asimov originally titled it Green Patches and used it when he included the story in his own collections...

TO SERVE MAN...Damon Knight
Long considered one of the greatest Twilight Zone episodes with giant Richard Kiel, later known as the villain Jaws in a couple of Roger Moore James Bond movies, as the Kannabit ambassador to Earth.  In the written story the Kannabit, an alien race that arrives on our planet in the present time (that is, 1950) and seems to have just about every solution to our technological and social problems, are instead short, thick, and very ugly.  Still, humanity blindly welcomes them and accepts their "contributions"...unaware of their true motives until the end. I felt that the Twilight Zone version greatly improved on the original one...

COMING ATTRACTION...Fritz Lieber
If anything is for certain, it is that humanity will adapt itself to any calamity and seek to normalize it.  Lieber comfirms this with Coming Attraction, a dark look at a dystopian world that has already just suffered through a nuclear war and is preparing for another...the women in America have adopted veils apparently to conceal the ravages of radiation upon their faces.  Written in a tough-guy Mickey Spillane style in the first person, Wysten Turner, a British man on a business trip to New York city, describes a nightmare world of a violent society rising up as a response to the military violence recently imposed on them.  Both editors of the anthology described this story as very important and setting the trend for many future sci-fi short stories in the 1950s and later...

A SUBWAY NAMED MOBIUS...A.J. Deutsch
I've read this great story, believed to be the only one that Deutsch, an astronomer accomplished enough in his profession to have a moon crater named for him, had ever published...or even written, for that matter.  I reviewed it in May, 2017...here's a link to that article: [Subway]. The premise is simple: the current mass transit rail systems in major cities can get so complex that a map of them can resemble something like a plate of spaghetti.  Insert some topological notions about an extra dimension and here is a tale about a train...complete with passengers...that disappears in transit along the line.  A mathematician naturally expert in topology is consulted to investigate...I loved the ending and this is one of my all-time favorite science fiction short stories...

Next week I conclude my look back at 1950 in the realm of quality science fiction short stories...

Just Finished Reading Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

At that same Orlando airport bookstore where I found John Green's recent "Turtles" novel, I also came across Celeste Ng's 2017 book Little Fires Everywhere...and resolved to make it my next reading project.  It is set during the late 1990s...before the age of smartphones and when pocket pagers were considered cool among the high school crowd...in the Cleveland, Ohio suburb of Shaker Heights.  The Richardsons are an established, affluent family of six...husband, wife, their two daughters and two sons...all the children are teens...living in comfort in their big house.  They rent out to others on their other property, a duplex down the road.  Among these tenants is a mother and daughter family, Mia and Pearl Warren. Mia, who moves Pearl and herself a lot from city to city and seems to be concealing an old secret, is getting by working odd jobs and selling her pictures, photography as an art form being her big passion in life.  Pearl gets introduced to the Richardson family and develops different levels of friendship with the children...except young Izzy (from Isabel), who looks askance at her family's privileged, materialistic outlook on the world and is very sensitive to matters of justice.  The two families eventually look as if they are going to hit if off very well with each other until a bitter child custody case erupts between a baby's natural Chinese mother who had left her at a fire station and the upper-middle class white family that adopts her...

Little Fires Everywhere, although looking closely at the personalities, attitudes, and relationships of teen-agers, is more than a young adult novel.  It raises the question of how people in our country, in the midst of so many social safety nets, can still find themselves in such a state of economic desperation that they would take extraordinary measures...such as that young Chinese woman.  Also, in custody cases should the natural parents' ethnicity be considered, implying if so that an ethnic/cultural group has collective rights as opposed to individuals? I found it all intriguing and the author masterfully laid it all out, but her portrayals of Pearl and the Richardson children to me was brilliant.  My favorite character?  Who else but Izzy!  Little Fires Everywhere begins with the burning down of the Richardson house, so in revealing this information I'm not spoiling the plot.  But who started the fire...and evidence is clearing showing that it was deliberate.  A couple of the children already are blaming "crazy" Izzy, who among everyone in the family is nowhere to be seen...guess you'll have to read it to find out the answer...

My 500 All-Time Favorite Songs: #500-491

As promised a few weeks ago, today I am beginning my list, from "worst" to best, of my top 500 favorite songs of all-time.  Now keep in mind that I'm not rating these for their artistry or general historical significance but rather am applying very, very personal, subjective standards.  Chances are that you've already heard many of them...for the ones you haven't, I suggest you do an online search and listen to them: I think they're worth it.  By the way, I found myself painfully having to omit many wonderful pieces of music that just didn't make the "cut"...so even these songs at the "bottom" of my list are pretty special to me.  Well, here they are, starting with #500...

500 YESTERDAY...the Beatles
Not one of my very most-liked Beatles songs, but as a slow ballad...and I generally dislike slow ballads...this would easily be near the top of that list.  Paul McCartney aced his solo performance of it in '65 on Ed Sullivan.  Be prepared to encounter many more Beatles songs later on...

499 100 OTHER LOVERS...DeVotchKa
I'm not sure how I came across this Colorado-based indie group, but this title song of their 2011 album had a chilling, mysterious effect on me that year (and still does).  I bet you've never heard of it...

498 WESTERN UNION...the Five Americans
I moderately liked this 1967 hit when it came out...in later years I grew to appreciate it as a well-packaged piece of popular musical art...

497 GREEN TAMBOURINE...the Lemon Pipers
I had the same reaction with this one as with #497...it's from 1968 and I bought the single nine years later while browsing through Peaches on Sunrise Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale...

496 TWO TIMING TOUCH AND BROKEN BONES...the Hives
Combining brash, screaming punklike vocals and intense guitar virtuosity into a two minute experience...the Hives are an underrated Swedish alternative rock band. I first heard this song on my local alternative rock station 100.5/"The Buzz" back in 2005...

495 STUPID GIRL...Garbage
Rock 104, my radio station of choice when I was working the long hours on the letter-sorting machine back in 1995-96, played this song a lot and, the song's misogynous-sounding title notwithstanding, Garbage singer Shirley Manson made me one of their fans with her brilliant performance...

494 NEIGHBORHOOD #3 (POWER OUT)...Arcade Fire
Another song I first heard played on "the Buzz" several times around 2006-07, but without knowing who did it or even what the title was. I later became interested in this band and was surprised to hear it on their Funeral album...

493 THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME...Led Zeppelin
Although I had loved their epic Stairway to Heaven since the early 1970s,  I didn't know much of Led Zeppelin's catalog until the first box set came out in 1990...that's when I first heard this song featuring Jimmy Page's incredible guitar talent and singer Robert Plant struggling to keep up...

492 I FOUGHT THE LAW...the Bobby Fuller Four
When this tune hit the airwaves (over local Miami station WQAM "Tiger Radio") in 1966, I generally either ignored it or switched over to WFUN.  Now I think it's one of the best songs to come out that year...tragically, Fuller mysteriously died in his parked car the same year, along with his promising musical career...

491 OH VERY YOUNG...Cat Stevens
Cat Stevens during the early 1970s composed and performed many sensitive and emotionally-gripping songs...this one was an ongoing radio hit at the time of my high school graduation in May, 1974...how appropriate a song to this era in my life...

Next Monday I'll cover #490-481...

About Last Night's Gators vs. Hurricanes Football Game

The University of Florida football team usually starts its seasons with one or two home games against smaller college opponents, but of late they've been including major schools: yesterday's game in Orlando against the University of Miami is an example.  The Gators started this season ranked #8, for all that is worth, and the Hurricanes, hoping to bounce back from a disappointing season last year, were the clear underdogs.  But extremely sloppy play by UF...including 225 yards in penalties and 4 turnovers, the last one a foolish underthrown pass by junior Gator quarterback Feleipe Franks deep in his own territory while trying to protect a flimsy 24-20 lead late in the game...threatened their chances at victory.  Still, the Florida defense stood up and stymied Miami's inspired offense when it mattered most, after suffering through a plethora of missed tackles for much of the game.  Gators sacked the UM quarterback 10 times and held them to losses on several other downs.  And Franks had his moments as well, accurately throwing two 60+ yard bombs...his long-distance passing ability is something Florida had been lacking since Tim Tebow's tenure there. As for the penalties, I understand how a defensive player might inadvertently carry his own momentum into the ball carrier once they were already out-of-bounds, especially when they sometimes will choose to instead make a sideline cut to stay in...that can be a difficult call to make and better decisions along those lines can be made in future games.  But the offensive holding calls trouble me a bit, since Franks was already usually pressured and their running game was sporadic at best against the Hurricanes defense.  But that just might also be due to Miami's defense and not necessarily be exposing a Gator offensive line problem...

No, the Florida victory over Miami was definitely not pretty, but the way I see it is if they played this way each game for the rest of the season and continually won close, mistake-hampered contests, you know what that would mean?  It would mean that the Gators are National Champions.  In any event, I am glad the game is behind us and I can go back to enthusiastically rooting for both Florida and Miami as they are my clear preferences within their respective conferences...

Just Finished Reading Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

Having already read his 2004 young adult novel Looking for Alaska about three years ago, I was intrigued by a recent 60 Minutes interview with author John Green, who discussed his ongoing YouTube project as well as his own difficulties with obsessive-compulsive disorder.  And he revealed that this topic is a prominent feature of his 2017 book Turtles All the Way Down...I filed that one away in my mind.  While waiting for our plane to Indianapolis a couple of Wednesdays ago in the Orlando airport bookstand, I ran across this novel and henceforth decided to delve into it and see what all the hoopla was about.  Well, I just finished reading it and have my own reactions...

First of all, I heartily recommend Turtles All the Way Down, which incidentally is another young adult novel...I generally dig this genre.  It is coincidentally set in Indianapolis where high school upperclassman Aza Holmes, a straight-A student, has a big problem: part of her mind believes that the microorganisms teeming within her body (and everyone's, for that matter) will eventually consume her...particularly a dangerous bacteria called C. diff....although intellectually she is aware that it's all abnormal thinking. Still, she listens to the thoughts in her head telling her how dangerous contact with others is and continually cuts the healing scab in her finger, applies sanitizer, and rebandages it.  Her father died a few years earlier of a heart attack and her mother, a math teacher at the same school, understands her OCD as she has her attend therapy sessions regularly along with prescribed medication, medication Aza usually forgoes.  Aza has a close friend, Daisy Ramirez, who challenges her to look for her early childhood friend, Davis Pickett, after his wealthy father disappeared to avoid arrest on corruption charges...you see, $100,000 has been offered for anyone finding him.  So there are two main subplots intertwining themselves through this story: Aza's obsessive-compulsive disorder, as experienced by herself, and the mystery of Russell Pickett's disappearance combined with the rekindled relationship between Davis and Aza.  I felt that John Green did a masterful job of making all the main characters in the book sympathetic, although in the area of believability I think he might of taken some liberties.  For example, he pretty much painted a picture in this story...as he did in Looking for Alaska...of the children being oh-so learned and philosophically deep, especially as opposed to the relatively dim-witted and stuck-in-their-ways adults around them.  Davis is deeply rooted in classic literature and poetry, writing stuff on his blogs that one might expect a literary scholar to compose.  And Daisy, who in normal discourse sounds a bit shallow and impulsive, has written several short stories (based on the Star Wars Wookiee character)...with thousands of fans worldwide...by painstakingly typing them out on her smartphone.  Then again, maybe this precociousness is typical of this generation, who knows.  I did like these "super" characters, though...

As for Aza's preoccupation with what was going on in her body on a microscopic level, I think that this is an example of wrongly applying our notions of what is aesthetically pleasing or disgusting on our own scale to a completely different, alien scale.  Yes, although we all have billions of miniscule creepy-crawly critters inside us...and always will as long as we are alive...most of us can reconcile ourselves to this without it consuming our thoughts, while others (like Aza) cannot...

Turtles All the Way Down was a good investment of my reading time and I look forward to hearing others' reactions to it.  Go ahead and pick up a copy, you know you want to...

Quote of the Week...from a Fortune Cookie

Each day, compel yourself to do something you would rather not do.    
                                                        ---fortune cookie from local Chinese restaurant.

There is a very good little Chinese restaurant close to my workplace.  Although I wouldn't want to eat that style every day, sometimes the mood hits me and I'll call in and order on my way and pick it up or eat it there.  Yesterday I got my usual hot and sour soup with eggroll and took it to my break room at work.  Usually they throw in a fortune cookie and sure enough, there it was.  I cracked it open and looked at the little slip of paper: lucky numbers on one side and a saying on the other.  This time the saying, which I copied above, actually carried some meaning to me.  Of course, each day I am already compelling myself to do lots of things I would rather not do...that's just a part of toughing it out in this sometimes demanding and unkind life.  What I think the sage genius who came up with this "fortune" really meant, though, is to do something new that I don't want to do...and of course, something that is constructive and relevant.  And if it is something that carries on the next day or is a regular activity, then I keep it up while the following day I find something new I don't want to do and do it.  This way, after a year...or maybe just a couple of months...I have completely transformed my life by throwing away old bad habits, adopting good ones, and prioritizing what's important and what isn't.  H-m-m-m, and all from a happenstance fortune cookie somebody slipped into my bag of food...

Evening at Chicago's Millennium Park

After checking into our hotel on Wacker Street late afternoon on the Sunday before last, our party of three tourists intent on exploring Chicago (Melissa, Will, and I) decided to walk a short distance south to try some of their Chicago-style deep-dish pizza at Giordano's, a local chain.  The pizza's preparation took a while, and it wasn't until the sun had set that we finally set out for the nearby Millennium Park.  I was wondering whether the sightseeing there would be diminished without the sun shining down on everything, but from the above photos it's clear that nighttime is THE time to go there! In the second picture is Millenium Monument, situated in  the park's northwestern corner against a spectacular backdrop of lit-up skyscrapers.  Photo #1 is of the park's main draw: the imposing Cloud Gate, more commonly referred to as "The Bean", constructed by a British-Indian artist and finished in 2006...with very shiny stainless steel throwing off incredible curves and reflections.  We walked around it, taking selfies and examining the peculiar optics...I'm not quite sure what it was for, but it was definitely intriguing! Further south we walked and encountered the Crown Fountain, which is essentially a wading pool bordered by two tall vertical rectangular slabs facing each other.  And I mean "facing" literally: the slabs feature close-up faces of random people from diverse backgrounds, each gradually changing his or her expression and then, at the end, blowing a spray of water out of the mouth into the pool...where little children scream with delight and run around while their parents and family patiently put up with it all. It's cute and interactive...and totally unique as far as I can tell...

 We were getting pretty tired at the end of this travel-intensive day, so we ended our walk through the part soon after the "face slabs" and returned to our hotel.  There is a lot more to Millennium Park...and the adjacent Grant Park further south... than we experienced.  Next to the Millennium Monument is a sophisticated bandshell for concerts (none were held this evening), and other parts may have been only available during daytime hours.  But we knew our stay in Chicago had some serious time constraints so we subsequently moved on to other things.  On any return trip, though, I plan to completely cover this area...

Weekly Short Stories: 1950 Science Fiction, Part 3

I continued reading (again) through the anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 12 (1950) as I have four more science fiction tales to review that came out that year so long ago.  Here they are...

THE ENCHANTED VILLAGE by A.E. van Vogt
Bill Jenner is the only surviving member of an exploratory mission to Mars, crashing into the desert about two hundred miles from the polar ice cap...a destination he needs to reach by foot to get the needed water for survival.  But the desert is proving impassable, and he realizes that he will probably die there.  Then he sights what looks like an abandoned "village", clearly designed for what used to be that planet's indigenous beings.  But the food the automated system there provides is gross and indigestible, the shower burns his skin, and there is a very dissonant, unpleasant screeching sound pervading the area.  Realizing that this village will not help him to survive, Bill descends into a deep, "final" sleep.  But then there's the ending to this story, one of the greatest ever I've encountered in this genre...

ODDY AND ID by Alfred Bester
It's off in the future and Oddy, namely Oddyseus Gaul, is a seemingly normal boy except for the fact that events around him, apparently working in random fashion, always seem to come together to bring him luck.  This trait of his eventually becomes known to some men of different professions and they debate what to do with this individual, since they regard him as potentially very dangerous as he gets older...or can they train him somehow to only desire what is for the general good of society?  And that is where "Id", the second part of the story's title, kicks in and delivers a knockout ending...

THE SACK by William Morrison
On one of the asteroids is discovered the "Sack", a motionless-but-sentient being, almost indistinguishable from the surrounding rocks and resembling a potato sack...hence the name.  The astronauts exploring there become aware of someone speaking inside their heads...and offering stunningly accurate answers to their questions.  Once the Sack's existence and powers of knowledge are revealed, some devious, powerful elements in government decide that they want to control it...but the Sack has a will of its own and insists on just one man to be its nexus to the outside, a man alone among the others who it knows is honest.  To that I would add "far-sighted and compassionate" as his virtues.  For me at least, The Sack paints an allegorical picture of how humanity over the millennia have tended to regard and treat other life forms only by the standard of how much they themselves can benefit from them.  This story points to an alternative way of seeing things...

THE SILLY SEASON by Cyril Kornbluth
Once again cynical Mr. Kornbluth comes up with another tale ripping on the society around him...this time it's about the weird stories that often get reported as news.  A newspaper reporter, during a period of slow news activity, has to look for special interest stories to report on...this is called the "silly season" because, well, the stories appearing during this time tend to be just that.  The Silly Season is a sci-fi adaption to the old "Boy Who Cried Wolf" children's tale...the main difference is that unlike in that old traditional story, it's the "wolf" here that's pulling all the strings.  Not my favorite Kornbluth story...I much preferred The Little Black Bag, which I reviewed back on 8/7...

Next Wednesday I continue reviewing science fiction short stories from 1950...

Just Finished Reading The Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie

The Murder on the Links is an early, 1923 Hercule Poirot mystery novel by Agatha Christie. It sets up the polite, emotionally-discerning Belgian detective against Giraud, a young French counterpart who emphasizes physical evidence and regards Poirot and his methods with contempt.  Also, the narrator, Poirot's companion Captain Hastings, plays a very similar role to the Dr. Watson character in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes series as Poirot is continually trying to teach him...usually unsuccessfully...to reason out the case and put the clues together.  This case involves a murder, naturally...the victim is an Englishman living in France who had enlisted Poirot's help by letter. But when Poirot and Hastings arrive at his estate near Calais, the investigators are already there as he has just been murdered, his body lying face-down in an open grave on the site of a new golf course outside his home.  Suspicious characters abound in this whodunnit tale, and the ending is wholly satisfying and explains all...

Looks as if I'm going to be reading a lot of Agatha Christie in future weeks as I have become hooked on these stories, trying to figure out the mystery's solution along with Detective Poirot or whoever happens to be the protagonist.  For now, though, I have some other novels in line to read, the next being Turtles All the Way Down, a story about obsessive-compulsive disorder by John Green...

Our Recent Chicago Mass Transit Experience

After our recent visit to Marion, Indiana to celebrate Melissa's graduation, we set out across northern Indiana westward to Chicago.  Getting ourselves to southwestern Chicago's Midway International Airport to return our rental car involved some challenging driving through heavy traffic...Melissa was behind the wheel at this time and did an admirable job pulling off a most difficult task.  Once we were in the airport, though, the process almost effortlessly sped us forward as the Chicago Transit Authority, better known as C.T.A., had an onsite rail station for the Orange line, which quickly transported us to our hotel in the city's downtown "loop".  The only difficulties we had were first figuring out how to get our C.T.A. passes from one of the station's vending machines...an employee graciously and patiently walked us through it all.  And then, once that Orange train dropped us off a couple of blocks from our hotel, we had to work on orienting ourselves and finally set off in the right direction after a couple of false turns.  The next day we used our three-day C.T.A. passes to take the Blue line northwest to the Wicker Park area, which some believe is a Chicago attempt to somewhat emulate the Bohemian atmosphere of New York's famed Greenwich Village...skeptics might disagree with their success if that was what they were trying to do.  Then later that day we rode the Red line to a location where we boarded a free trolley to the Navy Pier.  On Wednesday we rode back to the same airport on the Orange line...had we been going to O'Hare we would have again used Blue.  The C.T.A. lines were much like the Washington, D.C. Metro...very fast-paced, a very scary looking track pit with electrically-charged rails, and no ticket punching or conductors in sight.  Tuesday we went to Chicago's Museum of Science and Technology via a different rail system, the Metra, boarding at the intersection of Randolph Street and Michigan Avenue and riding a more traditional train... with real conductors and punched tickets to and from our destination.  Besides the two extensive rail systems is an even more extensive bus system that we never got around to using during our limited stay there.  I was very impressed with it all, yet I realized that unlike getting around in Manhattan, where the constraints of space drastically restrict practical personal car travel, Chicago's downtown area has plenty of parking garages and lots of general automobile traffic...

One of my most vivid movie memories was the scene at the beginning of The Blues Brothers when Jake and Elwood Blues are trying to get some sleep in their ramshackle Chicago apartment...right next to an overland transit train line...with hilarious results when one passes close by.  A stretch of downtown Lake Street has the line likewise going above ground, and the trains loudly thunder through as in the movie...don't think I'd want to live on that street, either.  Another thing I noticed about riding the C.T.A. trains was how obviously-experienced riders would just calmly stand there not holding onto anything while the train would violently jerk as it started and stopped...at the same time I would be holding on tightly to the bar desperately struggling to maintain my balance....

I like the Chicago mass transit system, although as I mentioned before, were I actually living there I'd might as well just drive around in my own car.  But for brief guests to the city such as Melissa, Will, and me, it was refreshing to shed the burdens of driving and parking...then again, we all dig walking, something some other people might not find as enjoyable...

A Miserable Rain-Soaked August in Gainesville

While I was out of the state for the previous week I heard reports from Gainesville that it was continually raining and storming.  Happy that in contrast it was only drizzling half the time where I was, I looked forward to getting back home Wednesday evening, thinking that this northern Florida precipitation cycle had run its course.  Only one problem: it continued raining, and raining, and raining.  Retention ponds in our area are at near-overflowing levels and a section of Newberry Road had a sign stating "road under water" when I never had a problem there during all the years I've driven down it.  And now I look at the weather forecast for this week: Monday, rain, Tuesday, rain, Wednesday, rain, Thursday, rain, Friday, rain...

Back on June 13th I wrote about how rainy it had been that month up to that point, but August has it beat by a longshot.  This morning while on the way to church I noticed something strange in the sky...turned out it was sunshine, but now I wonder whether I had imagined the whole incident as the skies around me since then have been a constant grey with rain continually soaking the already saturated ground...

Our Recent Trip to Indiana

I had never been to Indiana before our Southwest flight landed on the Indianapolis airport runway in the evening nine days ago and we made our way via rental car to the small northeastern city of Marion. There on Saturday, my wife graduated with her Master's from Indiana Wesleyan University's Wesley Seminary.  Our son Will and I met many of Melissa's classmates, professors, and college leaders...what friendly, caring people they are with such a sweet spirit everywhere!  We thoroughly enjoyed the ceremonies and the campus and then explored Marion itself while enjoying their local restaurants.  I thought that this was a great little city...their northside Matter Park with its many facilities and beautiful garden and the miles-long Riverwalk trail (all three of us are walkers) were outstanding...I've included some photos of them along with Melissa's graduation...

On Sunday the three of us went by car into Chicago, the other half of our planned vacation...more on that in future articles.  On the way we saw many, many fields of corn and soybean...the former keenly reminded me of that famous cornfield scene with Cary Grant and the crop duster from Alfred Hitchcock's thriller North by Northwest...once we even saw a little plane that resembled the one from the film.  I really liked our Indiana experience, although we saw little of Indianapolis other than its airport and the Interstates leading through and out of it.  I wonder whether we'll make it back to Marion some day.  By the way, in that first photo Melissa is second from the left in the second row...the faculty and seminary leadership are seated in the front row...

Quote of the Week...from Winston Churchill

When you're 20 you care what everyone thinks, when you're 40 you stop caring what everyone thinks, when you're 60 you realize that no one was ever thinking about you in the first place.
                                                                              ---Winston Churchill.

Winston Churchill, who as British Prime Minister guided his country through World War II, as well as resuming national leadership during the 1950s, passed away in 1965...long before the advent of the internet and social media.  I get what he's saying here, but it's also an overgeneralization.  Besides, although I'm nearly 63 I have had a suspicion for almost my entire life that few people ever thought about me...with a small number of blessed exceptions including my wife, children, and a few others.  And I've been okay with that...I think that when most other folks finally reach the same conclusion as I did early on, but only after many years of denial, they tend to get all cynical or even bitter about it, and sometimes this is expressed in attention-seeking behavior...often on that social media Mr. Churchill missed out on.  Now I do want people to think well of me...but only up to a point: no use becoming obsessed with the notion of popularity, something that I see as a snare to many, especially the young, who have enough to deal with without having that added burden on them.  Besides, at a time on this planet with seven billion people and billions more on the way within a few decades, I don't need to have watched the movie Casablanca to come to the conclusion that "it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three people [or just myself] don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world"...

Back from Trip to Indiana and Chicago

Melissa and I are back, along with our son Will, from our six-day travel to Marion, Indiana and Chicago, Illinois.  We decided to expand the original reason for the trip...Melissa's graduation ceremony from Wesley Seminary at Marion's Indiana Wesleyan University with a Master's degree...to include touring around the Windy City: we spent three days in each place.  From time to time in the next few days I'll be writing about our experiences there and including lots of photos.  Not much of a traveler at heart, I still enjoyed our excursion to Indiana and Illinois...the company couldn't have been better...but it's great to be back home now in Gainesville...

Taking a Short Break from Blog

Since I'm currently traveling with my family, look for gaps in this blog during the next few days. I plan to resume writing when I'm back, including a few articles about where I've been.  Until then, take care...

Rays Owner's Proposal to Split Season with Montreal

A few weeks ago, already well into the 2019 baseball season, Tampa Bay Rays owner Stu Sternberg proposed...by 2024...splitting his team's home games with Montreal, Canada.  The Rays would play the first half of the regular season here in Florida and Montreal fans would get the rest of their schedule.  The proposal sparked outcries and derision from fans, the St. Petersburg mayor (where the Rays home games are currently played), players...who would consequently need to establish a home in each city...and even disinterested observers.  Sternberg wants a new stadium built across the bay in Tampa and perhaps this is nothing more than a wake-up call to move that project forward.  Only one problem: taxpayers...and hence voters...in my home state are notorious for rejecting large spending projects: after all, low taxes is one major reason...besides the temperate climate...why they're living here in the first place.  As for myself, I once thought it would be fun to attend some of the Rays games, but the ticket prices seemed way too steep for me.  Still, these major league sports teams, including those like Tampa Bay in Major League Baseball, derive a great portion of their revenue from television...and that was something I watched a lot.  That is, until I felt that the Rays owner was setting in motion his abandonment of Florida in favor of Canada.  Suddenly my interest in this team, which was doing remarkably well this year in the standings (and still is), crashed and I refused to follow their games anymore...I wonder how many other Rays fans did the same?  Well, their current ball park is rated as one of the worst in either league, and if they can come to an agreement to build a less ambitious new park that doesn't offend the local taxpayers, maybe owner Sternberg will find it in his heart to keep the team here.  So yes, I am once again rooting for them...at least until the moment they start to pull up stakes and move away...

Quote of the Week...from President Trump

Mental illness and hatred pulls the trigger, not the gun.      ---President Donald Trump

To this quote I'd like to add two pro-gun clichés and two New York Times headlines:

The Clichés:
1) If guns were outlawed only outlaws would have guns.
------and------
2) Guns don't kill people, people do.

The NY Times Headlines (August 6, early and late editions):
1) Trump Urges Unity Vs Racism
------and------
2) Assailing Hate But Not Guns

The Times headlines and article came after President Donald Trump spoke to the nation following the mass shooting murders in El Paso and Dayton this past weekend. There was so much criticism coming at the newspaper for its first headline...which critics claimed failed to capture the essence of Trump's address...that they changed it between editions.  The President did speak out against racism and for national unity...but he also gave a variation on the second of my two cited clichés with the above quote, claiming that the gun doesn't pull its own trigger.  No kidding, sir, yet I've heard this kind of foolish argument before by gun advocates, implying that since guns don't shoot people by themselves, then they're somehow okay and shouldn't be part of any discussion...and tagging the mentally ill with blame for gun violence doesn't correspond to the facts as I know them. No, it's the wrong guns (military-style weapons with multiple rounds increased by high-capacity magazines) in the wrong hands (only the military and law enforcement should have them, in my opinion) that is causing the problem with these evil mass shooters using them to pick off multitudes of innocent people in stores, places of worship, schools, concerts, festivals, workplaces...or any other locale where people gather in numbers.  So although it's commendable that Trump spoke out against racism and hate, he has yet to explain why it's quite all right for civilians to be able to legally acquire semi-automatic rifles that can be used to inflict massive carnage quickly on large numbers of people, as preferred as they may legitimately be by some sportsmen with their game hunting.  Still, from where I stand the public's security far outweighs the enhancement of some people's hunting experiences. It's true that many more murders are caused through the abuse of handguns...and to be sure, by other means than through firearms. Restricting these higher-powered weapons will not thwart evil people from trying to murder others...and sometimes tragically succeeding.  But you would not be looking at these horrendous casualty figures had the mass shooters been more limited in their choice of murder weapon.  Regarding that first cliché above, it sadly has much truth to it.  Localities and states that greatly restrict legal gun ownership put their law-abiding citizens in a helpless situation against the criminal elements operating there who can easily bring in their weapons from outside.  And even if the nation as a whole enacted stricter laws against these military-level guns, we would still be overrun with them for years...and no doubt a thriving black market would develop as well.  As for more stringent background checks for gun buyers, I wonder how many of the mass shooters over the past several years would have been caught and prevented from building up their arsenals if the laws now being pushed had already been in place...probably not that many, I'm guessing.  Doesn't sound like I'm very optimistic about where this is all going, does it?  Well, give me something positive to latch onto, then, while I reflect on the somber conclusion that we live in a culture that idolizes and glorifies violence, inviting evil into our midst while refusing to acknowledge it for what it is...

New Flores Era Ushers in Optimism for Miami Dolphins

I have high hopes for new Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores, who last season worked under New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick as their linebacker coach and defensive play-caller.  Flores, unlike the two previous mediocre "players'" coaches Joe Philbin and Adam Gase, and like Belichick...and his Dolphins predecessor Don Shula, believes in a highly-disciplined team whose players don't make the kinds of mental mistakes on the field that have riddled this franchise for the past few seasons.  Since Miami got rid over their uninspiring quarterback Ryan Tannehill they procured two more (hopefully better), Ryan Fitzpatrick and Josh Rosen, each coming off unsuccessful seasons with other teams.  The so-called experts generally pick the Dolphins to finish last in their American Conference East Division this year, but even if they do, I want to see a team that plays up to...if not beyond...their talent level and actually shows a consistency of effort from week to week.  If Flores can accomplish this, then they may have a bright future ahead of them.  Miami's first preseason game is tonight at home against the Atlanta Falcons...

Weekly Short Stories: 1950 Science Fiction, Part 2

This past week I went through three more selected science fiction stories from 1950 as they appeared in the anthology Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 12 (1950).  This has been one of my favorite books in this 25-part series, and two of the tales I'm discussing here are not only among my all-time favorite short stories, but their authors were brilliant writers with their own provocative views of what the future will look like.  So without further ado, let's take a look at these stories...

SCANNERS LIVE IN VAIN by Cordwainer Smith
Cordwainer Smith wrote a series of stories in the 1950s about space exploration and settling...his vision of deep space involved something called "the great pain" that causes space travelers to desperately seek death as well as the existence of vast rat-like psychic predators...the latter will come up in a later tale of his.  It has been discovered that humans cannot traverse deep space without being subject to that "great pain"...until one man discovers the solution: have all the ship's passengers unconscious while those running the ship...namely the "scanners"...are modified with their brains detached from the rest of their bodies, which are computer-driven.  The protagonist is one such scanner and Smith describes in detail what he and his comrades have to go through...amazing.  They discover, however, that another man has devised a way to bypass the need for scanners, enabling ordinary humans to pilot the ships through deep space.  Sensing their own demise, the scanners react in a very human way...and the story goes on to its conclusion.  Although the setting and circumstances in this tale are pretty exotic, the idea of highly trained, specialized workers being rendered obsolete by newly adopted innovations is a common problem in our own time...

BORN OF MAN AND WOMAN by Richard Matheson
A very short story, it packs a big punch and asks the question: what makes a person a monster? Told from the viewpoint of a "monster" child imprisoned, abused, and shunned by his own parents, Matheson asks through his experiences whether mutation and deformity make the monster or whether cruel, inhuman treatment qualifies for the derogatory title...the verdict is in and it's the second choice...

THE LITTLE BLACK BAG by Cyril Kornbluth
Probably the most cynical science fiction writer in the history of the genre (as well as one of the most talented), Kornbluth saw a future when the general population's intelligence level has drastically dumbed down as their technology leaped ahead...I can't say that he was that much off-the-mark since much of what I see on social media (especially on Twitter)...which in itself is an incredible advance in mass communications networking technology...is senseless drivel.  In this story, a tiny group of super-intelligent humans way off in the future quietly and secretly manage the masses of "dummy" humans on Earth, including providing their physicians with medical bags loaded with automatic devices that can cure almost any illness or repair almost any injury.  One of these bags accidently gets transported back in time to the present (~1950, that is) and a disgraced doctor sees its medical miracles as a way to redeem himself.  Unfortunately, someone else with less-than-idealistic motives has witnessed its wonders as well...

I'm on vacation from work right now, and I'm soon going to be taking a short break as well from this blog.  I'll probably continue with my look at short science fiction from 1950 in a couple of weeks...

Just Finished Reading The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie

The Secret Adversary, from 1922, was the second novel published by mystery writer Agatha Christie.  It is set a couple of years earlier as World War I had just ended and there was a power struggle going on in England...as well as other countries...between forces wanting to stabilize the current capitalist system and those espousing leftist revolutions.  In the middle of all this a young man and woman, Tommy and (Prudence) Tuppence...friends from childhood...decide to form their own private detective agency.   Naturally, they also instantly find themselves swept up into a conspiracy...headed by a mysterious, unknown master criminal calling himself "Mr. Brown"... to violently overthrow the British government.  His organization's plan is to cause international scandal based on the recovery of a secret deal agreed to between America and England in 1915, as expressed in a two-page letter that was to be transported across the Atlantic on the Lusitania.  That ship, as anyone with an inkling of history already knows, was sunk by the Germans...the letter's courier, however, at the last minute hands it over to a young girl, recognizing that she would be given preference over him to the limited number of lifeboats.  But since then she has disappeared, and both the good guys and bad guys are searching for her and the letter, which now would be fatally damaging to the government. Tommy and Tuppence quickly get themselves entangled in the fray and have all sorts of adventures.  The ending is conclusive and satisfying with a surprise twist...that's about all I can say without giving away crucial elements of the story...

I recently read another book that came out in 1922, this one from Ireland and also concerning itself with the events of that era: James Joyce's Ulysses.  Both are essentially works of fiction and written in the English language...beyond that they bear little similarity to each other.  Whereas Christie had set herself out to write for a widespread, popular audience, Joyce composed his work as something to be studied and cherished by literary scholars.  When Agatha Christie wrote, I forget about her as the author as I find myself immersed in her stories.  James Joyce, on the other hand, wrote as if he were trying to greatly impress me with his breadth of knowledge, ability to twist the English language into pretzels, and cutting satire.  To each his own, I guess...

My Roller Coaster Years, 2002-2006

It's not that my life from 2002 through 2006 was "roller coaster" in the sense of being turbulent, but simply that during this period I became hooked on roller coasters and theme park thrill rides in general.  This did not spontaneously arise, but rather sprouted from my children's interest in theme parts and their rides.  Will and Rebecca seemed fearless on them, and I had a lifetime behind me of being too chicken to take on all but the easiest rides.  After a couple of visits to Wild Adventures theme park in Valdosta, Georgia, in March 2003 I decided to "face the fear" on our third visit there and stolidly rode every extreme ride they had...and never looked back.  Although I never got to be as much a fanatic of thrill rides as others who traverse the country (and even abroad) searching out new experiences, I did rack up a considerable number of visits to Wild Adventures, Busch Gardens, Universal Studios/Islands of Adventures, the Disney World parks...and single visits to Cypress Gardens in 2005 and Dollywood in 2006.  Since then my only thrill ride experience has been the three times I rode the Dania Beach Hurricane wooden coaster in South Florida...and it's now been gone for a number of years.  Oh yeah, we did recently go back to Epcot Center, where I managed to get on Test Track and Soaring after waiting in line for them half the day...they do offer express passes but had already handed them all out when we arrived that day...

This all came back to me while I was waiting today at Publix for a prescription to be filled and looking at their magazine section.  I picked up one called Theme Parks and looked at the pictures of exuberant roller coaster riders looping and diving on rides in various parks spread out across the country, and it occurred to me that there wasn't a single photo of those horrendously long lines folks often have to stand in just to get their two minutes of thrills.  I never see any lines on Disney World commercials, either...just Micky, Minnie, and company rushing out to personally greet a visiting family.  Once during a stay at Universal Studios in 2003 each of us had a fast pass card that enabled us to quickly go on the same rides over and over again...now that's the only way to go!  Although my home town of Gainesville is within reasonable driving range of several theme parks, the drive to and back can still get to be a little tedious.  Well, at least I still have my fond memories and, what do you know, I can even get on YouTube, search out a favorite ride like Busch Garden's Montu or Island of Adventure's Hulk coaster, press my face to the screen, and pretend I'm riding once again...

About the Recent Mass Shootings

Within just a few hours of each other this weekend two different gunmen went on shooting sprees in an El Paso, Texas Wal-Mart and a Dayton, Ohio nightclub, randomly murdering at last count a total of 29 people and injuring many more.  And last Sunday there was another such rampage at a Gilroy, California agricultural festival.  Naturally, the media is, on one hand, expressing deep sorrow and grief for the victims and their families while on the other many politicians and opinion makers are doubling down on the need for stricter gun regulation.  Folks can agree or disagree about their Second Amendment rights and how far they go in allowing military combat-level weaponry in the hands of any civilian who can afford them, but can we all at least come together on the evil behind these acts, regardless of their reasons...including supposed mental illness?  Yet I hear little about the depravity of the murderers...just that we need to keep guns out of their hands before they commit their heinous acts.  Let's face it...there are a lot of weird, paranoid, and conspiracist fringe ideologies out there and enough disturbed souls to buy into them: this in itself, though, doesn't necessarily involve anyone picking up a military rifle and mowing down crowds of innocent people in public.  No, regardless of beliefs and rationales, those directly responsible for these acts should be held accountable in the most severe way.  Grief counseling, silent moments of prayer, candlelight vigils...and sincerely pushing political remedies to restrict the general access of advanced weaponry all have their place as legitimate responses, but the most important takeaway from these atrocities...and often the one thing that is most ignored...is the abject evilness, to the core, of those who commit these crimes of murder.  Yes, there is very much such a thing as "evil" and we might as well begin to acknowledge this fact...

Just Finished Reading The Hush by John Hart

Three years ago I read my first John Hart novel, The Last Child...here's a link to that review.  That story, set in rural North Carolina, was about a thirteen-year boy, Johnny Merrimon, and his undying search for his missing sister Alyssa as he encounters opposition from others and finds himself increasingly isolated, save for his best friend Jack Cross. And now I've just finished reading his 2018 sequel, The Hush, in the same general setting but with Johnny and Jack ten years older...and still best friends.  Johnny has retreated into isolation on his vast plot of land...much of it impassable swamp called "The Hush" with a powerful, mysterious and sinister presence going back to the time of slavery when the Merrimons were the local slaveholders and the ancestors of the blacks now living in the area were their "property".  A wealthy big game trophy hunter whose grandfather once killed an impossibly large-size deer in that swamp back in 1931 is determined to wrest ownership of the land from Johnny, who is already facing a legal challenge in that regard from a family of descendants of the slaves who lived there.  Jack, now a young attorney trying to fit in his new firm, is concerned about his friend's self-imposed isolation and dependence on the swamp...a place that seems to welcome very few.  All sorts of complications arise as the story progresses, and the ending...while comprehensive and conclusive...does force the reader to at least temporarily accept the presence of the supernatural, much in the way that Stephen King does with his many tales...

John Hart has done for rural North Carolina what King accomplished with his mini-universe of fictional localities in his own home state of Maine.  Both are very skilled storytellers who invest a great deal of effort in developing their characters, making them believable in the midst of often very unbelievable circumstances.  Hart has written other novels as well...guess I'll be taking a look at them, too...

Quote of the Week...from Isaac Asimov

There is no belief, however foolish, that will not gather its faithful adherents who will defend it to the death.                                                    ---Isaac Asimov

Lately I have been rereading the late science fiction author Isaac Asimov's sequence of novels about robots, the Empire, and Foundation...I'm approaching the end with only a couple more Empire books to go through.  So it was natural to draw upon this prolific writer's thoughts for this week's quote...and it says a lot about human nature and how people adopt and tenaciously hold on to various narratives in their lives...

We're all subjective to a great extent, and those of us claiming otherwise are just fooling themselves.  The tendency for most people is to develop their own narratives of the way they believe (or want to believe) things are and to be intellectually dishonest about propping them up, first by assimilating any supportive information into the cherished narrative, be it personally experienced or from other sources...even sources that are not necessarily reliable, and second, by rejecting and/or disregarding any input...no matter how obviously true...that would be contradictory.  Another problem with folks and their narratives is that they are generally predisposed to refusing to see things from the viewpoint of others outside their "bubble", often ostracizing them with pejoratives and imputing sinister motives or even questioning their mental health and/or intelligence.  Although my discussion is more general in nature, let's just focus for a moment on the national political situation between President Trump and the Democratic Party challengers for his office.  If you watched the debates recently you'd see different candidates steeped in their own narratives, with fairness and justice being primary themes for the Democrats.  Trump, on the other hand, emphasizes prosperity, security and liberty in his narrative...are the two approaches mutually incompatible?  I'd like to have my own TV show with guests passionately committed to their own narratives...and have them assigned to argue the opposite side with a panel of judges sitting on the sideline to assure that they don't stray from their respective assignments.  I have a feeling that there are quite a few people who would be completely incapable of undertaking such an exercise of open-mindedness. Yes, a little bit of empathy can go a long way to reconciling ourselves with each other as opposed to this epidemic of name-calling and demonization.  Sadly, Isaac Asimov's above quote is probably going to ring true as long as humans walk on this Earth...

My July 2019 Running Report

In July my running was more or less in a holding pattern as I covered 106 total miles and missed six days from running.  My longest single run was 7.3 miles.  I didn't participate in any races the past month and don't foresee doing so anytime soon.  For August I plan to do much of the same as July, maintaining my level of endurance and being careful about the usually intense summer heat and humidity here in northern Florida.  I'm still hoping to run in a local half-marathon race later this fall, and at least right now that seems viable...we'll see.  Not much to report on, but I'm still running...