Moon Rocket Launched, Exercise, About BaseballTV

 On December 7th,1972, Apollo 17 launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Being the sixth lunar landing mission, it would be 53+ years before a return mission was sent there.  Artemis II lifted off early yesterday evening without incident, and its passengers are well on their multi-day circling of Earth's unusual, unitary natural satellite.  It was still broad daylight at launch time, and while sitting in our front yard facing east we saw absolutely no sign of the spaceship or its trail for several minutes following the launch.  Obama said we didn't need to go to the moon because "we've already been there', which I thought was wastefully dismissive if not arrogant.  This morning I finally arose at six, running in place for four minutes and brewing a K-cup of coffee.  A man is coming over to our house to remove the old plastic shed and rendet the back yard a simpler place without such an encumbrance.  I read some pages in Joshua Khan's Shadow Magic, intending to go further into it today.  For me, it has too many convoluted plot twists: who's the real culprit, and how does its ending slide into the next book?And I plan to watch some MLB regular reason baseball on that subscription channel, come afternoon or early evening.  And a modest attempt at some c-v home floor exercise should do the trick as well.  And how about a little more sleep, no? Let's see, I'll do four more minutes running in place and then I'll give it a nice break...  

Question about Scariest Stephen King Villain

 There was an open question posted on my Facebook news feed: which Stephen King villain character is deservedly the scariest?  The comments varied, but the one that resonated with me the most was Randall Flagg, the murderous manipulator from his epic The Stand.  Donald Trump, who speaks and acts like he thinks he's the Supreme Dictator and expects his lapdogs to obediently follow suit, to me seems to pattern his entire presence on the King antagonist.  In that novel Flagg takes advantage of a deadly pandemic in order to establish absolute tyranny over a stricken planet.  i wonder just how far he is willing to go as he attacks civil order here, vulnerable internationals, and even entire nations.  "Our" Trump mentioned in passing that Cuba is "next"...I wonder what unprovoked violence he is about to inflict on a place that, in a more peaceful, reasonable world, could have become a very prosperous, attractive tourist destination.  When I was growing up, Fidel Castro and Krushchev were scapegoated for being America's Cold War antagonists.  But now that they're gone, the Playground Bully seeks only to incite passions and fury. When is he going to turn against his own people? He's already been vilifying our erstwhile allies in the last several days.Where are Hegseth, Noem and Bondi going on all this?  It makes me want to switch to all-day, live Major League Baseball.  I recently watched the Dodgers play Arizona, the Yankees play San Fran, Milwaukee play the Chicago White Sox, the Rockies versus the Marlins, the Reds against the Red Sox, and Philadelphia against the Chicago Cubs.  In viewing the MLB Channel, I'm getting to know each team by their players and staff. 

I can't stand our so-called leader going off at the mouth with his brash, offensive remarks and dismissals: he sounds just like the guy on Twilight Zone (Sounds and Silences episode) who wouldn't shut up. Now it's 4:30 AM and time for me to sign off and get our sweet Peewee Daisy all riled up....

Memories of Historic Past Iran Conflict "Color" My View of the Present

 There's nothing like getting up a couple of hours before sunrise and getting started on the day.  Brewing a nice pot of flavored coffee works well with a ten-minute session of running-in-place on the living room rug floor.  My reading and studies seem to be morphing into more passive, visual and mental undertakings, and my little habit changes are becoming more directed toward the more manageable, less supremely ambitious sort.  Today is Monday, March 9.  Were I going to the 9th grade at Nova, I'd get my homework worked and gathered at the dining room table, setting the final morning alarm to give me a reasonable amount of time to clean and dress for school. As it actually is at this moment in time, I can sip my cup d K-cup flavored and brewed coffee and move over to watch a little YouTube TV.  And after a brief bathroom visit I can return to Jim Rohn's stoic personal development podcasts. Then it's back to bed for a while.  I'm getting sick and tired of the war news going on, with Trump trying to constantly insert himself in the press meetings.  

This Iran thing brings to memory when I was first going to college in the mid-to-late 1970s when the two campuses I attended became loaded with Persian overseas students.  To me they seemed to enjoy a promising, privileged existence (although none wanted to talk with me) and the idea that their home country was an autocratic police state that imprisoned and/or tortured dissidents seemed far-fetched...why, the Shah was our buddy, wasn't he? It wouldn't be until the violent rioting in 1978 eventually  kicked Shapour Bakhtiar out and brought in Khomeini for his long brutal, murderous reign.  And then came the hostage crisis.  After Khomeini began to crack down on the nation's socialists, I got a knock on my apartment door from a couple of Iranians who wanted me to sign on with their cause.  What's that, you go to town loudly running down me and my country to the world, and now we're all suddenly friendsy-pindsy because we think we might have a common enemy? In politics, trust is a difficult thing to build and only too easy to destroy...never again, Iran and Russia.  I honestly don't understand how most of our so-called allies can trust us to any degree after our current president's behavior toward them, espcially Ukraine and Denmark with its prized Greenland that Trump wants to add to his personal map of territorial conquests..  Now let's see...I look ahead right now for the next several hours, noting the potential for a a nice wide-open time span devoted to modest personal projects...A little attempt at walking endurance looks like a good option...  

On This Anniverary of the Pearl Harbor Attack

Right now it's morning in Gainesville.  I'm sheltered in place within my house and it's raining quite a bit, predicted to do so for hours.  I think I did sleep some last night, although I'm not counting on my FitBit to bear that out.  It is also December 7th, the 84th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that ushered in the United States' entry into World War II.  I thought of the family scene at the close of the movie The Godfather Part II in which Santino (Sonny) rants about "what do you think of the Japs bombing Pearl Harbor on Pop's birthday".  Fredo replies, "They didn't know it was Pop's birthday", bringing a round of laughter.  Later Michael, played by Al Pacino, reveals that he had just enlisted in the Marines, greatly angering his volatile older brother.  This flashback scene comes right after the end of a planned murder spree in which Michael has not only disgraced his own family but has effectively destroyed it.  The scene to me is one of the best in the Godfather series, not just this movie.  Well, Pearl Harbor has NOT just been attacked, and today is before me although I plan to stay at home for most of it.  Blessings to all...

Passing Through Personal Anniversary Dates, for Better or for Worse

So today is November the twenty-third, which according to my memory is right next to two significant dates in my life.  11/22 is, of course, the date of the brutally infamous sniper assassination of president John Fitzgerald Kennedy that occurred early that Friday afternoon in Dallas, Texas 62 years ago...I was seven at the time and just returning to my classroom from lunchtime in the second grade.  The other day is primarily personal: 11/24.  For with the advent of tomorrow morning, it will mark the one-year anniversary of my reckoning with the frustration of not finishing a marathon race on my own terms.  On November 24th, 2024 I hobbled across the finish line at the Mega-Cupcake Marathon in Hawthorne at the eastern end of the Hawthorne Trail.  Then, open entering my car to drive home, my legs suddenly cramped up in extreme pain.  It took upwards to a half hour to be able to relax them enough to bravely attempt to drive the fifteen miles back home on that cold, cold day.  Yet despite the painful cramps, I regard the 24th of November as a very positive date in my personal memory, something to be cherished and appreciated.  Now I'm thinking that only eleven months after that race, my prognosis for a fit, healthy life with some promise for longevity plummeted severely when I underwent brain surgery on October 24th to remove a cancerous tumor (almost all of it, that is). I cringe whenever I hear anyone describe its aggressive nature in medically technical terms, for I am only interested in the ramifications it has in store for me and my future here on Earth.  My hope and prayer is that the treatment I am currently undergoing will stop the disease in its tracks and allow me to return to a fitness lifestyle whereby I could regularly go on training runs for long distances and even enter some of these types of races. By long distance, I mean 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) or longer. The most optimistic scenario has the door opening to me for distances up to marathon (26.2 miles) length.  Still, being a realist is a good thing and, for a while, I'll tolerate having to hear talk about my condition before I speak up for myself and start pissing people off. In the immediate future, the Season of Hope charity organization to help those afflicted with dystonia are continuing, on December 6th, their annual Tyler's Hope 5K.  If I'm able to attend, then sign me up. And in Junuary the Florida Track Club will hold their Mary Andrews Marathon/half marathon event.  I'll try to keep a positive, albeit realistic, attitude going about possibly entering these events.  Still, it's all "one day at a time" for me as I plod ahead with the treatments... 

Partisan Excesses during Memorial Events

While Minnesota senator Paul Wellstone was in the final stage of his close reelection campaign in late October 2002, the plane carrying him and his family crashed in northern Minnesota, killing them all.  It was a shocking event, and a public memorial service was soon scheduled to honor the fallen senator.  Unfortunately, a few of those in attendance...and especially some of the speakers...got a little out of hand with their partisanship.  Mississippi Republican senator Trent Lott, a gentleman who attended the event, even received some boo's after he was introduced: how tacky can they get.  Apparently a bit more, since some of the speakers implored the audience to join in Wellstone's progressive politics and vote Democrat for his replacement...who turned out to be former senator and vice-president Walter Mondale.  There was a lot of negative spin on this event, greatly amplified by the FoxNews channel and conservative talk radio, and Republican candidate Norm Coleman went on to defeat Mondale in the general election.  I remember this because we recently experienced the death of "one of their own": conservative activist Charlie Kirk, assassinated by a sniper while in the middle of a Utah college rally.  The memorial for him was held in a football stadium in Glendale, Arizona, and it dwarfed the Wellstone tribute in terms of partisanship.  It was a "who's who" in politics regarding the right-wing notables attending and being recognized on TV.  Some of the speakers got carried away with their aggression and hostility against Democrats and liberals...it was "let's pick up Charlie's cause and run with it" on steroids.  A local Democratic school board member got in a little hot water recently for posting, on social media, her reaction, which was critical of how the event was conducted. There should always be plenty of room and toleration for opposing opinions, and hers had nothing within it that was inciteful...unlike the venomous words of assistant White House chief of staff Stephen Miller who sometimes sounds to me like a freaking Nazi Goebbels impersonator.  The MAGA regime in power has depicted their political opposition, the Democratic Party, as the Enemy and compared them to terrorists and extremists.  Trump has only been in office a little more than nine months and has thirty-nine more until he's done.  I do not look forward to what he and his supporters have in store for the rest of us during that remaining time.  I have restrained my criticisms of Charlie Kirk and feel grief for his death, although I had no contact with him and did not explore his opinions in any detail.  No one is perfect (including myself), although Kirk's partisan supporters seem to be trying to canonize him as Mr. Perfect "Saint Charlie", and we all have to agree or else...   

Will Trump Follow in Neville Chamberlain's Footsteps over Ukraine?

So it looks as if our current president will soon be meeting with his Russian counterpart in Alaska to present proposals for peace in Ukraine and try to come back with some hope for the future.  Having studied some history myself, I know that Great Britain's prime minister Neville Chamberlain met with Germany's dictator Adolf Hitler in 1938 to resolve the latter's instigated "crisis" as he threatened neighboring Czechoslovakia under the guise of protecting ethnic Germans in the Sudetenland part of that peaceful country's territory.  And Chamberlain came away from that encounter waving a signed piece of paper, declaring "Peace in our time".  It was nothing more than a capitulation to the Nazi warmonger and sped the international community toward eventual world war as Germany only accelerated its military aggression.  I have a suspicion that something similar will arise from this "summit" between a dictator masquerading as a democratically-elected president and a democratically-elected president masquerading as a dictator.  Only when it comes to strength and integrity, "my" leader, I'm afraid, is an ignorant, weak puppet for Russia's government...but I already knew that for nine years.  Get ready for Ukraine to be sold down the river while Trump proudly waves his own paper in the air and makes like he stood up to Putin...

Style Over Substance: Presidents Carter and Trump

When Jimmy Carter was running for president in 1976, he used a lot of symbology to carry him on to a narrow victory over incumbent Gerald Ford in November.  Jimmy was "plain folk" like you and me, not a privileged elitist, and he was a peanut farmer to boot, along with being a nuclear engineer should you begin suspecting him of being a country bumpkin.  Growing up in Deep South Georgia in Plains, just a few miles from where I was born in Albany, that very small town enhanced Carter's image of being accessible and "one of us".  His administration was going to be open and ethical, although not much in the realm of specifics was put out during the campaign.  Instead it was "style over substance"...even to the point where in the minutes preceding his inauguration to the presidency, he walked down the street with his wife Rosalynn, a refreshing symbol of open fearlessness that impressed many of us who were still fresh with the memories of recent assassinations.  During press conferences the "style over substance" questions kept surfacing, and apparently the new president was sensitive to this, transforming a promising, interesting presidency into an almost covert endeavor, replacing that corny-but-endearing wide, toothy grin with chronic frowning.  I'm writing this in reaction to Donald Trump's obvious "style over everything" presidency that, while polarizing intense opposition from large sections of the country, is also sealing fervent support among his base...unlike with Jimmy Carter, who found himself unpopular across the board.  With his tendency to exaggerate and boast, Trump is like the liar in that classic old Twilight Zone episode Hocus Pocus and Frisby, except that in no way is he to any degree likable like that episode's adorable protagonist, ably portrayed by Andy Devine.  Whenever Trump goes off on one of his delusional rants or boasts that terrible things will happen to his perceived enemies, the opposition press and opinion makers go to town against him, taking literally everything he says.  Inevitably the narrative goes back to the 1930s, the rise of Hitler in Germany and the lack of resolve of that nation's population to see what was happening and stand up to the dictator. I have no doubt that Donald Trump, who has no sense of compassion toward others that I can see, would gladly take on the role of a Hitler or Stalin had he the opportunity, but I'm convinced that he has the mentality of an underworld crime thug...for some reason the Woke community disapproves of that four-letter word but it fits him well, as far as I can see.  So Trump, unlike Carter, is promoting style deep into his administration.  Also, UNLIKE our late president, his style consists of being mean, self-congratulatory, oversensitive and vindictive...

About the US Raid on Iranian Nuclear Facilities

The news has just been announced yesterday evening that American forces bombed three Iranian nuclear facilities with deep-penetrating, powerful missiles, taking place early this morning Iran time. Trump used some misdirection, feigning that he would wait a few days...up to two weeks is what I think he said...before deciding whether to use the American military to aid Israel in their mutual bombing exchange with Iran.  According to Trump...who is unfortunately prone to extreme exaggeration with his rhetoric...the facilities were destroyed.  It also looks like all American planes and personnel safely returned from their "outing".  Now it remains to be seen how the Iranians will respond...and you know they will, most likely through terrorism directed at civilians or military personnel. I don't agree with a lot of the Democrats who say that as president, Trump had to consult with Congress in advance...Clinton invading Haiti and bombing Afghanistan, and Obama disposing of Osama bin Laden would render that argument to be selectively partisan.  The problems I have with Trump's decision are that (1) his own Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, had concluded that Iran was far from being able to develop nuclear weaponry, and (2) I think our president, in making the decision to attack, was doing the bidding of another foreign leader, that is, of Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And I prefer that our national leaders act according to our own national interests over those of others, even our own allies. In this I find myself in an uncomfortable, rare agreement with far-right Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who quickly criticized Trump's raid on behalf of his Middle East ally and its leader...

Happy Earth Day...If Your "Truth" Allows It

So today is officially Earth Day...are we still interested in it?  After all, it's only the one planet we know that can sustain life in our universe.  But then again, that pesky former vice-president Al Gore did come out, a little more than a couple of decades ago, with his An Inconvenient Truth book that presented the widely-held view among climatologists that the world is warming at an alarming rate, due to man-made forces.  Ever since then, the issue has been divided on political lines with the Democrats generally supporting measures to counteract climate change and the Republicans in a "convenient" state of denial as they go full speed ahead with fossil fuels.  I remember back in April 1970 when another Republican, president Richard Nixon, was there at the inauguration of Earth Day.  In spite of his flaws, this was a president who understood the fragility of our home planet and supported environmental regulation.  It's sad to see much of this fall by the wayside as people nowadays choose their own "truths" and condemn the "other side" as enemies...

Recently Assembled Jigsaw Puzzle of Mount Rushmore

 

Mount Rushmore, near Rapid City, South Dakota, is one of the places I'd like to visit some day.  Situated in the state's Black Hills, the huge faces carved in granite depict four historically-significant US presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.  This National Memorial was sculpted, after US government authorization, by Gutzon Borglum, but the use of federal lands whose ownership is disputed by Indians has made the project, starting in 1927 and completed 14 years later, somewhat controversial.  My experiences with Mount Rushmore are tightly connected to the climactic scene in the great 1959 Alfred Hitchcock movie thriller North by Northwest, in which hero Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint flee there to escape the murderous bad guys, led by James Mason and Martin Landau.  The irony of it all is that the actual "Mount Rushmore" footage was done on models created for filming in Southern California!  Yes, I'd dig going over to South Dakota to check it out, as well as the nearby memorial to Crazy Horse that has been under construction since 1948 and still is far from completion.  Anyway, Mount Rushmore was the setting shown in one of my seven Americana jigsaw puzzles, pictured above...

My Jigsaw Puzzle of Hoover Dam

 

In the box of assorted jigsaw puzzles of Americana that I got a few weeks ago is one of Hoover Dam, the giant engineering project during the Great Depression years in the early-to-mid 1930's connecting the Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt administrations.  Bordering Nevada and Arizona, it takes the Colorado River and functions as flood control, irrigation and a source of hydroelectric power.  Many lives were lost during its construction, but it stands as a "can do" symbol of American know-how and potential.  I've never been to Hoover Dam...have you?  I'm guessing that most visitors have other places on their travel agenda as well, the Grand Canyon probably one of them.  Thanks to Wikipedia for the information about this dam...

Weekly Short Stories: 1999 Science Fiction, Part 2

Here's my second week of looking through the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Seventeenth Annual Collection, presenting the editor's picks of the best short sci-fi to come out in the year 1999.  When 1999 began, the country was in the throes of a presidential impeachment as the Republican Party decided to score political points against the current Democratic president, Bill Clinton, after he was discovered to be lying about a consensual affair while in office.  In light of the current occupant of the White House and his own much more serious shenanigans, it's amazing how the level of partisan political divide in this country, as well as the standards of behavior expected of our leaders, has deteriorated.  But I'm reviewing stories, right?  Here's what I thought about the next two appearing in the book...

1016 TO 1 by James Patrick Kelly

Read "10 to the 16th to 1", this story has a distinct Stephen King feel to it...awesome! It's October 1962 and a boy has to come to grips way too early in his life with the politics of impending nuclear Armageddon after he encounters a strange man named "Counts", who seems to know all about the future.  What does this individual want, and which direction will history go if he fulfills his new-found "friend's" modest request regarding then-President Kennedy's handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis?  The story's ending should be sobering for all of us here in 2025...

WINEMASTER by Robert Reed

Many years ago the 1960's hit science fiction series The Outer Limits has an episode starring Robert Culp titled Demon with a Glass Hand.  The premise with Reed's tale here is similar, as in a rather dystopian future a whole segment of humanity has been miniaturized...and the authorities, after criminalizing their existence, are out to get them.  One individual, named Winemaster, is trying to protect them from the pursuing agent Blaine...it becomes a suspenseful battle of wits...

Next week: more from "party like it's" 1999... 

Weekly Short Stories: 1998 Science Fiction, Part 13

Today I finally reach the end of my look at the year 1998 in the genre of short science fiction, presented in the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Sixteenth Annual Collection.  I say "short", although several of this series' stories are actually of novella length, including the one I'm reviewing below...

THE SUMMER ISLES by Ian R. MacLeod

Here is an alternate history tale, set in England, an England that lost World War I instead of Germany, enduring the sanctions, international humiliation and rise of fascism in its politics.  Set in 1940, it looks as if England's fascist (called "Modernist" here) prime minister John Arthur is about to go to war against his old European rivals, a mirror of what Hitler in Germany did in "our" reality.  The story's narrator is an Oxford professor, Griffin Brooke, who knows all about Arthur and his mysterious past. The fascist movement in Britain is also bent on scapegoating groups like Jews and homosexuals.  With the former, whole families are secretly swept away, to supposedly live out their lives away from everyone else on the Summer Isles north of Scotland...but what's really happening? And with the homosexuals...count Griffin Brooke among their number...the ones without Brooke's social standing are sent to the Isle of Man for conversion treatment.  This novella hops back and forth in time, and paints a bleak picture of how a fascist movement gains momentum through populism and scapegoating other groups for the people's problems.  It also suggests that fascist governments can vary to the degree that their brutality and oppression are exercised, depending on the already existing social institutions.  I am concerned about the future of my country in the face of a rising populist fascist movement...it's almost as if I'm living out a highly improbable alternate history with this current regime being happily voted into power by a plurality of the electorate with all the information they had, doing so with eyes wide open...

Next week I'll be starting on a new book featuring science fiction stories from the year 1999...

Ran Today's Cold and Windy Depot Parkrun 5K

This morning the southern tip of a strong continental winter storm (The Weather Channel names it "Cora") swept through northern Florida, leaving the weekly Depot Parkrun 5K here in Gainesville under chilly conditions with overcast skies and gusty northerly winds.  It had also rained a bit over the previous few hours, so when Melissa and I showed up it was no surprise to see the volunteers huddled under the roofed pavilion instead of the usual site, an open area near the starting line.  According to my weather app, the temperature at race time was 55 with 99% humidity...it only got colder as time went on.  The paved pathway around the park (we do four laps) was also damp enough to cause me concern about possible slips, so that in itself impeded any plans for me to run a fast race.  Still, unlike many other bundled-up participants, I showed up "like a Canadian" in a simple tee-shirt and shorts.  Melissa walked the course as well, and after I finished I joined up with her to walk the last couple of laps.  Our Alachua County today celebrates its bicentennial, apparently established only some six years after Florida was acquired by the United States from Spain in 1819 and twenty years before being admitted as a state.  While we were in our race, they were starting to set up the park for that observance...hope they enjoyed it all: we got out of there as soon as we finished.  I timed my finishing time at 28:16, but once again they screwed up the results page, this time giving me the time of the runner finishing just ahead of me: 27:51.  Well, I rolled with it a few weeks ago when it went against me, so I guess I'll continue likewise when I'm favored...click HERE to see those results.  Now I'm hunkering down, in a heated house and bundled up like a true Floridian, insulated against the brutal 47 degrees outside...

Saluting Veterans

On this Veteran's Day in 2024, I salute all those fellow Americans who have served in our armed forces, some paying the ultimate price during their tenures.  Before 1973, young men, even if not voluntarily recruited, would be drafted in a lottery system, compelled to serve.  And during wars such as World War II, Korea and Vietnam, many were wounded or died...all coming out of the experience irreversibly changed.  After the draft was replaced by a fully-volunteer force, those who enlisted went through periods of relative peace and some of wartime...the Persian Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan were the most intense periods and produced the most casualties since the Vietnam era...but there were also Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, Somalia and Haiti.  And our armed forces are contributing strongly to the maintenance of worldwide stability today. When someone first enters the military, it may be a period of relative peace...but this can quickly change, so for all veterans who performed their duty during both times of peace and conflict, I appreciate your service and sacrifice.  Thank you!

More and More Bummed Out on Politics

In a recent article I compared the frenzied fervor of so many people's campaigns for elected "public service" in this year's election cycle to the nefarious Rings of Power in J.R.R. Tolkien's epic trilogy Lord of the Rings.  Maybe the nine evil power-craving Nazgul don't line up with candidates you see as being oh-so caring, principled and selfless...as opposed to those jerks on the "other" side.  But I at least...even if you don't...see that craving for control everywhere, and quite frankly, I'm having a bit of difficulty "liking" anyone who's running. This is especially true regarding the two main candidates for President this year...I can't remember disliking both major party nominees since Nixon ran for reelection against McGovern in 1972...that was the last election I was too young to vote in.  Yet one of them is a 34-count convicted felon who is on audio persuading, while president, a swing state's election official to manufacture eleven thousand nonexistent votes to throw that state's election in his favor.   The other candidate, whose main attraction is that she isn't the crook she's running against, wins my vote by default without even trying.  But like I said before, it all comes down in the end to the last-minute, emotionally-motivated undecided voters who doubtless will be swayed by some contrived nonsense to determine the next president.  So when people approach me in ANY setting with politics as if it were some sacred institution, I am getting increasingly hostile...and properly so...

Quote of the Week...from Stephen King

We've switched from a culture that was interested in manufacturing, economics, politics...trying to play a serious part in the world...to a culture that's really entertainment-based.               Stephen King

Stephen King is my all-time favorite writer...I've read more of his books by far than those by any other.  I'm not convinced, though, that this in itself means I would want to hang on his every opinion any more than I would anyone else...writing per se does not automatically impart supreme wisdom on the craftsman.  But that having been said, I am more or less in alignment with King's views on politics and society in general.  As far as the above quote of his is concerned, it's definitely an over-generalization of the state of our country, but since I grew up as his contemporary, immersed in it all, I totally get what he is driving at.  And I think the change from seriousness to entertainment began some time in the late 1960s when the drug/sex revolution, coinciding with the counterculture anti-war movement, went viral long before that term became common currency.  The seventies heralded the "me" generation that focused on self-examination and alternative lifestyles.  Then came the digital revolution and all kinds of entertainment became easy to access and portable...and here we are, all in our "safe spaces".  I remember the generation that came before me and it definitely had a different outlook on life.  I think that's one of the reasons that my all-time favorite novel of Stephen King is 11/22/63, a brilliant time-travel story that deeply examines those earlier attitudes and emphasis in our culture.  Try reading it some time if you haven't...not many books have literally made me cry, but this one did...

Weekly Short Stories: 1996 Science Fiction, Part 10

Here are my reactions to more of anthology editor Garner Dozois' picks from the year 1996 as they appeared in his The Year's Best Science Fiction, Fourteenth Annual Collection...

DR. TILMAN'S CONSULTANT: A SCIENTIFIC ROMANCE by Cherry Wilder

This is one of two stories (Foreign Devils the other) that fit within the genre of historical fiction, but while the one below goes into alternative outcomes, this one posits explanations for for actually happened in pre-World War I Austria and Russia as a Russian noble family visits a sanitarium in Austria on behalf of one of their own dwelling there.  It seems that someone has discovered a cure for the affliction commonly known as schizophrenia, but he is a mysterious presence within the sanitarium and the cure's secret may well vanish among the tumultuous events going down at that time in history.  I think the author captured the atmosphere of that era very well with this story...

SCHRÖDINGER'S DOG by Damien Broderick

The famous word picture supposition called "Schrödinger's Cat" by physicist Erwin Schrödinger to Albert Einstein in 1935 in a discussion on quantum mechanics suggested two alternate, simultaneous universes, one with a living cat and the other a dead one...separated by a random quantum event.  This is taken in this story to its gruesome conclusion at some time in the near future as scientists literally apply the same principle to terminally ill humans...

FOREIGN DEVILS by Walter Jon Williams

Anyone interested in Chinese history, especially that of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth, will enjoy this take on the decline of the Chinese Empire as Western countries, with imperialist fervor, carve out for themselves economic favors and colonial enclaves.  But behind the power struggles at the Chinese royal court is arising a new form of Foreign Devil...I wonder what H.G. Wells would have thought of this bizarre application of his famed tale of extraterrestrial invasion...

IN THE MSOB by Stephen Baxter

At the risk of prematurely giving away this brief tale, the abbreviation MSOB stands for Manned Space Operations Center.  Doesn't ring a bell? Maybe that's part of the point of it all as a very old and frail man is verbally abused by his seniors home caretakers and discovers that...for a too brief moment...the outside world would like a word or two from him, and a possible photo opportunity.  Cynical as many SF stories are, this one squarely hits the target as it projects into the future the state of the manned space program...

Next week I will conclude my look at science fiction from 1996...

Weekly Short Stories: 1996 Science Fiction, Part 3

It's Wednesday, so time again for another retrospective look at science fiction short stories.  We're currently examining material from 1996, selected by editor (and sci-fi writer) Gardner Dozois for his anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Fourteenth Annual Collection.  In 1996 Bill Clinton ran for his reelection as U.S. President against Republican Bob Dole, then the Senate Majority Leader, and independent candidate H. Ross Perot. A surging American economy pretty much helped glide Clinton to easy victory...although truth be told, I kind of liked Dole, along with his VP running mate Jack Kemp, and voted for them instead.  I still think Dole would have been a good president.  But back to those stories...

THIRTEEN PHANTASMS by James P. Blaylock

The closing scene in the great old Disney movie Pinocchio, in which Jiminy Cricket goes on vacation by jumping into a matchbox and mailing himself off to an exotic locale, somehow comes to mind with this wistful tale of a man who finds a strange, but tenuous link to the past, some fifty years earlier but with some very interesting people.  A thoroughly enjoyable read...

PRIMROSE AND THORN by Bud Sparhawk

Having read Herman Melville's classic whaling novel Moby Dick, I've already experienced detail overload about sailing with stuff I had no idea of what the author was talking about.  Ditto for this story about sailing competitors on a long race, except that their ships have been modified for the fluid-but-greatly-different conditions on the planet Jupiter's surface.  In spite of feeling over my head about the technical details, the author spun a very exciting tale about peril and rescue on the high "seas"...

THE MIRACLE OF IVAR AVENUE by John Kessel

After a Hollywood producer's corpse is fished out of the water, the investigator is surprised to discover that, even with the body convincingly identified, the producer himself is still alive and thriving.  Two identical bodies, the same person, what a mystery!  Well, it's solved of course, and as with today's other two stories, this one reminded me of something else: that comeback 2009 Star Trek movie starring Chris Pine...and the two Spocks...

Next week I will continue looking back at the year 1996 in short science fiction...