Tuesday, March 31, 2020
My March 2020 Running Report
In March my running activity markedly increased from the previous month, with me running on all but two days and amassing 132 total miles for the month. My longest single run was on Friday the 20th when I covered 9.3 miles. I had earlier scheduled that day off from work in anticipation of running a half-marathon in Ormond Beach the following Saturday morning...and then why not make it all a sweet, pleasant beach weekend with Melissa? But sadly, this damnable disease scratched all that and all other upcoming races...and beach trips...are off for the foreseeable future...we all have more urgent priorities to deal with now. In the meantime I, and hopefully you, will continue to practice Google's recommendations for preventing the spread of the coronavirus: (1) HANDS: wash them often, (2) ELBOW: cough into it, (3) FACE: don't touch it, (4) SPACE: stay more than 3 ft. apart, and (5) FEEL: sick? Stay home. My job is officially deemed to be "essential" so my work schedule is unchanged...two in my family are working from home and two go out to work. At least that's the situation at this moment... but you never know in these interesting and disturbing times what will be mandated the next moment. So far, though, getting outdoors on one's own while practicing safe distancing and going for walks or runs is considered an acceptable part of the "stay at home" paradigm currently being put forth. And as long as my health holds up, I suppose I'll keep running, either inside or outside...
Monday, March 30, 2020
My 500 All-Time Favorite Songs: #190-181
The ten songs on this segment of my 500 all-time favorites span many years, from 1966 to 2006, and represent quite a diversity in musical style and lyrical content. You may know the seven older ones, but I recommend you try out more recent (and grossly underrated) artists like Regina Spektor, Metric and Sufjan Stevens...I absolutely guarantee more from them to come higher up on this list...
190 TURN TO STONE...Electric Light Orchestra
In the winter of 1978 I was overloaded with classes at the University of Florida and a serious flu outbreak was spreading through campus...I became a little paranoid in my crowded dorm and classrooms and overly anxious about my homework and exams. This was my favorite song of that time, the lessons of which reverberate to this day in my life: don't overcommit yourself and work it out so that you always have a little time and space for yourself. Turn to Stone was the opening track of ELO's Out of the Blue, one of the best double albums ever produced. By the way, I somehow managed to dodge the flu that year but don't ask me about those classes...
189 WORKING CLASS HERO...John Lennon
Working Class Hero, by John Lennon from his 1970 Plastic Ono Band album, is the antithesis of Max Ehrmann's Desiderata (#195 on my list)...in it Lennon depicts the way people are herded and abused through life by the system and presents one of the most cynical worldviews ever...yet the words ring true: "When they've tortured and scared you for twenty-odd years, then they expect you to pick a career...when you can't really function you're so full of fear"...
188 FUNKY TOWN...Lipps Inc.
This was a great dance song from the summer of 1980...it shouts out fun and happiness. I was living a frugal but steady existence in southwest Gainesville...I moved to my new apartment in May of that year because at the time it was on the outskirts of town and not so hectic. Now this area is the most concentrated in town, the traffic jam capital of Gainesville. This was also right in the middle of the Iranian hostage crisis and the 1980 presidential campaign, with incumbent Jimmy Carter holding off a strong challenge from Ted Kennedy...Reagan already had his GOP nomination sewn up early on...
187 20 YEARS OF SNOW...Regina Spektor
Regina Spektor has always liked to experiment around with different sounds and themes on her albums...I didn't hear this deep track from her 2006 Begin to Hope album until four years later after I began to collect all her works to date. Classically trained on the piano, her skills extend to her singing range in this very, very strange-but-beautiful song...which in places eerily sounds like Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven...
186 BOY IN THE BUBBLE...Paul Simon
I need to assemble a list sometime of my all-time favorite music videos...this one is certain to be at or near the very top. A collage of some the world's dystopian elements, including terrorism, famine and medical quackery combine with the onrush of science and changing social patterns...an awful lot to cram into a video as Paul makes his presence known in the jungle among elephants, in a newspaper picture and on an oscilloscope screen, among other places. But the song stands well on its own...naturally I have it on my MP3 rotation. It's from Simon's celebrated 1986 Graceland album...
185 GONNA MAKE YOU SWEAT...C + C Music Factory
By 1991 I had pretty much given up on Top Forty radio (played in Gainesville on WYKS "Kiss 105". But then this sharp, energetic (and very funny) dance song exploded on the scene with the unforgettable screamed lyrics "EVERYBODY DANCE NOW!". I never have cared for rap/hip-hop music on its own, but nevertheless have come to like many songs that mix that spoken word rhyming craft with singing...Gonna Make You Sweat might be the best of this type...
184 LOVE IS A PLACE...Metric
The Canadian alternative rock band bears a similarity to an earlier band, Blondie, with its own charismatic lead singer in Emily Haines, but their music to me has a harder and better edge to it...and the lyrics can be quite biting at times. But not with this track from their 2003 Old World Underground, Where are You Now? album...it's very short and slow, but with a excruciating electric guitar accompaniment that crescendos to steal the show at the end...
183 TIME WON'T LET ME...the Outsiders
My favorite song of 1966 as I lived through it, for some peculiar reason listening to it brings vivid associations in my mind with the layout of Nova Blanche Forman Elementary School in Davie, Florida, which I attended from 1965 to 1968. Specifically, the hallway connecting the multi-purpose room (what they called the cafeteria) with the science lab on the Suite D (SW) corner of the building, on the way to the supplies store...go figure why songs sometimes do this sort of thing with your memories. To this day I think this is a great song...why was it the Outsiders' only hit?
182 FLINT...Sufjan Stevens
Flint, the opening track on Stevens' 2003 Greetings From Michigan may not be to your tastes...but it is about Flint and economic...and ultimately personal...depression. Sad and forlorn, it still projects a feeling of epic importance and lays the foundation for what is to follow on this stupendous, largely unnoticed album with autobiographical, historical, geographical and spiritual themes. I loved the horn playing on it...Stevens reportedly played trumpet and other instruments on the same songs...
181 RAMBLE ON...Led Zeppelin
After the release of Led Zeppelin's first box set in late 1990 I listened to my local rock station play the whole thing...and suddenly became a fanatic of their music. From their 1969 Led Zeppelin II is this, my favorite song of the album...my liking only grew stronger later when I learned that singer/lyricist Robert Plant was an avid reader of J.R.R. Tolkien and inserted his own fantasy lyrical contribution into this song: "'Twas in the darkest depths of Mordor, I met a girl so fair...but Gollum and the evil one crept up and slipped away with her"...
Next week: #180-171...
190 TURN TO STONE...Electric Light Orchestra
In the winter of 1978 I was overloaded with classes at the University of Florida and a serious flu outbreak was spreading through campus...I became a little paranoid in my crowded dorm and classrooms and overly anxious about my homework and exams. This was my favorite song of that time, the lessons of which reverberate to this day in my life: don't overcommit yourself and work it out so that you always have a little time and space for yourself. Turn to Stone was the opening track of ELO's Out of the Blue, one of the best double albums ever produced. By the way, I somehow managed to dodge the flu that year but don't ask me about those classes...
189 WORKING CLASS HERO...John Lennon
Working Class Hero, by John Lennon from his 1970 Plastic Ono Band album, is the antithesis of Max Ehrmann's Desiderata (#195 on my list)...in it Lennon depicts the way people are herded and abused through life by the system and presents one of the most cynical worldviews ever...yet the words ring true: "When they've tortured and scared you for twenty-odd years, then they expect you to pick a career...when you can't really function you're so full of fear"...
188 FUNKY TOWN...Lipps Inc.
This was a great dance song from the summer of 1980...it shouts out fun and happiness. I was living a frugal but steady existence in southwest Gainesville...I moved to my new apartment in May of that year because at the time it was on the outskirts of town and not so hectic. Now this area is the most concentrated in town, the traffic jam capital of Gainesville. This was also right in the middle of the Iranian hostage crisis and the 1980 presidential campaign, with incumbent Jimmy Carter holding off a strong challenge from Ted Kennedy...Reagan already had his GOP nomination sewn up early on...
187 20 YEARS OF SNOW...Regina Spektor
Regina Spektor has always liked to experiment around with different sounds and themes on her albums...I didn't hear this deep track from her 2006 Begin to Hope album until four years later after I began to collect all her works to date. Classically trained on the piano, her skills extend to her singing range in this very, very strange-but-beautiful song...which in places eerily sounds like Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven...
186 BOY IN THE BUBBLE...Paul Simon
I need to assemble a list sometime of my all-time favorite music videos...this one is certain to be at or near the very top. A collage of some the world's dystopian elements, including terrorism, famine and medical quackery combine with the onrush of science and changing social patterns...an awful lot to cram into a video as Paul makes his presence known in the jungle among elephants, in a newspaper picture and on an oscilloscope screen, among other places. But the song stands well on its own...naturally I have it on my MP3 rotation. It's from Simon's celebrated 1986 Graceland album...
185 GONNA MAKE YOU SWEAT...C + C Music Factory
By 1991 I had pretty much given up on Top Forty radio (played in Gainesville on WYKS "Kiss 105". But then this sharp, energetic (and very funny) dance song exploded on the scene with the unforgettable screamed lyrics "EVERYBODY DANCE NOW!". I never have cared for rap/hip-hop music on its own, but nevertheless have come to like many songs that mix that spoken word rhyming craft with singing...Gonna Make You Sweat might be the best of this type...
184 LOVE IS A PLACE...Metric
The Canadian alternative rock band bears a similarity to an earlier band, Blondie, with its own charismatic lead singer in Emily Haines, but their music to me has a harder and better edge to it...and the lyrics can be quite biting at times. But not with this track from their 2003 Old World Underground, Where are You Now? album...it's very short and slow, but with a excruciating electric guitar accompaniment that crescendos to steal the show at the end...
183 TIME WON'T LET ME...the Outsiders
My favorite song of 1966 as I lived through it, for some peculiar reason listening to it brings vivid associations in my mind with the layout of Nova Blanche Forman Elementary School in Davie, Florida, which I attended from 1965 to 1968. Specifically, the hallway connecting the multi-purpose room (what they called the cafeteria) with the science lab on the Suite D (SW) corner of the building, on the way to the supplies store...go figure why songs sometimes do this sort of thing with your memories. To this day I think this is a great song...why was it the Outsiders' only hit?
182 FLINT...Sufjan Stevens
Flint, the opening track on Stevens' 2003 Greetings From Michigan may not be to your tastes...but it is about Flint and economic...and ultimately personal...depression. Sad and forlorn, it still projects a feeling of epic importance and lays the foundation for what is to follow on this stupendous, largely unnoticed album with autobiographical, historical, geographical and spiritual themes. I loved the horn playing on it...Stevens reportedly played trumpet and other instruments on the same songs...
181 RAMBLE ON...Led Zeppelin
After the release of Led Zeppelin's first box set in late 1990 I listened to my local rock station play the whole thing...and suddenly became a fanatic of their music. From their 1969 Led Zeppelin II is this, my favorite song of the album...my liking only grew stronger later when I learned that singer/lyricist Robert Plant was an avid reader of J.R.R. Tolkien and inserted his own fantasy lyrical contribution into this song: "'Twas in the darkest depths of Mordor, I met a girl so fair...but Gollum and the evil one crept up and slipped away with her"...
Next week: #180-171...
Sunday, March 29, 2020
Wishing the Best for All During This Crisis
Not a lot for today's entry other than to wish for you and your loved ones safety and wisdom in dealing with this ongoing coronavirus pandemic. I see that some areas in Florida are harder hit right now than others, including Broward County where I grew up...but Alachua County, where I now live, has its own problems. May God's blessings and protection be with you all!
Saturday, March 28, 2020
Just Finished Reading Princep's Fury by Jim Butcher
I just finished reading Jim Butcher’s 2008 novel Princep’s
Fury, the fifth and next-to-last volume in his Codex Alera fantasy
series. Since a lot has happened over
the course of this series, just about anything I have to discuss here in
specifics is doomed to spoil the plot in some way, so if you’re planning on
reading this series you might want to pass on this article. On the other hand, if we’re talking about
perpetual war with humanity’s existence at stake, not a whole lot has
changed since the first volume. The
enemies from one book sometimes become allies in the next, usually due to the
wisdom, courage, and perseverance of the main protagonist, a young man name
Tavi who by the time of Princep’s Fury has discovered (along with
everybody else), that he is really Octavian Gaius, the heir to the throne of
First Ruler of Alera now occupied by his grandfather Gaius Sextus. People on this fantasy planet of Carna are
imbued with special supernatural skills called furycrafting in which
they can “craft” natural elements such as wind, water, air and fire to serve as
extensions to themselves…a planet full of folks with superhero abilities but
who still can’t figure out how to get along with each other. There are nonhumans here as well, usually in
a state of war against the humans, most notably the giant wolf-like Canim, the
Marat and the Icemen. But they are uniting with the people of Alera against the
ultimate foe: the Borg-like Vord who are intent on replacing all other life on
this God-forsaken world that no one in his or her right mind would ever want to
live on, superhuman abilities or not.
The narrative usually hops back and forth among the three main
characters of Tavi, Isana (his mother), and Amara, a young woman serving Gaius
Sextus as one of his courier-spies as they struggle to gain alliances and
combat the Vord...
These epic fantasy series dominated by war with characters built up by their fighting abilities and courage may appeal to many, but to me they've become one-dimensional and stale. I much prefer those fantasy stories and series that impart a sense of a special world within this one of ours such as J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, Lev Grossman’s The Magicians (but not the TV adaptation) and Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere. Still, I’ve stuck with Butcher’s series and only have one more book left: sometimes a tedious series can be redeemed by a novel ending, which I’m hoping awaits me in the final volume, titled First Lord’s Fury…
These epic fantasy series dominated by war with characters built up by their fighting abilities and courage may appeal to many, but to me they've become one-dimensional and stale. I much prefer those fantasy stories and series that impart a sense of a special world within this one of ours such as J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, Lev Grossman’s The Magicians (but not the TV adaptation) and Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere. Still, I’ve stuck with Butcher’s series and only have one more book left: sometimes a tedious series can be redeemed by a novel ending, which I’m hoping awaits me in the final volume, titled First Lord’s Fury…
Friday, March 27, 2020
Quote of the Week: from Bilbo Baggins
Sorry! I don't want any adventures, thank you. Not today. Good morning! But please come to Tea...any time you like! Why not tomorrow? Come tomorrow! Good-bye! ---Bilbo Baggins
J. R. R. Tolkien's 1939 fantasy novel The Hobbit introduced Middle Earth, its history and inhabitants to the reading public...with the Lord of the Rings trilogy expanding on it in the 1950's and subsequent movie adaptations over the last two decades. I've always felt that they ruined The Hobbit in the recent movie series by trying to make it into a Lord of the Rings prequel...the original written tale has a completely different flavor, centering around its protagonist, the diminutive hobbit Bilbo Baggins, as he brings his backwoods common sense and wiliness to the overriding questions of a world in conflict. I thought that Marty Freeman's faithful and compelling film portrayal of Bilbo was the series' only redeeming feature, but sadly the filmmakers diminished his role as it wore on, in the processing distorting the book beyond recognition with added characters and subplots dominating the narrative. But enough of my movie criticism and back to the quote...
Bilbo Baggins by nature is a homebody...he likes his hobbit hole of a house, his books, smokes, garden, routine...and most of all, privacy. I dig that and always thought that the wizard Gandalf thoroughly violated the rules of hospitality by inviting the dwarf party over without Bilbo's consent. That's a big problem I have with people who tend to override my dignity and right to set my own boundaries with their condescension and sense of social position and self-importance: pretty disrespectful, I say. In today's topsy-turvy times of social distancing in light of this coronavirus pandemic, I think of lot of people find themselves feeling uncomfortable with the mandated separations: too many equate concepts like progress, social consciousness, and even love with physically clustering in groups...the closer together and the more people the better: just look at all the TV ads promoting this. Better to take a good look at yourself and realize that if you have an extroverted bent to your social orientation, that doesn't necessarily entail assuming that those of a more reclusive nature are deficient in some way and need "a little push", as Gandalf later rationalized his behavior toward Bilbo. As disturbing and unpleasant as these times are to me, at least for a while I feel I'm "off the hook" from others trying to change me. I remember hearing somebody once say "Life's a party!", but each of us has our own idea of what a party is...let's not impose our definitions on others...
J. R. R. Tolkien's 1939 fantasy novel The Hobbit introduced Middle Earth, its history and inhabitants to the reading public...with the Lord of the Rings trilogy expanding on it in the 1950's and subsequent movie adaptations over the last two decades. I've always felt that they ruined The Hobbit in the recent movie series by trying to make it into a Lord of the Rings prequel...the original written tale has a completely different flavor, centering around its protagonist, the diminutive hobbit Bilbo Baggins, as he brings his backwoods common sense and wiliness to the overriding questions of a world in conflict. I thought that Marty Freeman's faithful and compelling film portrayal of Bilbo was the series' only redeeming feature, but sadly the filmmakers diminished his role as it wore on, in the processing distorting the book beyond recognition with added characters and subplots dominating the narrative. But enough of my movie criticism and back to the quote...
Bilbo Baggins by nature is a homebody...he likes his hobbit hole of a house, his books, smokes, garden, routine...and most of all, privacy. I dig that and always thought that the wizard Gandalf thoroughly violated the rules of hospitality by inviting the dwarf party over without Bilbo's consent. That's a big problem I have with people who tend to override my dignity and right to set my own boundaries with their condescension and sense of social position and self-importance: pretty disrespectful, I say. In today's topsy-turvy times of social distancing in light of this coronavirus pandemic, I think of lot of people find themselves feeling uncomfortable with the mandated separations: too many equate concepts like progress, social consciousness, and even love with physically clustering in groups...the closer together and the more people the better: just look at all the TV ads promoting this. Better to take a good look at yourself and realize that if you have an extroverted bent to your social orientation, that doesn't necessarily entail assuming that those of a more reclusive nature are deficient in some way and need "a little push", as Gandalf later rationalized his behavior toward Bilbo. As disturbing and unpleasant as these times are to me, at least for a while I feel I'm "off the hook" from others trying to change me. I remember hearing somebody once say "Life's a party!", but each of us has our own idea of what a party is...let's not impose our definitions on others...
Thursday, March 26, 2020
Feeling Absence of Sports on TV
It feels a bit strange not being able to discuss sports on this blog...other than Tom Brady signing with the Tampa Bay Bucs the other day, there's nothing much of interest going on...no hockey, basketball, soccer or baseball due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Tokyo Summer Olympics have been postponed for another year and the Kentucky Derby, the first leg in the Triple Crown for three-year-old thoroughbreds, has been moved back to September...I wonder if horses that turn four by the new date will be ineligible to run in it. Of course, we would normally be thick in the middle of the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament right now with the NBA and NHL playoffs to look forward to...and Major League Baseball would have been starting its regular season within a week. Having no sports to watch other than boring reruns of past games is tough for me since I've gotten into the habit, after getting home from work late in the evening, of looking up a game in progress...since they're more concentrated in the western U.S. at this time I've grown to follow teams out there more than the ones closer by (GO Oregon Ducks and BYU Cougars!). But that's all out the window now. Last night when I got home I switched the TV to C-Span2, where they showed live the United States Senate votes on the $2 trillion stimulus bill...they passed it 96-0 after days of tough negotiations and don't plan to reconvene until April 20th. I want us to get out of this pandemic and for the economy to recover as well...the two need to go hand in hand. Yet I foresee the coronavirus being with us for many months ahead, long after it has peaked (whenever that happens)...who's going to decide when and whether to resume sports and what criteria will they use?
Wednesday, March 25, 2020
Weekly Short Stories: Robert Heinlein, Part 5
I continue my look back at some of the short stories produced by one of the greatest-ever science fiction writers, Robert Heinlein (1907-88). Today I look at his 1959 collection titled The Menace from Earth, including all its stories below except for the title story which I discussed last week...
THE YEAR OF THE JACKPOT (1952)
I remember reading this story many, many years ago in the break room of the old downtown Gainesville post office...a theoretical statistician has come across a truth that trends of low-probability cycle over years. But now all the different areas of low probability are converging at the same time into the present and who knows what will happen. The ending illustrates why this story is NOT a part of Robert Heinlein's interrelated "universe" of stories...
BY HIS BOOTSTRAPS (1941)
The ultimate time travel paradox story, with effect repeatedly serving as cause. A college student, wearily working on his thesis one night, encounters himself from the future...and the confusing fun begins. Another story I first read what seems like eons ago...
COLUMBUS WAS A DOPE (1947)
The setting is a bar and the patrons are arguing whether it is advisable whether to go on a manned mission to Mars as planned. The opinions are divided, and the bartender is adamantly against it, using the "if God had meant for men to fly he'd have given us wings" argument. It's the punch-line ending of this brief tale that gives it a special perspective...
SKY LIFT (1953)
A spaceship pilot, thinking he was finally going to get some leave time, suddenly finds himself on an urgent resupply and rescue mission to plague-ridden Pluto, piloting the fastest of the available torch ships and having to endure the entire trip...along with his copilot...under 3.5 g's of gravitational force. A painful story to read as Heinlein vividly describes the effects such a sustained gravitational load would have on the human body and psyche...
GOLDFISH BOWL (1957)
Scientists on a ship in the Pacific investigate two mysterious columns of water coming out of the ocean and ending far up in the sky. What happens to two of them when they get too close sets the stage for the rest of the story: it's a sobering suggestion that humanity isn't necessarily the "highest" form of life in the universe...or even on our home planet, for that matter...
PROJECT NIGHTMARE (1953)
Although, Heinlein, himself an engineer, liked to stress hard science in his stories, he nevertheless played along with the notions that time travel and, in this tale, ESP, were possible. The search is on in the country for Americans with telepathic and telekinetic abilities during the height of the Cold War against the Soviets...it has to do with our atomic bombs and theirs. A crisis puts everyone to the test...
WATER IS FOR WASHING (1947)
Not really a science fiction story, this one is set in the present as a businessman finds himself on a survival quest as the once-bone dry desert valley in southern California he is driving through suddenly finds itself inundated by Pacific Ocean waters following an earthquake. The notion of prioritizing people's values to society plays into it all as, along the way as he tries to escape, he picks up...in the tsunami's path...two children and a thieving vagrant. The implicit question Heinlein asks in this story is what would you and I do in similar circumstances?
Next week I'll start looking at some stories Heinlein included in his collection Expanded Universe...
THE YEAR OF THE JACKPOT (1952)
I remember reading this story many, many years ago in the break room of the old downtown Gainesville post office...a theoretical statistician has come across a truth that trends of low-probability cycle over years. But now all the different areas of low probability are converging at the same time into the present and who knows what will happen. The ending illustrates why this story is NOT a part of Robert Heinlein's interrelated "universe" of stories...
BY HIS BOOTSTRAPS (1941)
The ultimate time travel paradox story, with effect repeatedly serving as cause. A college student, wearily working on his thesis one night, encounters himself from the future...and the confusing fun begins. Another story I first read what seems like eons ago...
COLUMBUS WAS A DOPE (1947)
The setting is a bar and the patrons are arguing whether it is advisable whether to go on a manned mission to Mars as planned. The opinions are divided, and the bartender is adamantly against it, using the "if God had meant for men to fly he'd have given us wings" argument. It's the punch-line ending of this brief tale that gives it a special perspective...
SKY LIFT (1953)
A spaceship pilot, thinking he was finally going to get some leave time, suddenly finds himself on an urgent resupply and rescue mission to plague-ridden Pluto, piloting the fastest of the available torch ships and having to endure the entire trip...along with his copilot...under 3.5 g's of gravitational force. A painful story to read as Heinlein vividly describes the effects such a sustained gravitational load would have on the human body and psyche...
GOLDFISH BOWL (1957)
Scientists on a ship in the Pacific investigate two mysterious columns of water coming out of the ocean and ending far up in the sky. What happens to two of them when they get too close sets the stage for the rest of the story: it's a sobering suggestion that humanity isn't necessarily the "highest" form of life in the universe...or even on our home planet, for that matter...
PROJECT NIGHTMARE (1953)
Although, Heinlein, himself an engineer, liked to stress hard science in his stories, he nevertheless played along with the notions that time travel and, in this tale, ESP, were possible. The search is on in the country for Americans with telepathic and telekinetic abilities during the height of the Cold War against the Soviets...it has to do with our atomic bombs and theirs. A crisis puts everyone to the test...
WATER IS FOR WASHING (1947)
Not really a science fiction story, this one is set in the present as a businessman finds himself on a survival quest as the once-bone dry desert valley in southern California he is driving through suddenly finds itself inundated by Pacific Ocean waters following an earthquake. The notion of prioritizing people's values to society plays into it all as, along the way as he tries to escape, he picks up...in the tsunami's path...two children and a thieving vagrant. The implicit question Heinlein asks in this story is what would you and I do in similar circumstances?
Next week I'll start looking at some stories Heinlein included in his collection Expanded Universe...
Tuesday, March 24, 2020
Canceled Races and Some Coronavirus Views
Well, due to this coronavirus outbreak and the calls for social distancing, the springtime running race season I've been regularly participating in over the past few years has been canceled. I'm still getting Facebook reminders about a coming event...seems they forgot to notify Zuckerberg that it's off. Instead, I'm continuing my running but on my own, not around others. Last Friday I slowly ran 9.3 miles on my extended course through my subdivision and the adjacent one...a good run but not the half-marathon distance I had been planning to run that weekend in Ormond Beach in their race, which had it not been canceled due to the virus would have taken place in Tomoka State Park north of town on the west side of the Intracoastal Waterway. Oh well, maybe next year, and in the meantime I can still run around my neighborhood as much as I want...
As for the coronavirus response, I'm a bit confused about something I'm hearing from Dr. Fauci (of the coronavirus task force) and New York governor Cuomo. Fauci has said that we shouldn't get ourselves tested for coronavirus unless the symptoms stand out, the reason being that we "consume" health care professionals' protective gear with each test, gear that will be needed for future treatment of the disease. Cuomo, on the other hand, has been pushing widespread testing in his state with the aim of isolating those with positive outcomes...even those with no discernible symptoms...to help curtail the disease's rapid spread and "flatten the curve". His rationale is that coronavirus is destined to eventually spread throughout the general population and that the social distancing efforts are not accomplishing enough to provide time for increasing our protective gear, hospital beds and most importantly, ventilators, to meet the upcoming demand for them. Of course, neither you nor I make the decision whether to administer the tests, so this debate on how often they are used needs to be reconciled at a higher level...
I'm also noticing an even higher ratcheting up of the nastiness I'm hearing on TV and radio, even within the U.S. Senate chamber where informal rules of comity have been generally observed. Everybody seems to have their own theory on how to deal with this crisis and what merits top priority and what should be pushed to the back. It may seem like a long time already, but it's only been going on for a few weeks and this disease will be with us for much, much longer. The point of all this inconvenience and economic displacement right now is to reduce the early incidents of serious and critical cases while buying time to increase the needed stockpiles of medical equipment. And on that latter issue, the different states should not be competing with one another on the open market for them, which only drives up the price. The federal government, led by the President, needs to step up to the plate and coordinate these efforts...
As for the coronavirus response, I'm a bit confused about something I'm hearing from Dr. Fauci (of the coronavirus task force) and New York governor Cuomo. Fauci has said that we shouldn't get ourselves tested for coronavirus unless the symptoms stand out, the reason being that we "consume" health care professionals' protective gear with each test, gear that will be needed for future treatment of the disease. Cuomo, on the other hand, has been pushing widespread testing in his state with the aim of isolating those with positive outcomes...even those with no discernible symptoms...to help curtail the disease's rapid spread and "flatten the curve". His rationale is that coronavirus is destined to eventually spread throughout the general population and that the social distancing efforts are not accomplishing enough to provide time for increasing our protective gear, hospital beds and most importantly, ventilators, to meet the upcoming demand for them. Of course, neither you nor I make the decision whether to administer the tests, so this debate on how often they are used needs to be reconciled at a higher level...
I'm also noticing an even higher ratcheting up of the nastiness I'm hearing on TV and radio, even within the U.S. Senate chamber where informal rules of comity have been generally observed. Everybody seems to have their own theory on how to deal with this crisis and what merits top priority and what should be pushed to the back. It may seem like a long time already, but it's only been going on for a few weeks and this disease will be with us for much, much longer. The point of all this inconvenience and economic displacement right now is to reduce the early incidents of serious and critical cases while buying time to increase the needed stockpiles of medical equipment. And on that latter issue, the different states should not be competing with one another on the open market for them, which only drives up the price. The federal government, led by the President, needs to step up to the plate and coordinate these efforts...
Monday, March 23, 2020
My 500 All-Time Favorite Songs: #200-191
With today I begin to explore the top 200 of my list of all-time favorite songs...you can reference the previous (lower-ranked) entries by skipping back to previous Mondays on this blog. All of the ten songs I'm discussing today are super-oldies, the most recent one coming out more than 37 years ago...
200 TANGLED UP IN BLUE...Bob Dylan
The notion that some people just stumble through their lives, bouncing off experiences and relationships, is a hidden theme of this narrative by the Bard of Our Time as he relates in epic fashion his on-again, off-again friendship over the years with a woman unnamed. My favorite line: "All the people we used to know, they're an illusion to me now. Some are mathematicians, some are carpenters' wives...don't know how it all got started, don't know what they're doin' with their lives". Tangled Up in Blue is from Dylan's Blood on the Tracks LP and was a hit in early 1975...but I didn't get to really liking it until years later: sometimes you just have to grow into a song...
199 P.S. I LOVE YOU...the Beatles
I've loved this very early (and very short) Beatles song since early 1964 when it was played a lot on Miami's 560/WQAM, along with much of the backlog of Beatles hits that had already been released in England the year before. It's a "Paul" song and is one of the greatest love songs of all time "as he writes this letter"...
198 ROUNDABOUT...Yes
Among other things there are two distinct memories I have from the spring of 1972 as I wound down my sophomore year in high school: it never stopped raining and my favorite song was Roundabout by Yes. I'd sit evenings on the back porch or do homework in the utility room my sister converted to a study area and who let me use it, with the radio going strong. And this was the one of the best songs back then, in my opinion...but there always seemed to be that background sound of rain pounding down on everything. Ironically, during the previous spring South Florida was in the throes of a severe drought with a smoky, stinking haze blowing in from Everglades wildfires. Roundabout, from the English progressive rock group's great Fragile album, dazzled me with its insane keyboards...more from Yes to come...
197 THE DAY WE MEET AGAIN...the Moody Blues
I discovered this jewel from the band's 1977 Octave album during the mid-1990s when I was investigating their catalogue of works. I didn't care for the album as a whole, but those last two tracks were incredible...this one is the finale and the other is higher on this list. The Day We Meet Again is dominated by the organ, and imparts a sad, dreamy feeling as singer/songwriter Justin Haywood delivers a possibly unintentional prophetic message about his band's future. Octave is a peculiar album, recorded after the Moody Blues had broken up four years earlier and four years before they would resume recording together. In our times that would seem to be a normal break between albums, but not then: everybody was churning 'em out at a much higher rate in the sixties and seventies...
196 AMERICA...Keith Emerson and the Nice
For some reason the memory keeps coming back to me of sitting in the seventh grade at Nova High (no middle school back in 1968) during morning announcements (which for some reason they called Ad-Com, short for administrative communications) and they played this song over the air...I had already been enjoying it from the radio. America is an organ/guitar-based instrumental rock adaptation of Leonard Bernstein's same-titled piece from his musical West Side Story...with a tribute to Antonin Dvorak's Ninth "New World" Symphony thrown in for good measure. Bernstein was reportedly miffed at Emerson's presentation of his work as an antiwar protest song, but I thought then and still do think that it was a masterpiece...my favorite song of 1968 as I lived through it...
195 DESIDERATA...Les Crane
Disc jockey Les Crane turned Max Erhmann's prose poem into a hit single in 1972...he delivers the great wisdom of this piece in a calm, plain voice with a female chorus for the line "You are a child of the universe..." Have you ever read or heard Desiderata? Pretty much everything in it is useful for framing one's own attitudes about life and others....here's one verse: "If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself"....
194 FLY AWAY...John Denver and Olivia Newton-John
Fly Away was a 1975 hit...I first heard it on TV as Denver and Newton-John performed it. I thought then that there was a future in these two collaborating on more songs as they both seemed to project the same kind of popular music with country leanings and their voices dovetailed beautifully, but apparently they didn't agree and went their own ways. This one at least I'm grateful for...
193 IT'S RAINING AGAIN...Supertramp
Supertramp had a good run in the late 1970s, which would end in the early 80s when singer/composer Roger Hodgson regrettably left the group for solo stardom that would elude him. From late 1982, It's Raining Again is self-evidently a melancholic song with Hodgson's plaintive singing and the band's seamless accompaniment, including piano, synthesizer and saxophone...it ends with an old nursery rhyme. It's the last song they did together that I liked...
192 PRESSURE...Billy Joel
Back in 2007 when I compiled my all-time favorite songs list on this blog, Pressure, from Joel's 1982 Nylon Curtain album, came in at a lofty #23, but its subsequent drop on my list over the years isn't so much due to me liking it less as it is that I took a better look at all the rest of the songs I liked, including many recent ones. It has some of the most clever lyrics I've heard, my favorite line being "But here you are with your faith and your Peter Pan advice, you have no scars on your face and you cannot handle pressure"...
191 WORDS OF LOVE...the Beatles
When the Beatles album Beatles VI came out in the summer of 1964 my parents, both hardline Beatles fans back then, duly went out and purchased the album...it quickly became one of my all-time favorites of that group. I was seven at the time, on summer vacation between the second and third grades at Boulevard Heights Elementary in what was still called West Hollywood...good times, good times. Words of Love, the closing track on side one, features George deftly displaying his guitar picking skills as he sings this brief cover of an old Buddy Holly song...not that I knew of Holly back then. Along with Slow Down, this was one of my top favorite Fab Four songs during that season...
Next week: #190-181...
200 TANGLED UP IN BLUE...Bob Dylan
The notion that some people just stumble through their lives, bouncing off experiences and relationships, is a hidden theme of this narrative by the Bard of Our Time as he relates in epic fashion his on-again, off-again friendship over the years with a woman unnamed. My favorite line: "All the people we used to know, they're an illusion to me now. Some are mathematicians, some are carpenters' wives...don't know how it all got started, don't know what they're doin' with their lives". Tangled Up in Blue is from Dylan's Blood on the Tracks LP and was a hit in early 1975...but I didn't get to really liking it until years later: sometimes you just have to grow into a song...
199 P.S. I LOVE YOU...the Beatles
I've loved this very early (and very short) Beatles song since early 1964 when it was played a lot on Miami's 560/WQAM, along with much of the backlog of Beatles hits that had already been released in England the year before. It's a "Paul" song and is one of the greatest love songs of all time "as he writes this letter"...
198 ROUNDABOUT...Yes
Among other things there are two distinct memories I have from the spring of 1972 as I wound down my sophomore year in high school: it never stopped raining and my favorite song was Roundabout by Yes. I'd sit evenings on the back porch or do homework in the utility room my sister converted to a study area and who let me use it, with the radio going strong. And this was the one of the best songs back then, in my opinion...but there always seemed to be that background sound of rain pounding down on everything. Ironically, during the previous spring South Florida was in the throes of a severe drought with a smoky, stinking haze blowing in from Everglades wildfires. Roundabout, from the English progressive rock group's great Fragile album, dazzled me with its insane keyboards...more from Yes to come...
197 THE DAY WE MEET AGAIN...the Moody Blues
I discovered this jewel from the band's 1977 Octave album during the mid-1990s when I was investigating their catalogue of works. I didn't care for the album as a whole, but those last two tracks were incredible...this one is the finale and the other is higher on this list. The Day We Meet Again is dominated by the organ, and imparts a sad, dreamy feeling as singer/songwriter Justin Haywood delivers a possibly unintentional prophetic message about his band's future. Octave is a peculiar album, recorded after the Moody Blues had broken up four years earlier and four years before they would resume recording together. In our times that would seem to be a normal break between albums, but not then: everybody was churning 'em out at a much higher rate in the sixties and seventies...
196 AMERICA...Keith Emerson and the Nice
For some reason the memory keeps coming back to me of sitting in the seventh grade at Nova High (no middle school back in 1968) during morning announcements (which for some reason they called Ad-Com, short for administrative communications) and they played this song over the air...I had already been enjoying it from the radio. America is an organ/guitar-based instrumental rock adaptation of Leonard Bernstein's same-titled piece from his musical West Side Story...with a tribute to Antonin Dvorak's Ninth "New World" Symphony thrown in for good measure. Bernstein was reportedly miffed at Emerson's presentation of his work as an antiwar protest song, but I thought then and still do think that it was a masterpiece...my favorite song of 1968 as I lived through it...
195 DESIDERATA...Les Crane
Disc jockey Les Crane turned Max Erhmann's prose poem into a hit single in 1972...he delivers the great wisdom of this piece in a calm, plain voice with a female chorus for the line "You are a child of the universe..." Have you ever read or heard Desiderata? Pretty much everything in it is useful for framing one's own attitudes about life and others....here's one verse: "If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself"....
194 FLY AWAY...John Denver and Olivia Newton-John
Fly Away was a 1975 hit...I first heard it on TV as Denver and Newton-John performed it. I thought then that there was a future in these two collaborating on more songs as they both seemed to project the same kind of popular music with country leanings and their voices dovetailed beautifully, but apparently they didn't agree and went their own ways. This one at least I'm grateful for...
193 IT'S RAINING AGAIN...Supertramp
Supertramp had a good run in the late 1970s, which would end in the early 80s when singer/composer Roger Hodgson regrettably left the group for solo stardom that would elude him. From late 1982, It's Raining Again is self-evidently a melancholic song with Hodgson's plaintive singing and the band's seamless accompaniment, including piano, synthesizer and saxophone...it ends with an old nursery rhyme. It's the last song they did together that I liked...
192 PRESSURE...Billy Joel
Back in 2007 when I compiled my all-time favorite songs list on this blog, Pressure, from Joel's 1982 Nylon Curtain album, came in at a lofty #23, but its subsequent drop on my list over the years isn't so much due to me liking it less as it is that I took a better look at all the rest of the songs I liked, including many recent ones. It has some of the most clever lyrics I've heard, my favorite line being "But here you are with your faith and your Peter Pan advice, you have no scars on your face and you cannot handle pressure"...
191 WORDS OF LOVE...the Beatles
When the Beatles album Beatles VI came out in the summer of 1964 my parents, both hardline Beatles fans back then, duly went out and purchased the album...it quickly became one of my all-time favorites of that group. I was seven at the time, on summer vacation between the second and third grades at Boulevard Heights Elementary in what was still called West Hollywood...good times, good times. Words of Love, the closing track on side one, features George deftly displaying his guitar picking skills as he sings this brief cover of an old Buddy Holly song...not that I knew of Holly back then. Along with Slow Down, this was one of my top favorite Fab Four songs during that season...
Next week: #190-181...
Sunday, March 22, 2020
Coronavirus Distancing Prompts Me to Increase Social Media Presence
As this coronavirus pandemic begins to make itself felt more acutely with the numbers of those testing positive for it continuing to double nationally every two or three days, eventually its pervasiveness among the general population is making social distancing much more of a reasonable proposition, even among my extroverted friends who seem to have the notion deeply embedded within themselves that only through regular, close contact with groups of people can they enjoy any meaning in life. I'm the opposite, pretty much on the extreme-introvert end of the scale, but still try to maintain some interaction with others...this blog's a major example. I post links to its articles daily on Facebook and Twitter and maintain Facebook friendships with some 200+ people. In light of the increasing physical isolation in our country, mandated either by the government, businesses or the disease itself, I've decided to send out many more friend requests in the next day or two...focusing on those people I know, although sometimes admittedly not very well with the possibility that some of them may not know me at all. Also, I intend to be more active on both Facebook and Twitter about interacting on these sites in an appropriate and respectful way with friends and those I follow by commenting on their posts. I think it's important for folks to keep connected and social media can serve well to alleviate some of the social disorientation which this season of mandated isolation could bring about...
Saturday, March 21, 2020
Just Finished Reading The Van Gogh Deception by Deron Hicks
A few weeks ago Melissa and I were walking through Ollie's, a discount store located at Main Street and Northeast 23rd Avenue here in Gainesville. They have a large book section and I picked out The Van Gogh Deception, a 2017 teen adventure novel by Deron Hicks...for just $1.99. I just finished reading it and thought it had all the features necessary for an exciting yarn...sympathetic protagonists, mysteries to solve, a wily and ruthless mastermind enemy, many close calls, a suspenseful ending...plus the addition of educational value as great works of art are presented as well as a guide to much of Washington, D.C. A boy is discovered in the National Gallery of Art sitting in front of a sculpture...he has no memory of his identity or why he is there. Taken into protective custody by the police, he is handed over to Mary Sullivan, a young editor for a publishing firm, for temporary foster care. Mary has a daughter, Camille, who herself assumes a protective role over "Art", as she calls him. Meanwhile Dorchek Palmer, a wealthy adventurer-turned-master criminal along the lines of Superman's Lex Luther, uses his high-tech skills and henchmen to track down the young boy, who seems to be the central figure in a grand art hoax scheme with $183 million dollars at stake. The author presents the narrative from different characters' perspectives, each section headed by the precise time and location...I liked that. But what I liked the most about this book was how Deron Hicks inserted barcodes alongside the text whenever an art work was mentioned...using a QR reader app on my phone I was able to view the actual works on my phone screen: really cool. And I thoroughly enjoyed the convoluted way at the end in how the story was resolved. Two thumbs up from me on this story...I wonder what else Mr. Hicks has written...
Friday, March 20, 2020
Quote of the Week...from Tom Brady
I'm starting a new football journey and thankful for the Buccaneers for giving me an opportunity for me to do what I love to do. ---Tom Brady
The above quote of former New England Patriots quarterback (and six times Super Bowl winner) Tom Brady was made on his Instagram account this morning after he signed a two-year contract to play for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. For the past two decades I've struggled with the awe and respect I've felt for the performance of this, the greatest quarterback in NFL history, while at the same time rooting the best I could against him and his team. After all, since "my" Miami Dolphins began as an expansion team in 1966 the Patriots have been divisional rivals. Brian Flores did remarkably well as Miami's first year head coach following the work he had previously done as a defensive coach with the Patriots...that season-ending upset of New England in Foxboro was a classic. As for Tampa Bay, I think the Bucs were very competitive last year and lost some exciting games...getting Brady in there should make them playoff-bound. Feeling that I can now freely cheer for Tom Brady gives me something to look forward to later as virtually all sports have been shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic...
The above quote of former New England Patriots quarterback (and six times Super Bowl winner) Tom Brady was made on his Instagram account this morning after he signed a two-year contract to play for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. For the past two decades I've struggled with the awe and respect I've felt for the performance of this, the greatest quarterback in NFL history, while at the same time rooting the best I could against him and his team. After all, since "my" Miami Dolphins began as an expansion team in 1966 the Patriots have been divisional rivals. Brian Flores did remarkably well as Miami's first year head coach following the work he had previously done as a defensive coach with the Patriots...that season-ending upset of New England in Foxboro was a classic. As for Tampa Bay, I think the Bucs were very competitive last year and lost some exciting games...getting Brady in there should make them playoff-bound. Feeling that I can now freely cheer for Tom Brady gives me something to look forward to later as virtually all sports have been shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic...
Thursday, March 19, 2020
Our February 13th Visit to the US Virgin Islands
On Thursday, February 13th our Royal Caribbean cruise ship Allure of the Seas docked at Charlotte Amalie on the island of St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, a few miles east of Puerto Rico. The weather was warm and clear...perfect for sightseeing and enjoying the beach. After disembarking we found our shuttle and rode up a steep, winding road to a mountaintop where stood a large gift shop prominently touting their banana daiquiris. We strode through it to the back where they were offering the drinks and cut sharp left through the doors to our real destination: the lookout point over Magens Bay Beach to where we were headed (1st photo). There Melissa and I changed to our swimwear and enjoyed the mild sand and waters (2nd photo) until we all returned the shuttle and headed back up to where we could view the capital city of Charlotte Amalie along with its harbor and outlying islands (3rd photo). Upon returning there we walked around the stores (4th photo)...most of them jewelers with aggressive salespeople and owners cajoling the pedestrians to enter their stores. Melissa and I agreed that it was too bad we weren't allotted more time in that "banana daiquiri" store on the mountaintop: they had by far the best selection of items. Seeing that there wasn't time to enjoy a full meal at one of the local eateries, we decided to split a candy bar and sit on a bench in a little park area until it was time to get back on our shuttle. A chicken running loose began to approach from our right and I stupidly encouraged it by making eye contact and sweet-talking it. Then suddenly around the left a horde of chickens came rushing toward us...we quickly left for the safety of the shuttle! Later that night we watched the stunning, retreating coastline of St. Thomas as we went back out to sea (last photo).,,
The tour guide/driver told us that the U.S. Virgin Islands...which the United States acquired by purchasing it from Denmark...is 99% dependent on tourism for its economy, which distinguishes it somewhat from Puerto Rico. There was nothing like that beautiful beach we visited, and the mountaintop and hillside views were spectacular. On the other hand I didn't care all that much for the shopping and the overbearing people trying to push merchandise we didn't want. Still, if you're ever there and get in the mood for some fried chicken, just reach out and grab one...
Wednesday, March 18, 2020
Weekly Short Stories: Robert Heinlein, Part 4
I conclude today my look through the late science fiction writer Robert Heinlein's collection of stories titled The Past Through Tomorrow with one short story, one novel and two novellas. Heinlein had other collections as well...I might look into a couple of them during the next few weeks before I resume my weekly year-by-year review of past SF stories by other writers. Here are my reactions to those four Heinlein tales with their years of publication following the titles...
LOGIC OF EMPIRE (1941)
Back when Heinlein wrote this novella there was a lot of speculation that Venus was habitable, usually depicted as swamp-like with dangerous exotic creatures. Workers are being recruited to "tame" the planet for human habitation, but their long-term contracts and working conditions resemble slavery. A wealthy lawyer on the moon gets drunk one night with a friend and the next day they find themselves bound by contract for six years and on the way as two more indentured workers to Venus...he spends the rest of the story trying to rectify the "mistake" and get free...
THE MENACE FROM EARTH (1957)
A young woman living on the moon works in a business partnership with a young man developing rockets and guiding tourists...they regularly insult each other but have a strong friendship and working relationship. A sultry actress from Earth visits one day and the man falls for her as her guide...our heroine suddenly finds herself deep in jealousy over the "menace from Earth"...
"IF THIS GOES ON..." (1940)
In this short novel it is way off in the future from Heinlein's 1940...since 2016 the United States has been subjugated under a theocracy with the First Prophet serving as dictator. One of his followers, certain to rise up the hierarchy of power, instead joins the revolt when he learns what the young virgin girls are doing when they visit the tyrant-in-chief after a young lady he had become infatuated with violently resists and flees the First Prophet's advances. Heinlein was always skeptical of organized religion and its leaders' relative lack of accountability as opposed to other social institutions...
COVENTRY (1948)
In future America land out west has been set aside for the exile of those incapable or unwilling to abide by the terms of the Covenant, a document setting stringent standards of avoiding all violence and working to build a more peaceful society. The land, called Coventry, is hidden by an opaque force field and can only be accessed through an opening requiring special authorization. A young man is exiled after he punches another man who insulted him in the nose...he refuses mandatory psychological treatment and is sent over to Coventry. After the initial enthusiasm about finally being free from the restrictive Covenant, he very quickly discovers that Coventry is quite different from what he expected. There is an unusual degree of humor in this novella, I didn't expect that...
Next week I will review the stories from Heinlein's 1959 collection The Menace from Earth, minus the title story which I just wrote about in this article...
LOGIC OF EMPIRE (1941)
Back when Heinlein wrote this novella there was a lot of speculation that Venus was habitable, usually depicted as swamp-like with dangerous exotic creatures. Workers are being recruited to "tame" the planet for human habitation, but their long-term contracts and working conditions resemble slavery. A wealthy lawyer on the moon gets drunk one night with a friend and the next day they find themselves bound by contract for six years and on the way as two more indentured workers to Venus...he spends the rest of the story trying to rectify the "mistake" and get free...
THE MENACE FROM EARTH (1957)
A young woman living on the moon works in a business partnership with a young man developing rockets and guiding tourists...they regularly insult each other but have a strong friendship and working relationship. A sultry actress from Earth visits one day and the man falls for her as her guide...our heroine suddenly finds herself deep in jealousy over the "menace from Earth"...
"IF THIS GOES ON..." (1940)
In this short novel it is way off in the future from Heinlein's 1940...since 2016 the United States has been subjugated under a theocracy with the First Prophet serving as dictator. One of his followers, certain to rise up the hierarchy of power, instead joins the revolt when he learns what the young virgin girls are doing when they visit the tyrant-in-chief after a young lady he had become infatuated with violently resists and flees the First Prophet's advances. Heinlein was always skeptical of organized religion and its leaders' relative lack of accountability as opposed to other social institutions...
COVENTRY (1948)
In future America land out west has been set aside for the exile of those incapable or unwilling to abide by the terms of the Covenant, a document setting stringent standards of avoiding all violence and working to build a more peaceful society. The land, called Coventry, is hidden by an opaque force field and can only be accessed through an opening requiring special authorization. A young man is exiled after he punches another man who insulted him in the nose...he refuses mandatory psychological treatment and is sent over to Coventry. After the initial enthusiasm about finally being free from the restrictive Covenant, he very quickly discovers that Coventry is quite different from what he expected. There is an unusual degree of humor in this novella, I didn't expect that...
Next week I will review the stories from Heinlein's 1959 collection The Menace from Earth, minus the title story which I just wrote about in this article...
Tuesday, March 17, 2020
The Cruise Week and the Coronavirus Era
Without consciously having intended to do so, I noticed that I had been cooling it lately on articles about our recent February cruise from the 9th to the 16th...the coronavirus outbreak and presidential politics seem to have replaced them. But my memories of the excursion are still very fresh...it was only a month ago, and it seems as if I were living in a completely different universe then, what with all the social distancing and restrictions going on now. Melissa and I were on a ship for a week along with more than five thousand other people...many of them belonging to vulnerable groups for the virus...and oftentimes found ourselves in pretty crowded conditions, including daily sessions of presentations promoting marriage enrichment, concerts, restaurants, crowded hot tubs, and a balloon-release event toward the end that packed more than a thousand together for a prolonged period like sardines in a can. And to top it off we were crowded and jostled along in long lines at Port Everglades as we disembarked...and then rode on a crowded shuttle bus back to our car. I kept waiting for days...and then weeks...for some news about someone testing positive from that cruise, but nothing came of it: we figuratively dodged the bullet, the last coach out of Dodge City, so to speak...
Now, of course, we exist in a world of social distancing...six feet between people and incremental restrictions from day to day. I expect the intensity of this all to only worsen as the numbers of infected and resulting hospitalizations and deaths rise, along with reports close to home of people testing positive for the coronavirus. So in light of that, please forgive me when you get to this blog some days and discover an article about our cruise, which happened so recently but seems like from an completely different era...yes, in those days gone by folks really did have large assemblies and hung out together, if you can believe it...
Now, of course, we exist in a world of social distancing...six feet between people and incremental restrictions from day to day. I expect the intensity of this all to only worsen as the numbers of infected and resulting hospitalizations and deaths rise, along with reports close to home of people testing positive for the coronavirus. So in light of that, please forgive me when you get to this blog some days and discover an article about our cruise, which happened so recently but seems like from an completely different era...yes, in those days gone by folks really did have large assemblies and hung out together, if you can believe it...
Monday, March 16, 2020
My 500 All-Time Favorite Songs: #210-201
With today's songs we're now through with the "lower 300" of my 500 all-time favorite songs list...but as I've written before, since I've heard thousands of songs over the years all of these are pretty special to me. Here are my reactions to the next ten on the list...
210 THE INNER LIGHT...the Beatles
This beautiful George Harrison song was released in 1968 as the flip side on the single Lady Madonna. It's pretty short but loaded with wonderful indigenous Indian instrumental music performed by native artists. The lyrics reflect Harrison's fascination at the time with Transcendental Meditation: "Arrive without traveling, see all without looking, do all without doing". I didn't hear it until decades following the Beatles' breakup, probably the "final" Beatles song of their studio recordings I heard for the first time. In essence, though, The Inner Light is a George Harrison solo piece...
209 FIELDS OF GOLD...Sting
Sting was asked about Fields of Gold and replied...if my sometimes-flagging memory doesn't fail me...that it was just a love song, nothing more. And sometimes that's all you need to produce a great, memorable song if you're as talented and creative as the former frontman of The Police. Fields of Gold came out in 1993 and is one of the best songs at visually evoking scenery:"You'll remember me when the west wind moves upon the fields of barley, you'll forget the sun in his jealous sky as we walk in fields of gold"...
208 KARMA POLICE...Radiohead
From Radiohead's 1997 album OK Computer, this is the song that turned me in that incredible British band's direction when my local alternative rock radio station began playing it early in 1998. The lyrics make little sense and their video even less...the music itself steals the show here. It's somber and majestic and singer Thom Yorke expresses a mood of cynicism and a hint of despair...an ode of angst...
207 REFLECTIONS...the Supremes
The Supremes, with Diana Ross heading the great 1960s singing trio, came out with one listenable single after another, beginning in 1964 and lasting a couple of years after Ross left them in 1970 to pursue her solo career. Smack dab in the middle of their hits is Reflections, a 1967 "Summer of Love" song that speaks of the pain of a broken relationship. At the time I wasn't paying too much attention to it...this is a song that began to stand out retrospectively to me starting in the early 70s...
206 SHATTERED...the Rolling Stones
Funny and relentless are adjectives describing this closing track from the Rolling Stones' remarkable 1978 album Some Girls, one of their best. Mick Jagger, who I remember saying that he wrote this song's words in a New York City taxi, is hilarious as he employs stream-of-consciousness to lampoon all the aspects of Manhattan that he has grown accustomed to, especially anything seedy or scandalous: a perfect storm combining a mesmerizing beat and outlandish lyrics...
205 ENJOY THE SILENCE...Depeche Mode
I always associate this fascinating song, from the British band's 1989 Violator album, with its video depicting singer David Gahan garbed in king costume...complete with crown...wandering over beautiful, scenic lands carrying with him a folding chair which he proceeds at intervals to open up and sit in. I've always felt that this would have been a great Beatles song...and Ringo would have been the perfect choice to sing it. It seems paradoxical that some songs extoll the virtues of silence and I can't get enough of listening to that message...
204 IT'S ALL IN THE GAME...Tommy Edwards
This is one of those classic old popular songs from an enchanted era: the late 1950s and early 60s. Although Tommy Edwards elegantly sang it into a big hit in 1958. Its backstory was also interesting: the original music was composed by Charles Dawes in 1911, before he would later become vice-president in the 1920s under Calvin Coolidge. I always liked it and am sad that the energy and optimism of that era during the end of the Eisenhower presidency and that of Kennedy's would so tragically end with the latter's 1963 assassination and the subsequent quagmire in Vietnam...
203 DUMB...Nirvana
A truly chilling song of understatement and despair...one of Kurt Cobain's quieter compositions, an introspective piece from the grunge band's 1993 In Utero album that questions the notion that people need to apply their learning to the world's standards...instead KC states "I'm not like them but I can pretend, the sun is gone but I have a light, the day is done but I'm having fun, I think I'm dumb...or maybe just happy". The background strings accentuate the eerie, somber mood...
202 HE AIN'T HEAVY, HE'S MY BROTHER...the Hollies
Yet another great song from 1969, a year that for some reason in my life at the time I nearly completely lost touch with what was going on in the music scene. This one's a tearjerker that expresses the Boys Town theme and a pledge to stand in the gap for others in their times of personal storms. The Hollies had come out with a string of hit singles during the British Invasion of the mid-sixties but later on in the decade had diminished in popularity in the USA while still going on strong in England...this big hit reversed that trend...
201 DRIVE...R.E.M.
R.E.M.'s 1992 Automatic for the People in my opinion was the Athens, Georgia-based alternative rock band's best album...Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones reportedly produced it. Drive is the lead track on it, starting with acoustic guitar as singer/lyricist Michael Stipe, one of my favorite voices in rock n' roll, speaks to kids with attitudes...with his own attitude: "Hey kids, where are you? Nobody tells you what to do, baby. Hey kids, shake a leg...maybe you're crazy in the head, baby". The electric guitar abruptly breaks in and eventually you have a Jones-style orchestrated background...beautiful. If I ever get a handle on playing guitar this is one of the songs I want to perform...
Next week: #200-191...
210 THE INNER LIGHT...the Beatles
This beautiful George Harrison song was released in 1968 as the flip side on the single Lady Madonna. It's pretty short but loaded with wonderful indigenous Indian instrumental music performed by native artists. The lyrics reflect Harrison's fascination at the time with Transcendental Meditation: "Arrive without traveling, see all without looking, do all without doing". I didn't hear it until decades following the Beatles' breakup, probably the "final" Beatles song of their studio recordings I heard for the first time. In essence, though, The Inner Light is a George Harrison solo piece...
209 FIELDS OF GOLD...Sting
Sting was asked about Fields of Gold and replied...if my sometimes-flagging memory doesn't fail me...that it was just a love song, nothing more. And sometimes that's all you need to produce a great, memorable song if you're as talented and creative as the former frontman of The Police. Fields of Gold came out in 1993 and is one of the best songs at visually evoking scenery:"You'll remember me when the west wind moves upon the fields of barley, you'll forget the sun in his jealous sky as we walk in fields of gold"...
208 KARMA POLICE...Radiohead
From Radiohead's 1997 album OK Computer, this is the song that turned me in that incredible British band's direction when my local alternative rock radio station began playing it early in 1998. The lyrics make little sense and their video even less...the music itself steals the show here. It's somber and majestic and singer Thom Yorke expresses a mood of cynicism and a hint of despair...an ode of angst...
207 REFLECTIONS...the Supremes
The Supremes, with Diana Ross heading the great 1960s singing trio, came out with one listenable single after another, beginning in 1964 and lasting a couple of years after Ross left them in 1970 to pursue her solo career. Smack dab in the middle of their hits is Reflections, a 1967 "Summer of Love" song that speaks of the pain of a broken relationship. At the time I wasn't paying too much attention to it...this is a song that began to stand out retrospectively to me starting in the early 70s...
206 SHATTERED...the Rolling Stones
Funny and relentless are adjectives describing this closing track from the Rolling Stones' remarkable 1978 album Some Girls, one of their best. Mick Jagger, who I remember saying that he wrote this song's words in a New York City taxi, is hilarious as he employs stream-of-consciousness to lampoon all the aspects of Manhattan that he has grown accustomed to, especially anything seedy or scandalous: a perfect storm combining a mesmerizing beat and outlandish lyrics...
205 ENJOY THE SILENCE...Depeche Mode
I always associate this fascinating song, from the British band's 1989 Violator album, with its video depicting singer David Gahan garbed in king costume...complete with crown...wandering over beautiful, scenic lands carrying with him a folding chair which he proceeds at intervals to open up and sit in. I've always felt that this would have been a great Beatles song...and Ringo would have been the perfect choice to sing it. It seems paradoxical that some songs extoll the virtues of silence and I can't get enough of listening to that message...
204 IT'S ALL IN THE GAME...Tommy Edwards
This is one of those classic old popular songs from an enchanted era: the late 1950s and early 60s. Although Tommy Edwards elegantly sang it into a big hit in 1958. Its backstory was also interesting: the original music was composed by Charles Dawes in 1911, before he would later become vice-president in the 1920s under Calvin Coolidge. I always liked it and am sad that the energy and optimism of that era during the end of the Eisenhower presidency and that of Kennedy's would so tragically end with the latter's 1963 assassination and the subsequent quagmire in Vietnam...
203 DUMB...Nirvana
A truly chilling song of understatement and despair...one of Kurt Cobain's quieter compositions, an introspective piece from the grunge band's 1993 In Utero album that questions the notion that people need to apply their learning to the world's standards...instead KC states "I'm not like them but I can pretend, the sun is gone but I have a light, the day is done but I'm having fun, I think I'm dumb...or maybe just happy". The background strings accentuate the eerie, somber mood...
202 HE AIN'T HEAVY, HE'S MY BROTHER...the Hollies
Yet another great song from 1969, a year that for some reason in my life at the time I nearly completely lost touch with what was going on in the music scene. This one's a tearjerker that expresses the Boys Town theme and a pledge to stand in the gap for others in their times of personal storms. The Hollies had come out with a string of hit singles during the British Invasion of the mid-sixties but later on in the decade had diminished in popularity in the USA while still going on strong in England...this big hit reversed that trend...
201 DRIVE...R.E.M.
R.E.M.'s 1992 Automatic for the People in my opinion was the Athens, Georgia-based alternative rock band's best album...Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones reportedly produced it. Drive is the lead track on it, starting with acoustic guitar as singer/lyricist Michael Stipe, one of my favorite voices in rock n' roll, speaks to kids with attitudes...with his own attitude: "Hey kids, where are you? Nobody tells you what to do, baby. Hey kids, shake a leg...maybe you're crazy in the head, baby". The electric guitar abruptly breaks in and eventually you have a Jones-style orchestrated background...beautiful. If I ever get a handle on playing guitar this is one of the songs I want to perform...
Next week: #200-191...
Sunday, March 15, 2020
About Social Distancing and the Coronavirus
As businesses, schools, churches, libraries, sporting and entertainment events, theme parks and other public places marked by gatherings of people shut down for the remainder of March...and possibly beyond...I am taking my own steps to flatten the exponential curve of coronavirus (specifically COVID-19) transmission in this country, staying at home when it isn't necessary to go out and avoiding my usual haunts at Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts. We've been shopping for reserve items that could help tide us over for a few days should we find ourselves quarantined or the stores themselves completely close their doors...either a distinct possibility. The irony of this is that yesterday at Publix there were so many people packed into that small space that the shopping carts were nearly depleted and they had run out of the sanitizer wipes they provided at the entrance. Well, I'm done with all that and, as far as being with other people for the next few days is concerned, other than voting this Tuesday I am quite content with either staying at home with my family or going back and forth to work. Speaking of work, Friday they gathered us all together in a little room to watch our Postmaster General advise us on TV to avoid large gatherings...this social distancing concept is very counterintuitive to many of us who have come to believe that bringing people together in community is a crucial step for making the world a better place. The epidemiologists, however, are more concerned about the growth rate of the disease among the general population and our nation's capacity to care for those many cases that will require hospitalization should that exponential curve continue, especially those more severely affected who will need ventilators to breathe. Italy, just a few days ahead of us, is already deciding which patients are beyond saving. And Spain and France have completely locked themselves down as well...
I'm not sure about the Florida Primary on this coming Tuesday. They had early voting all last week at my nearby Millhopper Library, and that is a place where people get in close proximity to one another. Voting is the one brief outing I intend to do...my polling place is the Senior Recreation Center just down the road in northern Gainesville: if they keep it there for Tuesday's voting I hope they're wise enough to have the Center closed for seniors normally using the facility and who would be hardest hit from infection as the general public traipses on through its doors to cast their ballots. Yes, the measures taken to create social distancing and reduce the coronavirus infection rate to a more manageable level are draconian, as I mentioned in Friday's article here. But so far we have not seen the heavy hand of governmental decrees...as has been the case in other countries earlier affected...to force the general population into complying with what they deem necessary to limit the disease's spread: this might be on the way as well. I'm wondering what the criteria for social distancing will be in a few weeks...the numbers of those afflicted and deaths are certain to continue rising even if this season of shutdown "flattens the curve"...sooner or later places will begin to open again while the virus is still an active presence: what then? I also mentioned before that I felt that the coronavirus is already freely circulating among us...we're going to encounter it on a mass scale eventually, let's not let the current social distancing delude us about that...
I'm not sure about the Florida Primary on this coming Tuesday. They had early voting all last week at my nearby Millhopper Library, and that is a place where people get in close proximity to one another. Voting is the one brief outing I intend to do...my polling place is the Senior Recreation Center just down the road in northern Gainesville: if they keep it there for Tuesday's voting I hope they're wise enough to have the Center closed for seniors normally using the facility and who would be hardest hit from infection as the general public traipses on through its doors to cast their ballots. Yes, the measures taken to create social distancing and reduce the coronavirus infection rate to a more manageable level are draconian, as I mentioned in Friday's article here. But so far we have not seen the heavy hand of governmental decrees...as has been the case in other countries earlier affected...to force the general population into complying with what they deem necessary to limit the disease's spread: this might be on the way as well. I'm wondering what the criteria for social distancing will be in a few weeks...the numbers of those afflicted and deaths are certain to continue rising even if this season of shutdown "flattens the curve"...sooner or later places will begin to open again while the virus is still an active presence: what then? I also mentioned before that I felt that the coronavirus is already freely circulating among us...we're going to encounter it on a mass scale eventually, let's not let the current social distancing delude us about that...
Saturday, March 14, 2020
Just Finished Reading A Guilty Thing Surprised by Ruth Rendell
Ruth Rendell's 1970 mystery novel A Guilty Thing Surprised is one from her Inspector Wexford series, which centers around a small English town and is very, very British in its orientation and vocabulary: for example the characters in this tale often refer to carrying torches, which is what they call flashlights on that side of the Great Pond. I was shopping last year in a Pine Mountain, Georgia antiques/used book store with Melissa and searching in vain for some James Michener novels...instead I discovered this book and purchased it although it took me a while to finally start reading...I had misplaced it at home and only recently came upon it. I enjoyed Rendell's story as I typically do of her writing...she was truly a master at her craft. Its setting is an English estate owned by an early middle aged, affluent couple, Quentin and Elizabeth Nightingale. There are the housekeeper, the gardeners and an au pair taking care of their home. Quentin's cynical writer/brother-in-law Denys stays in a separate building on the grounds because he maintains that's the only place he can write...in spite of the fact that he is married and his own home is nearby. In the middle of this setting, after the various main characters have been introduced, a murder occurs and Inspector Wexford, along with his Doctor-Watson-like assistant Mike Burden, are there to try and put all the pieces of the mystery together. The resolution reminded me somewhat of the House of Lannister in George R.R. Martin's opening book A Game of Thrones of the A Song of Ice and Fire series he seems to have abandoned finishing...
The paperback book was only 166 pages, so it's a quick read and pretty enjoyable at that. Yes, I intend to keep on exploring Ruth Rendell's long list of works...
The paperback book was only 166 pages, so it's a quick read and pretty enjoyable at that. Yes, I intend to keep on exploring Ruth Rendell's long list of works...
Friday, March 13, 2020
Quote of the Week...from Robert Heinlein
Don't ever become a pessimist...a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events. ---Robert Heinlein
Robert A. Heinlein (1907-88) was one of the greatest science fiction writers of the past century...in recognition of this fact I am reading (sometimes rereading) and reviewing some of his earlier short stories and novels. I was going through one of those "quotes" websites when I came across a few of his...they're just as true today as when he coined them decades ago, if not more so. Here are a couple more: "The United States has become a place where entertainers and athletes are mistaken for people of importance" and "Democracy is four wolves and a sheep voting on dinner". His above quote about pessimism and optimism is especially true in today's environment of fear...if not panic...about the ongoing coronavirus epidemic, which has just been classified as a pandemic by the World Health Organization. With such a disease it is important to be able to test people for it and isolate them so as to help protect the most vulnerable people, i.e. the elderly and those with compromised immune systems, from exposure...the only problem I see with this approach is that we may be closing the barn door after the chickens have all escaped: this disease appears to me to be freely circulating among us already. Wednesday night the National Basketball Association suspended the rest of its 2019-20 season after a Utah Jazz player tested positive and the NCAA yesterday canceled its popular March Madness tournament, theme parks and schools are closing indefinitely...Washington's governor just banned meetings exceeding 250 people: the word "draconian" seems to fit this trend of actions. We have had viral invasions periodically over the last few years, some dwarfing the effect that coronavirus has had: the swine flu epidemic a decade ago saw several tens of thousands of deaths in the USA and over 300,000 hospitalizations...but no stock market panic, no major closures or disruptions or travel bans then. And I think people are letting themselves get freaked out by the totally out-of-scale depictions of the virus as a large red spherical alienlike creature with nasty-looking spikes coming out of it...last night's local news show had a mural background of this spectacle. So I can see how it would be realistic for me to be pessimistic about this situation we are currently confronting, but being that way won't help me or anyone else. I see a light at the end of this gloomy tunnel and look forward to getting there. In the meantime, we should all exercise our own caution for the next few weeks as well...keep your hands from your face especially when in public, wash hands often, avoid hand-shaking and similar types of contact, stay away from large gatherings, stock up on some necessities in case of a quarantine (which is never expected until it suddenly happens), etcetera. As a pessimist might say, things will most likely get worse before they improve. But as an optimist I am looking forward to getting beyond this terrible period and returning to normality...and that includes health and prosperity!
Robert A. Heinlein (1907-88) was one of the greatest science fiction writers of the past century...in recognition of this fact I am reading (sometimes rereading) and reviewing some of his earlier short stories and novels. I was going through one of those "quotes" websites when I came across a few of his...they're just as true today as when he coined them decades ago, if not more so. Here are a couple more: "The United States has become a place where entertainers and athletes are mistaken for people of importance" and "Democracy is four wolves and a sheep voting on dinner". His above quote about pessimism and optimism is especially true in today's environment of fear...if not panic...about the ongoing coronavirus epidemic, which has just been classified as a pandemic by the World Health Organization. With such a disease it is important to be able to test people for it and isolate them so as to help protect the most vulnerable people, i.e. the elderly and those with compromised immune systems, from exposure...the only problem I see with this approach is that we may be closing the barn door after the chickens have all escaped: this disease appears to me to be freely circulating among us already. Wednesday night the National Basketball Association suspended the rest of its 2019-20 season after a Utah Jazz player tested positive and the NCAA yesterday canceled its popular March Madness tournament, theme parks and schools are closing indefinitely...Washington's governor just banned meetings exceeding 250 people: the word "draconian" seems to fit this trend of actions. We have had viral invasions periodically over the last few years, some dwarfing the effect that coronavirus has had: the swine flu epidemic a decade ago saw several tens of thousands of deaths in the USA and over 300,000 hospitalizations...but no stock market panic, no major closures or disruptions or travel bans then. And I think people are letting themselves get freaked out by the totally out-of-scale depictions of the virus as a large red spherical alienlike creature with nasty-looking spikes coming out of it...last night's local news show had a mural background of this spectacle. So I can see how it would be realistic for me to be pessimistic about this situation we are currently confronting, but being that way won't help me or anyone else. I see a light at the end of this gloomy tunnel and look forward to getting there. In the meantime, we should all exercise our own caution for the next few weeks as well...keep your hands from your face especially when in public, wash hands often, avoid hand-shaking and similar types of contact, stay away from large gatherings, stock up on some necessities in case of a quarantine (which is never expected until it suddenly happens), etcetera. As a pessimist might say, things will most likely get worse before they improve. But as an optimist I am looking forward to getting beyond this terrible period and returning to normality...and that includes health and prosperity!
Thursday, March 12, 2020
Watched C-Span2, US Senate Discussion on Emergency Paid Sick Leave
I was watching C-Span2 yesterday morning...they show live floor proceedings of the United States Senate. I saw two of the Democratic senators, Ohio's Sherrod Brown and Washington's Patty Murray, try to introduce a bill that would, in light of the coronavirus outbreak, temporarily mandate employers to provide a set amount of paid sick leave for employees who either felt ill or were compelled to care for someone in their family. On the surface it sounded reasonable, but then Tennessee Republican senator Lamar Alexander arose to respectfully object, saying that the government should fund its own mandates and that he is opposed to legislators patting themselves on the back for passing laws that put the burden on someone else...businesses and the economy in general have their hands more than full trying to endure this epidemic. I happen to agree with him, on the condition that he back up his words that he would work with Murray to come up with a better bill...
Alexander and Murray work as leaders on the committee responsible for working out this type of legislation before bringing it to the Senate floor. Let's see whether these two good senators can quickly produce an improved version with the same intent...sometimes I wonder whether some politicians, especially those on the left end of the spectrum, truly understand the small margins that many small business operators survive on. But I also see another problem: the notion of raising everyone's taxes a little to fund the government's necessary responses to emergencies is anathema to some politicians on the other, right, end of the spectrum...resulting in truly broken government. Yes, I'm looking forward to seeing if something good can come out of this crisis and our elected officials can actually get together and pass something that works. For me, I enjoy paid sick leave benefits on my job as well as those with whom I work, but in so many other businesses...many of which you and I frequent...employees either go to work or don't get paid. With the coronavirus around us, they shouldn't be forced to make such a decision because this just increases the disease's spread and its danger to the community. Maybe the White House and Congress can include government-funded emergency paid sick leave as part of their current negotiations on how to deal with the virus and its transmission...
Alexander and Murray work as leaders on the committee responsible for working out this type of legislation before bringing it to the Senate floor. Let's see whether these two good senators can quickly produce an improved version with the same intent...sometimes I wonder whether some politicians, especially those on the left end of the spectrum, truly understand the small margins that many small business operators survive on. But I also see another problem: the notion of raising everyone's taxes a little to fund the government's necessary responses to emergencies is anathema to some politicians on the other, right, end of the spectrum...resulting in truly broken government. Yes, I'm looking forward to seeing if something good can come out of this crisis and our elected officials can actually get together and pass something that works. For me, I enjoy paid sick leave benefits on my job as well as those with whom I work, but in so many other businesses...many of which you and I frequent...employees either go to work or don't get paid. With the coronavirus around us, they shouldn't be forced to make such a decision because this just increases the disease's spread and its danger to the community. Maybe the White House and Congress can include government-funded emergency paid sick leave as part of their current negotiations on how to deal with the virus and its transmission...
Wednesday, March 11, 2020
Weekly Short Stories: Robert Heinlein, Part 3
Here are my reviews of five more stories from science fiction legend Robert Heinlein's collection The Past Through Tomorrow. One thing I noticed in these stories is that I've grown accustomed to Heinlein's writing style...when reading anthologies containing stories by different author, sometimes it takes me a little adjusting as a reader to each successive story. Here are this week's tales...
"IT'S GREAT TO BE BACK!"
A young couple living on the moon within the comfortable confines of Luna City is homesick for Earth and all that comes with living out in the open on a world teeming with people and the good and bad aspects of it all. After reading this funny story all I have to say is "Sign me up for the next ship to Luna City"...
"---WE ALSO WALK DOGS"
General Services, as the name implies, is a "fix-it" business that solves people's problems for them...kind of a legal Don Corleone if you're a Godfather fan. For an agreed-upon fee they will research and contract the specialized experts who can meet whatever the situation demands. And they also walk dogs, as their slogan states. Here Heinlein shows a way to go about researching solutions in a free-market business context. In a lot of his stories free enterprise reigns supreme: turns out in real life he had a libertarian perspective...
SEARCHLIGHT
In this, the shortest tale in the book, a blind girl who is a gifted pianist is on her way to Luna City for a concert when her transport crash-lands on the lunar surface, exact whereabouts unknown. Her pilot, the only other one on the flight, is unconscious and the search crew must come up with a way to find her before time runs out due to the extreme conditions on the moon's surface. This was also the most recently written story in the book, published in 1962 and dependent on a transformative invention that occurred just two years earlier...
ORDEAL IN SPACE
Reminiscent of the Alfred Hitchcock thriller Vertigo starring James Stewart and Kim Novak, an astronaut on a space walk finds himself alone without a tether...and hanging onto the ship with perpetual space below awaiting him if he slips. Back on Earth he understandably suffers from fear of wide open places because of his space trauma, but a new-found friend has invited him on a visit to his 40th-story apartment. I could definitely see where this story was leading...
THE GREEN HILLS OF EARTH
Heinlein even has future folklore figured out in his imagined universe awaiting us...an expert space worker with a big mouth and attitude problem likes to compose poems and perform them...he's pretty good, too bad he can't get along with the captain. One day the ship's radioactive energy drive goes bonkers and he seals himself off to protect the others (like what Spock did in Star Trek 2: the Wrath of Khan)...effectively saving the ship he permanently loses his eyesight. Now blind, as he travels he discovers greater insights that enable him to complete his epics, the greatest one being "The Green Hills of Earth"...
Next week I finish my look at Robert Heinlein's short stories from his collection The Past Through Tomorrow...
"IT'S GREAT TO BE BACK!"
A young couple living on the moon within the comfortable confines of Luna City is homesick for Earth and all that comes with living out in the open on a world teeming with people and the good and bad aspects of it all. After reading this funny story all I have to say is "Sign me up for the next ship to Luna City"...
"---WE ALSO WALK DOGS"
General Services, as the name implies, is a "fix-it" business that solves people's problems for them...kind of a legal Don Corleone if you're a Godfather fan. For an agreed-upon fee they will research and contract the specialized experts who can meet whatever the situation demands. And they also walk dogs, as their slogan states. Here Heinlein shows a way to go about researching solutions in a free-market business context. In a lot of his stories free enterprise reigns supreme: turns out in real life he had a libertarian perspective...
SEARCHLIGHT
In this, the shortest tale in the book, a blind girl who is a gifted pianist is on her way to Luna City for a concert when her transport crash-lands on the lunar surface, exact whereabouts unknown. Her pilot, the only other one on the flight, is unconscious and the search crew must come up with a way to find her before time runs out due to the extreme conditions on the moon's surface. This was also the most recently written story in the book, published in 1962 and dependent on a transformative invention that occurred just two years earlier...
ORDEAL IN SPACE
Reminiscent of the Alfred Hitchcock thriller Vertigo starring James Stewart and Kim Novak, an astronaut on a space walk finds himself alone without a tether...and hanging onto the ship with perpetual space below awaiting him if he slips. Back on Earth he understandably suffers from fear of wide open places because of his space trauma, but a new-found friend has invited him on a visit to his 40th-story apartment. I could definitely see where this story was leading...
THE GREEN HILLS OF EARTH
Heinlein even has future folklore figured out in his imagined universe awaiting us...an expert space worker with a big mouth and attitude problem likes to compose poems and perform them...he's pretty good, too bad he can't get along with the captain. One day the ship's radioactive energy drive goes bonkers and he seals himself off to protect the others (like what Spock did in Star Trek 2: the Wrath of Khan)...effectively saving the ship he permanently loses his eyesight. Now blind, as he travels he discovers greater insights that enable him to complete his epics, the greatest one being "The Green Hills of Earth"...
Next week I finish my look at Robert Heinlein's short stories from his collection The Past Through Tomorrow...
Tuesday, March 10, 2020
Just Finished Reading Master of the Moor by Ruth Rendell
Master of the Moor is a 1982 mystery novel by English writer Ruth Rendell, who passed away in 2015 and was one of the greats in that genre. I was more attuned to her renowned Inspector Wexford series of whodunnit novels, and he appears fleetingly near the beginning of this story as well...I kept expecting him to resurface later in the book and solve everything. Instead, in Master of the Moor Rendell presents the narrative and unfolds the mystery through the experiences and thoughts of its protagonist, nature writer Stephen Walby. Stephen, to the consternation of his affection-starved wife Lyn who wants to live in the city, insists they remain near his childhood home on the edge of the area's vast moor, about which he entertains an extreme fascination. He is also obsessed with his ancestry, believing himself to be the illegitimate descendant of an earlier famous writer. One evening as he is making one of his frequent walks through the moor he discovers the murdered body of a young woman, her hair sheared off from her head. He reports his find to the police, who grill him as if he were the suspect. The mystery takes off from here...this isn't the last killing in the story...and Stephen reveals more and more about himself, the moor, and his close relatives...including his manipulative father...
I thought Master of the Moor was one of Rendell's best stories and feel it had a great deal of psychological depth. I thought the ending was nothing short of brilliant and climactic, and the author deftly planted a strong false lead to distract me from what was really going down. I'm sad that Ruth Rendell will no longer be writing any more mystery yarns, but I have a lot of catching up to do anyway with her prolific output over the decades. On to the next Rendell novel!
I thought Master of the Moor was one of Rendell's best stories and feel it had a great deal of psychological depth. I thought the ending was nothing short of brilliant and climactic, and the author deftly planted a strong false lead to distract me from what was really going down. I'm sad that Ruth Rendell will no longer be writing any more mystery yarns, but I have a lot of catching up to do anyway with her prolific output over the decades. On to the next Rendell novel!
Monday, March 9, 2020
My 500 All-Time Favorite Songs: #220-211
This week's ten songs from my 500 all-time favorites is a little different from previous ones in that they contain four songs from this century...all from the alternative/indie genre and none of which were general popular hits. I strongly suggest you check out these artists...who knows, you may grow to enjoy their music as I have. Here are my reactions to the next ten on the list...
220 L.S.F. (LOST SOULS FOREVER)...Kasabian
In 2004 I first heard the British rock band Kasabian through their debut hit single Club Foot, which was played a lot on my local alternative rock radio station WHHZ/100.5/"The Buzz". I didn't like it and thought "that was that" with this group until I saw the video to their next song from their self-titled album. L.S.F.'s U.S.-released video (the initial British version was reportedly banned) is a beautiful collage of the cosmos, weather, zodiac symbols, wolves, an eagle...and the band performing. But although I think it's one of the best music videos ever made, the song stands well on its own, with a subtle Middle Eastern flavor to it (which I would learn is one of Kasabian's trademark sounds) and the inimitable singing voice of Tom Meighan. Kasabian is one of my very favorite acts of the past fifteen years, more from them to come with higher-ranked songs...
219 THEME FROM SHAFT...Isaac Hayes
In the fall of 1971, around the time I turned 15, this was easily my favorite hit song on the radio. Associations with music can be funny and unexplainable: somehow I associate this song with going to the beach, which during this era was Sheridan Beach in northern Hollywood. The music is funky and majestic with a lengthy instrumental lead...Hayes breaks in later to sing his description of the detective/protagonist (played by Richard Roundtree) in this then-popular movie, which I never did get around to seeing...
218 THE WHEEL...PJ Harvey
The lead and background guitar in this 2016 song sounds like the Rolling Stones...especially their classic song Street Fighting Man. PJ (Polly Jean) Harvey is an alternative/indie solo artist from England, another great talent whose music is largely ignored on broadcast radio. The somber and somewhat spooky lyrics speak of thousands of disappearing children...after looking it up it seems Harvey was referring to the terrible 1999 Kosovo (formerly of Yugoslavia) war that caused such suffering and displacement...
217 THE LIGHT...Regina Spektor
In my opinion the greatest popular music artist of this century so far...a brilliant pianist with a beautiful singing voice and so wonderfully creative with her compositions, Regina Spektor has produced a string of excellent songs including this slow, introspective piece from her 2016 Remember Us to Life album. Okay, Regina, it's going on four years now...how about recording and releasing your next album, please?
216 THANK YOU (FALETTINME BE MICE ELF AGIN)...Sly and the Family Stone
During the springtime of 1970 I kept hearing this song on the radio...my response would be to change the station. But in a year or two I had totally reversed myself and grew to really like it...and then realized that this inspired band had other great earlier songs I hadn't appreciated enough. The written title is deliberately misspelled and funny. The lyrics are a sign of the counterculture times, knocking down hate and bigotry while lifting up the love and change that the new youth culture was supposed to bring the world, oh well...I still like the notion the song promotes that being oneself is a pretty good idea...
215 HOME BY THE SEA...Genesis
This was the track from the British band's 1984 self-titled album that got a lot of album rock radio play...that's how I first heard it in 1987 and got blown away...actually, there are two tracks running together, Home By the Sea and Second Home By the Sea. But I think just listening to the first, which reportedly is about a group of ghosts haunting a seaside resort, is enough to hook you on liking it. The intended meaning of the lyrics aside, they reminded me of every time in my life some overbearing person would try to rivet me in place and talk in my face: "Sit down, sit down, sit down, sit down, sit down...as we relive our lives in what we tell you"...
214 SHANGHAI BREEZES...John Denver
This 1982 song came out after Denver had begun his long decline from the great popularity he had enjoyed in the 1970s. I wasn't aware of it at the time...it was only during the last few years that I've heard it and grown to greatly appreciate a song that belongs with the best works from this modern day troubadour of the great outdoors and romance. The tragedy of his fatal private plane crash in 1997 still resounds with me...
213 COME ON! FEEL THE ILLINOISE!...Sufjan Stevens
The title is a play of words on the 1983 Quiet Riot hit Cum On Feel the Noize, but the song couldn't be more different. It's from Stevens' 2005 Illinois album, the tracks on which are part autobiographical, part historical/geographical, and part spiritual in nature. The first section of this song is an upbeat portrayal of the bustling city of Chicago and then it slows down and evolves into a whimsical piece about the poet and Lincoln biographer Carl Sandburg. Illinois is my favorite Sufjan Stevens album...this extraordinary musical talent plays several instruments and writes, records and performs in several different genres, a real blessing to the musical scene and yet another artist who does not get the radio recognition he deserves...
212 GIVE A LITTLE BIT...Supertramp
The saxophone and acoustic guitar dominate this partially upbeat, partially pleading song...you can take the lyrics either narrowly as the singer's imploring to his love or...like me...more broadly as urging each of us to do a little extra, though acts of kindness and generosity, to make our world a better place. Either way, this British group's 1977 hit record was a welcome respite from the barrage of disco songs on the radio then...somehow I don't remember hearing it, though, until a couple of years later...
211 PAPA WAS A ROLLING STONE...the Temptations
A very emotionally intense song, Papa Was a Rolling Stone climbed up the charts in late 1972...its tone, albeit not its message, matched my feelings at the time (I was 16 and a mess). The various singers in this legendary group take turns playing the role of lamenting the passing of their father, whose past they increasingly discover to their dismay is very, very disturbing. The instrumental buildup at the song's beginning is impressive, too...I have always found listening to it cathartic...thankfully, my own dear, beloved father, who passed away six years ago, was nothing like the character in the song...
Next week: #210-201...
220 L.S.F. (LOST SOULS FOREVER)...Kasabian
In 2004 I first heard the British rock band Kasabian through their debut hit single Club Foot, which was played a lot on my local alternative rock radio station WHHZ/100.5/"The Buzz". I didn't like it and thought "that was that" with this group until I saw the video to their next song from their self-titled album. L.S.F.'s U.S.-released video (the initial British version was reportedly banned) is a beautiful collage of the cosmos, weather, zodiac symbols, wolves, an eagle...and the band performing. But although I think it's one of the best music videos ever made, the song stands well on its own, with a subtle Middle Eastern flavor to it (which I would learn is one of Kasabian's trademark sounds) and the inimitable singing voice of Tom Meighan. Kasabian is one of my very favorite acts of the past fifteen years, more from them to come with higher-ranked songs...
219 THEME FROM SHAFT...Isaac Hayes
In the fall of 1971, around the time I turned 15, this was easily my favorite hit song on the radio. Associations with music can be funny and unexplainable: somehow I associate this song with going to the beach, which during this era was Sheridan Beach in northern Hollywood. The music is funky and majestic with a lengthy instrumental lead...Hayes breaks in later to sing his description of the detective/protagonist (played by Richard Roundtree) in this then-popular movie, which I never did get around to seeing...
218 THE WHEEL...PJ Harvey
The lead and background guitar in this 2016 song sounds like the Rolling Stones...especially their classic song Street Fighting Man. PJ (Polly Jean) Harvey is an alternative/indie solo artist from England, another great talent whose music is largely ignored on broadcast radio. The somber and somewhat spooky lyrics speak of thousands of disappearing children...after looking it up it seems Harvey was referring to the terrible 1999 Kosovo (formerly of Yugoslavia) war that caused such suffering and displacement...
217 THE LIGHT...Regina Spektor
In my opinion the greatest popular music artist of this century so far...a brilliant pianist with a beautiful singing voice and so wonderfully creative with her compositions, Regina Spektor has produced a string of excellent songs including this slow, introspective piece from her 2016 Remember Us to Life album. Okay, Regina, it's going on four years now...how about recording and releasing your next album, please?
216 THANK YOU (FALETTINME BE MICE ELF AGIN)...Sly and the Family Stone
During the springtime of 1970 I kept hearing this song on the radio...my response would be to change the station. But in a year or two I had totally reversed myself and grew to really like it...and then realized that this inspired band had other great earlier songs I hadn't appreciated enough. The written title is deliberately misspelled and funny. The lyrics are a sign of the counterculture times, knocking down hate and bigotry while lifting up the love and change that the new youth culture was supposed to bring the world, oh well...I still like the notion the song promotes that being oneself is a pretty good idea...
215 HOME BY THE SEA...Genesis
This was the track from the British band's 1984 self-titled album that got a lot of album rock radio play...that's how I first heard it in 1987 and got blown away...actually, there are two tracks running together, Home By the Sea and Second Home By the Sea. But I think just listening to the first, which reportedly is about a group of ghosts haunting a seaside resort, is enough to hook you on liking it. The intended meaning of the lyrics aside, they reminded me of every time in my life some overbearing person would try to rivet me in place and talk in my face: "Sit down, sit down, sit down, sit down, sit down...as we relive our lives in what we tell you"...
214 SHANGHAI BREEZES...John Denver
This 1982 song came out after Denver had begun his long decline from the great popularity he had enjoyed in the 1970s. I wasn't aware of it at the time...it was only during the last few years that I've heard it and grown to greatly appreciate a song that belongs with the best works from this modern day troubadour of the great outdoors and romance. The tragedy of his fatal private plane crash in 1997 still resounds with me...
213 COME ON! FEEL THE ILLINOISE!...Sufjan Stevens
The title is a play of words on the 1983 Quiet Riot hit Cum On Feel the Noize, but the song couldn't be more different. It's from Stevens' 2005 Illinois album, the tracks on which are part autobiographical, part historical/geographical, and part spiritual in nature. The first section of this song is an upbeat portrayal of the bustling city of Chicago and then it slows down and evolves into a whimsical piece about the poet and Lincoln biographer Carl Sandburg. Illinois is my favorite Sufjan Stevens album...this extraordinary musical talent plays several instruments and writes, records and performs in several different genres, a real blessing to the musical scene and yet another artist who does not get the radio recognition he deserves...
212 GIVE A LITTLE BIT...Supertramp
The saxophone and acoustic guitar dominate this partially upbeat, partially pleading song...you can take the lyrics either narrowly as the singer's imploring to his love or...like me...more broadly as urging each of us to do a little extra, though acts of kindness and generosity, to make our world a better place. Either way, this British group's 1977 hit record was a welcome respite from the barrage of disco songs on the radio then...somehow I don't remember hearing it, though, until a couple of years later...
211 PAPA WAS A ROLLING STONE...the Temptations
A very emotionally intense song, Papa Was a Rolling Stone climbed up the charts in late 1972...its tone, albeit not its message, matched my feelings at the time (I was 16 and a mess). The various singers in this legendary group take turns playing the role of lamenting the passing of their father, whose past they increasingly discover to their dismay is very, very disturbing. The instrumental buildup at the song's beginning is impressive, too...I have always found listening to it cathartic...thankfully, my own dear, beloved father, who passed away six years ago, was nothing like the character in the song...
Next week: #210-201...
Sunday, March 8, 2020
Just Finished Reading Methuselah's Children by Robert Heinlein
Methuselah's Children is a 1958 science fiction novel by Robert Heinlein who managed to pack it at the end of his gargantuan collection The Past Through Tomorrow, the short stories from which I've been reviewing here lately on Wednesdays...since this story is a novel I'm discussing it separately. The premise is that of a society within a society, in this case a small group of people, called the "Howard Family" who over the years...starting with individuals with four grandparents robustly living into relatively advanced years, marry and have children among themselves, eventually genetically producing people with longevities of well over one hundred years. In order to escape detection and persecution from the "short-lived's" who predominate in the world, they change their identities every few decades in order to avoid questions as to why they don't seem to age as the rest of humanity does. Eventually it all comes to a crisis and the "Howards" are in danger of extermination if they don't escape...well, why not read it for yourself to see what happens...
I could look at this story from different angles...for example, in Robert Heinlein's interconnected "universe" of humanity's future through his many stories, especially with regard to our social changes and space exploration and settlement, different worlds like Venus, Mars, and Ganymede each have their own native sentient, humanoid life forms...Heinlein's contemporary, Isaac Asimov, who built his own "future universe", posited that the galaxy would eventually be filled by humans without this diversity of native similar forms. Heinlein's vision of a diverse universe is more like Star Wars or Star Trek while Asimov's...well, it's uniquely Asimov's (and most likely to actually take place). Another take from this novel is the tendency of people to scapegoat and view with suspicion individuals who are more talented, accomplished, and successful than themselves...it's not fair, so they think, they must be hiding something and need to share their "secrets" with the rest of us. This tendency runs from childhood with classmates hating the smart kid in the class all the way into adulthood with bigotry against other demographic groups as well as class warfare narratives such as the "1 %". Heinlein's strengths as a writer of hard science fiction were that he was very knowledgeable about projecting our physical sciences and engineering into the future and very interesting to read with his social insights. And I don't blame him for thinking at the time that Venus was habitable...no one back then knew what a hell the planet really is. What I like most about Robert Heinlein is that he was a master storyteller who placed...as I have said before...ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. The protagonists in Methuselah's Children fit this as well, for while they live longer than others they are still in the end ordinary people with whom the reader can identify...
I could look at this story from different angles...for example, in Robert Heinlein's interconnected "universe" of humanity's future through his many stories, especially with regard to our social changes and space exploration and settlement, different worlds like Venus, Mars, and Ganymede each have their own native sentient, humanoid life forms...Heinlein's contemporary, Isaac Asimov, who built his own "future universe", posited that the galaxy would eventually be filled by humans without this diversity of native similar forms. Heinlein's vision of a diverse universe is more like Star Wars or Star Trek while Asimov's...well, it's uniquely Asimov's (and most likely to actually take place). Another take from this novel is the tendency of people to scapegoat and view with suspicion individuals who are more talented, accomplished, and successful than themselves...it's not fair, so they think, they must be hiding something and need to share their "secrets" with the rest of us. This tendency runs from childhood with classmates hating the smart kid in the class all the way into adulthood with bigotry against other demographic groups as well as class warfare narratives such as the "1 %". Heinlein's strengths as a writer of hard science fiction were that he was very knowledgeable about projecting our physical sciences and engineering into the future and very interesting to read with his social insights. And I don't blame him for thinking at the time that Venus was habitable...no one back then knew what a hell the planet really is. What I like most about Robert Heinlein is that he was a master storyteller who placed...as I have said before...ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. The protagonists in Methuselah's Children fit this as well, for while they live longer than others they are still in the end ordinary people with whom the reader can identify...
Saturday, March 7, 2020
Florida Primary in Gainesville Has City Commission Elections
So the Florida Presidential Primary is going to be held Tuesday, March 17th...early voting began yesterday and will last through Saturday the 14th. Although four names are on the Republican ballot for president, aside from Bill Weld I imagine that President Trump will receive all the votes. On the Democratic side the ballot looks like a graveyard of failed campaigns with sixteen names on it...for all practical purposes now it's between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, and Biden has a huge lead in the public opinion polling in our state. For Gainesville voters, even though you may think, regardless of your party affiliation, that the presidential primary is pretty much already decided, your participation in this election is significant because you can vote in one or two of the city commission races on the same ballot. They're officially non-partisan, so the same names are on both Republican, Democratic, and "no party affiliation" ballots. An at-large seat is being vacated in May by Helen Warren due to term limits...four candidates are vying in this city-wide vote for her spot: Sherwin Henry, Gabe H. Kaimowitz, Paul Rhodenizer, and Reina Saco. Of these Rhodenizer seems to be the conservative candidate and Saco is the establishment liberal who will probably win it. In District 2, where I reside, Harvey Ward is running for reelection against a more conservative challenger, David Walle. And in District 3, incumbent David Arreola faces Jennifer Reid. I believe that if the at-large election winner doesn't receiver a majority of votes, then there will be a runoff election in a few weeks...the elected commissioners will begin their terms in May. I will vote for the two aforementioned conservative candidates although I'm a Democrat...the commission needs a better diversity of informed input and right now is composed of seven hardline liberals obsessed with social engineering as opposed to being public servants: well, that's just my opinion for what it's worth. I'm also skeptical of my district's commissioner, Ward, with his efforts at local gun regulation...for any such laws to truly benefit society and law-abiding citizens they need to be enacted on a much broader level as otherwise anyone could just drive outside the city limits and bypass the local law...I don't think the gun laws within Chicago and Washington, D.C. are making their residents safer by any stretch of the imagination. There are other issues I'm at odds with Ward on...I think Walle has the best chance of getting in there, but realistically I think at the end of the day we're still going to have a unanimously liberal, uniform commission who think it's their job to dictate to their constituency what to think...unfortunately, this seems to be what most of my hometown's fellow voting citizens like. As for the presidential primary, I was going to vote for Amy Klobuchar but now plan to fill in the bubble next to Joe Biden's name...now that he's in the driver's seat I hope he doesn't muck it all up...
Friday, March 6, 2020
Quote of the Week...from Joe Scarborough
Biden won without any money. He won with hardly any political organization. He won on momentum, reputation and name recognition. ---Joe Scarborough
The above quote by MSNBC's Joe Scarborough appeared yesterday morning on his Twitter feed...I follow him on that site because he seems unwedded to ideology and calls things as he sees it...sometimes I agree with him and sometimes I don't, but I always respect him for his independent approach. In the immediate aftermath of Super Tuesday in which Joe Biden, whose presidential campaign was given up for dead just a week ago, won ten of the fourteen states holding their primary elections...including shocking upsets in Texas, Maine, Massachusetts and Minnesota. He is now the clear leader in the Democratic Party's race for the nomination over Bernie Sanders. I agree with Scarborough's above quote but think it's incomplete: voters chose Biden also out of fear...fear that having Sanders as their party's nominee in November would spell disaster, not only with Trump winning reelection by successfully casting his opponent as an extremist but also with the House of Representatives going back to the Republicans as moderate Democrats would be vulnerable in their districts with Sanders heading the ticket. I think the voters last Tuesday had a choice between Joe Biden and Michael Bloomberg as the more moderate alternative to far-left Bernie, and the verdict was clearly on the former vice-president's side in spite of the billionaire former New York mayor's unprecedented blanketing of television and social media with his ads. Now that Bloomberg and Elizabeth Warren have left the race, only Biden and Sanders remain as the major candidates on the Democratic side. "My" Florida primary will be March 17th, and a poll just came out giving Biden a 61-14 percent lead here over Sanders with Warren at 5. In all probability Joe Biden should make it to the nomination, but what happens on the national political landscape during the eight months between now and the final presidential and congressional elections is beyond my control...I'll vote every chance I get, but realize that the presidential election will in the end probably once again...this seems to be a recurring pattern...be decided by a relatively few dunderheads who allow themselves to be manipulated by last-minute propaganda and who tip the scales for one side over the other. Sorry, but that's just how I see it...
The above quote by MSNBC's Joe Scarborough appeared yesterday morning on his Twitter feed...I follow him on that site because he seems unwedded to ideology and calls things as he sees it...sometimes I agree with him and sometimes I don't, but I always respect him for his independent approach. In the immediate aftermath of Super Tuesday in which Joe Biden, whose presidential campaign was given up for dead just a week ago, won ten of the fourteen states holding their primary elections...including shocking upsets in Texas, Maine, Massachusetts and Minnesota. He is now the clear leader in the Democratic Party's race for the nomination over Bernie Sanders. I agree with Scarborough's above quote but think it's incomplete: voters chose Biden also out of fear...fear that having Sanders as their party's nominee in November would spell disaster, not only with Trump winning reelection by successfully casting his opponent as an extremist but also with the House of Representatives going back to the Republicans as moderate Democrats would be vulnerable in their districts with Sanders heading the ticket. I think the voters last Tuesday had a choice between Joe Biden and Michael Bloomberg as the more moderate alternative to far-left Bernie, and the verdict was clearly on the former vice-president's side in spite of the billionaire former New York mayor's unprecedented blanketing of television and social media with his ads. Now that Bloomberg and Elizabeth Warren have left the race, only Biden and Sanders remain as the major candidates on the Democratic side. "My" Florida primary will be March 17th, and a poll just came out giving Biden a 61-14 percent lead here over Sanders with Warren at 5. In all probability Joe Biden should make it to the nomination, but what happens on the national political landscape during the eight months between now and the final presidential and congressional elections is beyond my control...I'll vote every chance I get, but realize that the presidential election will in the end probably once again...this seems to be a recurring pattern...be decided by a relatively few dunderheads who allow themselves to be manipulated by last-minute propaganda and who tip the scales for one side over the other. Sorry, but that's just how I see it...
Thursday, March 5, 2020
Our Puerto Rico Excursion on February 12
During our cruise in February one of our stops was at San Juan, Puerto Rico. We had signed up for a brief trolley bus excursion through the commonwealth's capital city and into the country and quickly found our station after leaving the ship on Wednesday morning, the 12th. Angel (pronounced "Ahn-hel" was our driver/guide and gave us a brief history of Puerto Rico, first informing us that we were on the "little island"...this is where the ship harbored and some forts are...but would soon be on the "big island" as we rolled down the road. Angel asked the packed bus if anyone knew what year the United States acquired Puerto Rico...nobody but me knew it was 1898 and I lightly muttered the answer: Melissa, my champion, then proceeded to shout it out loudly! I thought this was the sort of thing we were taught in high school history class, but apparently that isn't so. Angel also mentioned that Puerto Ricans on the island are neither accorded voting representation in the U.S. Congress nor allowed to vote for president...neither do they pay federal income tax, although the Puerto Rico government levies its own taxes on them. We rode through San Juan, noting that the road system was designed and marked pretty much as it is on the mainland U.S. as well as the many still-damaged rooftops from disastrous Hurricane Maria that devastated the island in September, 2017. We drove on, eastward toward Carolinas, and stopped at a long stretch of beach called La Posita. We all got out and walked around the sand and some waded in the calm, shallow water: a lengthy coral barrier shields the shore from the Atlantic Ocean's rip current and strong waves...visitors simply park beside the road and enjoy the sand and water. Then we got back in the bus and rode to an outdoor restaurant called Iguana, which prepared and served something called "alcapurrias": fritters of plantain with beef or chicken filling...they were scrumptious and I also had some of their grilled barbeque chicken on a skewer. The prices were very reasonable but I was taken aback at how the hot grill was totally exposed to the public...anyone walking past could have accidently touched it and been badly burned. There were also arcade game machines in the back...one penny per game! After lunch we rode back into San Juan and parked behind their Capitol building, designed after the one in Washington, D.C....there were lined up statues of every American president (with the exception of our current one) who had visited Puerto Rico: the above photo shows President Eisenhower about to smilingly pat Melissa on the head. Then we went back to the "little island" and explored old forts and a beautiful seaside church and cemetery before disembarking near the ship where there were numerous shops. By this time it had begun to rain and Melissa and I decided to get back on board...
I didn't see anything especially spectacular on our brief excursion around San Juan...I got the notion that to truly get to know Puerto Rico on any substantial level I would need to reside there for a much longer period of time. I feel uncomfortable with their ambiguous status as Americans subject to the military draft but unable to vote for their own representation on a national level. I've never stepped onto another country's land: I planned to do so on Monday the 10th in the Bahamas but that was scrapped when the ship couldn't dock there because of high winds. Puerto Rico has its own national sports teams as well as national beauty contest representatives...still, in all honesty I can't bring myself to claim it as my "second" country. By the way, Angel pointed out the two predominant "national" sports...can you name them? Baseball and boxing...
Wednesday, March 4, 2020
Weekly Short Stories: Robert Heinlein, Part 2
The Past Through Tomorrow, science fiction writer Robert Heinlein's 1967 retrospective collection of interconnected stories he wrote from 1939 to 1962 about early space travel and moon settlement, contains several short stories, a couple of novellas, and three novels...I reviewed one of the longer works, The Man Who Sold the Moon, last week but plan to discuss the other two separate from this weekly short story segment after I finish reading them. This week I look at six short stories about the near future of American space travel...from the perspective of the mid-twentieth century. Heinlein places people with recognizable, ordinary personalities and makes them into heroes as they confront the often life-threatening situations that arise from being space and moon pioneers. Like many of his contemporaries, he believed that once man was able to successfully land on the moon, we would then progress in a more or less linear fashion in furthering our presence there through settlements and then exploring other worlds...who would have guessed that we haven't been out of low-Earth orbit since the Apollo 17 moon mission in December, 1972, 47 years of stagnation. After each entry below I included the year the story was initially published...
DELILAH AND THE SPACE-RIGGER (1949)
The commanding officer at the space station being constructed sends for a new radioman after he had to fire the old one...they send up a woman for the job, sending him into a panic thinking that one woman among an all-male crew will create serious problems. Heinlein admirably stands up for the woman...in spite of his meticulous attention to the engineering and science in his "hard" sci fi stories, he also displays a steak of social consciousness as this stories demonstrates...
SPACE JOCKEY (1947)
The moon is being settled and it has a space station orbiting it, while Earth has its own. Space flights consist of flying first to and from Earth to its station on one type of ship, between the two space stations on another, and between the moon and its station on still a third...each ship with its particularly suited designs and functions. Jake is a skilled "space jockey", respected for his piloting skills on the moon run and tempted to give it all up for domestic tranquility with his ever-worrying wife...this story shows his skill in an emergency setting...
REQUIEM (1940)
Devos Harriman, who in Heinlein's fictional world is the financier who envisioned and implemented the first successful manned moon landing in 1978, has always been deprived of traveling there himself. Now he is old and frail...some suspect he has become senile...but Harriman is determined to get back to the moon. But first he needs to find someone willing to take him and then escape those trying to restrict his free movement as they judge his mental state. A strong argument from Heinlein for seniors' rights and dignity...
THE LONG WATCH (1948)
A faction of the military stationed on the moon, with the atomic bombs at their disposal having replaced Earth's arsenal, decides to blackmail the home planet into accepting their rule. One officer, though, after hearing of the coup plot, takes matters into his own hands as he tries to render the bombs harmless. Another ordinary person, placed in extraordinary circumstances, and coming out a hero...
GENTLEMEN, BE SEATED (1948)
Settlements on the moon are gradually being connected with each other through a system of tunnels. On an inspection of one of them, three men find themselves in a life-or-death struggle after a jolting collision from outside causes a leak in the insulating material. The solution reminded me of the old MacGyver TV series...and is humorously related to the story's title...
THE BLACK PITS OF LUNA (1948)
Dickie, along with his parents and his incurably bratty, whiny little brother whom he only refers to as "the runt", visit the moon on a business matter concerning his father. They find themselves walking on the surface together on a brief excursion...but suddenly it becomes apparent that the "runt" has disappeared. As the search progresses, all hope of finding the little brat seems to fade but suddenly Dickie has an idea that only a brother could conjure up. Told from Dickie's perspective, this may be Robert Heinlein's funniest story...
More of my reactions to some of Robert Heinlein's short stories next week...
DELILAH AND THE SPACE-RIGGER (1949)
The commanding officer at the space station being constructed sends for a new radioman after he had to fire the old one...they send up a woman for the job, sending him into a panic thinking that one woman among an all-male crew will create serious problems. Heinlein admirably stands up for the woman...in spite of his meticulous attention to the engineering and science in his "hard" sci fi stories, he also displays a steak of social consciousness as this stories demonstrates...
SPACE JOCKEY (1947)
The moon is being settled and it has a space station orbiting it, while Earth has its own. Space flights consist of flying first to and from Earth to its station on one type of ship, between the two space stations on another, and between the moon and its station on still a third...each ship with its particularly suited designs and functions. Jake is a skilled "space jockey", respected for his piloting skills on the moon run and tempted to give it all up for domestic tranquility with his ever-worrying wife...this story shows his skill in an emergency setting...
REQUIEM (1940)
Devos Harriman, who in Heinlein's fictional world is the financier who envisioned and implemented the first successful manned moon landing in 1978, has always been deprived of traveling there himself. Now he is old and frail...some suspect he has become senile...but Harriman is determined to get back to the moon. But first he needs to find someone willing to take him and then escape those trying to restrict his free movement as they judge his mental state. A strong argument from Heinlein for seniors' rights and dignity...
THE LONG WATCH (1948)
A faction of the military stationed on the moon, with the atomic bombs at their disposal having replaced Earth's arsenal, decides to blackmail the home planet into accepting their rule. One officer, though, after hearing of the coup plot, takes matters into his own hands as he tries to render the bombs harmless. Another ordinary person, placed in extraordinary circumstances, and coming out a hero...
GENTLEMEN, BE SEATED (1948)
Settlements on the moon are gradually being connected with each other through a system of tunnels. On an inspection of one of them, three men find themselves in a life-or-death struggle after a jolting collision from outside causes a leak in the insulating material. The solution reminded me of the old MacGyver TV series...and is humorously related to the story's title...
THE BLACK PITS OF LUNA (1948)
Dickie, along with his parents and his incurably bratty, whiny little brother whom he only refers to as "the runt", visit the moon on a business matter concerning his father. They find themselves walking on the surface together on a brief excursion...but suddenly it becomes apparent that the "runt" has disappeared. As the search progresses, all hope of finding the little brat seems to fade but suddenly Dickie has an idea that only a brother could conjure up. Told from Dickie's perspective, this may be Robert Heinlein's funniest story...
More of my reactions to some of Robert Heinlein's short stories next week...
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