Quote of the Week...from Groucho Marx

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.                                                    ---Groucho Marx

Sounds like Groucho, doesn't it...of course, he was the cynical, talkative member of the renowned comedy group of brothers that produced a string of very funny movies during the first couple of decades in the talking movie era.  Yes, the quote is funny, but it's also so, so true.  Yet, I think in today's world of widespread gaslighting...outright lying about reality to trash one's opponent...Groucho, if he were around today, might consider extending it with another witty barb.  Here in Florida we're closing out our second week of early voting for the 2024 general election, and next Tuesday is the official Election Day...all before the losers start crying foul.  I voted a few days ago and, for me, that's it.  Done. I have my own life to live, and if anyone else wants to rant and rave and riot and march and whatever, then they can be my guest...just (with a nod to the late Chris Cornell of Soundgarden) keep it off my wave...

Just Finished Reading A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson has written a number of books...A Walk in the Woods, from 1998 and describing his attempt to hike the Appalachian Trail...is my first of his but most probably not my last.  His humorous style, mixed in with a copious presentation of facts about this great American walkway that stretches all the way from northern Georgia through Maine, is something I'd like to see more of in my books.  After beginning reading...my wonderful sister had given it to me as a present...it soon occurred to me that in some ways it resembled a 2015 movie I had recently seen starring Robert Redford.  Sure enough, it was the cinematic adaptation of this very book, with the same title...apparently Redford had read it and was determined to make a movie based on it.  I didn't care too much for the movie, which to me leaned to the maudlin side of things a bit too much, but the book was sharp and funny.  Bryson wants to walk the Appalachian Trail but is concerned that maybe having a partner on the trek would make it safer and more endurable, so he recruits his friend "Stephen Katz" (a pseudonym for the book) to accompany him.  He probably should have picked somebody a little more prepared than Katz, although their stumbling adventures, interactions and conversations would fill many of the book's pages.  Long story short, the two don't even come close to covering the whole trail, although after a break Bryson returns to hike sections and Katz even rejoins him at the end.  If you want to read a humorous account of hiking while learning some real facts about the Appalachian Trail and this part of America, this is a good starting point...

Funny Old British Comedy Skit Sticks with Me

I was just recently mentioning to a friend a very funny British comedy skit I once saw back in the '80s on one of the many good shows my local Gainesville PBS station used to broadcast back then.  In it, a frumpy late-middle-aged couple is going off to bed, but first the wife insists that the reluctant husband take out the garbage.  Grumbling, he trudges outside and then, after looking around him, suddenly rushes to his car...still in his pajamas...and heads to the airport, where he takes off in a jet, super-high speed, to go partying and gambling in some far-off resort.  The jet zooms back in and he quickly gets back to the garbage cans, when he slowly makes his way back to his room.  Then his wife asks him if he got all the trash...and he's off again!  That skit stuck with me because, one, it was so damned funny and, two, it opened up the possibility of having a wacky, self-contained adventure during a weekend...and then getting back to "business as usual".  In particular, I think of various marathons and half-marathons scattered each weekend across America...and even in other countries of the world and wouldn't it be cool to pull off something like that dude emptying the garbage...except that I wouldn't be secretive about it.  I wish I remembered which series that skit came from: I've narrowed it down to Dave Allen At Large, Not the Nine O'Clock News, and Monty Python's Flying Circus... 

Quote of the Week...from Leslie Nielsen in the Movie Airplane!

I just want to tell you both good luck.  We're all counting on you.        ---Leslie Nielsen, Airplane!

One of my favorite movie comedies is the 1980 farce Airplane!, a satire of the preceding decade's airplane disaster flicks.  Toward the movie's end, Leslie Nielson's "And don't call me Shirley" character Dr. Rumack is trying to encourage low-confidence stand-in pilot Ted Striker (played by Robert Hays) as he and his co-pilot, flight attendant Elaine Dickenson (Julie Hagerty) try to land the stricken passenger plane safely.  He starts out with the above quote...then keeps repeating it until the plane is on the ground...and then says it again!  To me that was one of the high points of an already side-splitting movie...and the race I just ran this past Sunday reminded me of how preposterous it was.  I was running a half-marathon and had just cleared the hilliest part, with just about three miles to go as my body was aching all over and starting to run out of steam.  And that's when it started, Airplane-style, with people standing on the side of the course repeating the same mantra: "You're almost there!"  Over and over and over and over again, each of them apparently unaware that I still had quite some distance to go while repeating the same tired old line up and down the road.  Finally, just when I turned left on NW 1st Street for my final stretch run, a young woman volunteer yelled out, "You're almost there! I'm telling you the truth!"...apparently, she somehow knew that this had been going on for miles on the course.  I half-expected somebody to repeat it after I had finally crossed the finish line as Leslie Nielson did in the movie...oh well, we can't have everything!  Have you ever experienced this sort of thing, where you keep hearing the same often well-intentioned line over and over again to the point where you're just about ready to slug somebody? 

Quote of the Week...from Groucho Marx

Those are my principles, and if you don't like them...well, I have others.        ---Groucho Marx

Back when Citizen's United was being decided by the conservative wing of the United States Supreme Court more than a decade ago, justices bandied about concepts like "corporations are people" and "spending money is a form of speech protected by the First Amendment".  Yet it seems that whenever conservative politicians...who almost unanimously claim themselves to be highly principled advocates for freedom of businesses to make their own decisions without government interference...including what to do with their own money and how to conduct their affairs...it all goes out the window whenever convenient.  So Major League Baseball decides to move its All-Star Game from Atlanta after Georgia's new voting law was passed, and Senator Ted Cruz urges Congress to pass punitive legislation against them!  So cruise lines operating out of Florida have reasonably decided that crew and passengers need to provide a record of their COVID vaccination...our state's conservative governor has decided to interfere, decreeing that they are banned from doing that!  But Ron DeSantis' "principled when it suits him" mentality goes further: earlier he signed a law making participants in public protest demonstrations and marches potentially liable for the actions of others in those events, a direct violation of the First Amendment if I ever saw one.  And what about all these election laws passed by different "red" state legislatures and governors that give those partisan bodies the right to arbitrarily nullify any election they have a problem with (in other words, when Democrats win) while claiming the laws are necessary in principle to restore public confidence in elections?  Oh yeah, I'm "confident" that if a Republican wins an election in one of those states by 10 votes there's no problem but if a Democrat prevails by 10,000 somebody will dig up a bogus fraud charge, leading eventually to a partisan vote to overturn the results and install the losing Republican candidate...you just know this going to happen.  And what about all this bemoaning of "cancel culture" and criticism of Facebook and Twitter by Republican congressmen when these private companies fact-check their users' posts and remove the more habitual abusers, while overwhelmingly ostracizing one of their own...Liz Cheney...for simply telling the truth about the 2020 election and Trump's culpability in the Capitol riot on January 6th? I think this pronouncing and then shameless shirking of principle isn't just confined to politics, though: it is a sad trait of our universal human nature.  And only a master of cynical comedy like Groucho Marx could have put it so succinctly, as he did in the above quote... 

Great Old TV Episodes...from Sesame Street

ABOVE IT ALL and GROUCH GROCERY STORE  were my two most favorite segments from the long-running children's series Sesame Street.  These weren't technically "episodes" in the classic sense but were features within the show's often chaotic-seeming sequence as it would progress each day.  Above it All is a short cartoon animated by Sally Cruikshank and first appearing on the show in 1988 (episode 2559).  A bespectacled female lizard/alligator spins the little propeller on her hat and joyfully flies over the land and sea, musically pointing out all the creatures and things below her...until she looks up and discovers she's "below" as well, this time to a friendly bird!   Grouch Grocery Store was in episode 2937 (1992)...Gordon and his son Miles go down into the garbage can with Oscar to see how a Grouch grocery store is run...to side-splitting results.  "This" Gordon, a character played over the years by different actors, puts in a great comedic performance with his exasperation over the Grouch store clerk's antics, including demanding their party take a number...which turns out to be the same one he's handed out to everyone else in the store!  I first saw Above It All in a re-airing in the early 1990s, coinciding in general time with Grouch Grocery Store and my son Will's toddler years.  I never watched Sesame Street until I had kids (I was a teen when it first aired)...I guess that's the way it for folks in general, sharing childlike things with our own children...

Quote of the Week...from Bob Newhart

The only way to survive is to have a sense of humor.                        Bob Newhart

Bob Newhart, the great television comedian known for his two popular sit-coms The Bob Newhart Show (1972-78) and Newhart (1982-90), is definitely a survivor...he's 91 and still pluggin' along.  However, if you put his name into a search engine you're bound to come up with death reports...he supposedly just died either on September 21st or October 30th, depending on the website.  From what I can tell, this is a hoax and the soft-spoken humorist is still alive and well...which brings me to the above quote.  I suppose you really are a survivor if you outlive your own death notices!  My favorite Bob Newhart Show episode...and there were many I liked as I regularly watched it back in the 70s on Saturday evenings following Mary Tyler Moore...was the Thanksgiving episode from 1975 in which Emily leaves on a trip and Bob is left spending the holiday with others, including his highly neurotic patient Carlin, in his apartment as the turkey gets burnt in the oven and Bob orders Chinese while everyone ends up getting inebriated.  One element of his series that I loved was how a simple joke or turn of phrase from early on would come back later on and get amplified and humorously twisted...this particular episode was a great example, with knock-knock jokes taken to their funniest.  Let's all hope that Mr. Newhart got a good laugh at his "demise" and will continue enjoying his life to the fullest.  By the way, there's something on the internet called WikiObits that produces makeshift obituaries of famous people even if they're still alive.  They did one for Newhart and I tested it out by doing a search on Beyoncé...their false obit of her stated that she died possibly of a fireworks accident.  This all illustrates something I've hit upon before: if you Google something, it will respond by providing you what it "thinks" you want, not necessarily what is true...

Some Interesting Newspaper Articles from October, 1956

Here are four articles that caught my attention as I was skimming through the archives of The Miami News, a mainline, established newspaper, covering the dates October 4th through 6th, 1956...64 years ago.  It's interesting to see how people saw the future back then, as well as being treated to many assumptions they made about the ways society should be structured.  With each article I first wrote the main point of interest to me, followed by my own commentary.  Yes, these were real articles...

ENSLAVEMENT OF MEN AS ROBOTS PREDICTED...JUST PLUG 'EM IN (10/4/56)

In the article: Curtiss R. Schafer, project engineer for the Norden-Ketay Corp., of Milford Conn., said research in the science of "biocontrol" has shown that the conversion of human beings into electronically-controlled robots is possible.

Yes, I believe Schafer's revelation that "whole nations might be enslaved by tiny radios implanted into the brains of infants to prevent them from thinking as individuals" is feasible: I saw, with my own eyes, the archvillain Plankton do this sort of thing in the first SpongeBob SquarePants movie!  But seriously, aren't a lot of people in our own day and age voluntarily allowing themselves to be enslaved by their own smartphones and social media? This was a United Press article...

RADICAL CARS STILL FAR IN FUTURE...STEERING LEVERS AND ATOMIC ENGINES COMING (10/4/56)

In the article: According to F. C. Reith, vice-president of the Ford Motor Co. and general manager of the Mercury division, "Gas turbine engines are 5 to 10 years away, while atom-powered cars are at least 15 to 20 years in the future."

Although gas turbine technology has been extensively used with other forms of transportation, it hasn't yet taken a strong hold with passenger cars...although lately research and development is going on concerning its use with hybrid electric cars.  As for atomic cars...ha, ha, ha...this shows the overly rosy assessment folks were giving this energy source at the time: after all, the first running nuclear reactor began operations just the previous year.  Mike Davis, Miami News staff, wrote the article...

DUMB GUYS HELD BETTER AS DRIVERS (10/5/56)

In the article: Quoting Arthur L. Berlin, chairman of the driver education program in San Leandro's (California) schools: "The man who drives while thinking of his business is a poor driver, while the man with low mental ability won't be thinking about much of anything."

This is the kind of silly article I would have expected from a rag like the National Enquirer, not a reputable, serious newspaper like the Miami News...yet it was released under the auspices of the Associated Press. The article's premise is asinine: just because someone's thought processes function at a "lower" level than another's doesn't mean that they can't be just as distracted by their own less-significant thoughts while driving...

STOP THE SHOUTS FOR EQUAL RIGHTS...A WOMAN'S VOICE (10/6/56)

In the article: From Dorothy Roe's syndicated women's advice column, agreeing with Florence Anderson, a Chicago mechanical design engineer: For instance, if you want a raise...don't start complaining about how you can't afford a new pair of nylons, have to go without lunches and haven't had your hair done in three weeks...Instead tell [the boss] how fortunate you are to have such a brilliant and understanding employer, who understands the necessity of keeping up appearances in the business world. Tell him how you'd hate to work for an old fogy who didn't appreciate the importance of such things as hairdos and nylons.  

From today's more enlightened vantage point about equal rights for women, this article seems overly patriarchal and patronizing.  But it was serious advice when it was written and would have been uncontroversial within the accepted norms of the time.  I expect to see more articles like this one from the old newspapers... 

Well, I guess it's time for me to go back to the archives for some more treasures...

Fauci, Nicknames, and Washington

I was at work Thursday evening when, just before the 2020 Major League Baseball televised debut game between the New York Yankees and the Nationals in Washington, DC, pandemic guru Dr. Anthony Fauci threw out the ceremonial first pitch.  I did hear the funny reactions on sports talk radio, prompting me to later check it out.  The good doctor strode up confidently to the mound...and then proceeded to hurl a zinger about 10-15 feet to the left of the waiting catcher.  Not as bad as the radio jocks sounded...I was impressed that Fauci could even throw that far, to be perfectly honest.  Once I had a much worse throw...I was standing nearby a softball game one afternoon while in the sixth grade at Nova Elementary and a stray ball came rolling my way. I scooped it up and then helpfully heaved it back with all my might...only the ball didn't go back, but rather at a 90 degree angle to the left, straight at the school building: it was a very embarrassing run for me to retrieve it, sigh...

Speaking of Washington and sports, the report is out now that the city's National Football League franchise, after finally dumping its moniker "Redskins" following years of harsh criticism, will be moving forward this season as "The Washington Football Team".  And why not, since in soccer you already have teams like "Los Angeles Football Club" and "New York City Football Club".  Personally, I searched myself to come up with appropriate nickname replacements, producing results like "Big Fat Buildings", "Mall", "Museums", "Metro", "Bureaucrats", "Tourists", "Lobbyists"...you see, I visited there a couple of years ago.  But after giving it all due thought, my final suggestion has to be the Washington Jelly Beans, in honor of our late former president Ronald Reagan's penchant for the candy...that should help to soothe all the conservatives miffed at the dumping of "Redskins".  And besides, everybody likes jelly beans, right?  Okay I get it, never gonna happen...

Happy Birthday, Everybody

To me birthdays have traditionally been more of a celebration within my own immediate family than a general social event, which kind of sets me at odds with Facebook, which tends to overpromote them, in my opinion...but I understand that for most they tend to like it and that's okay, too.  For some reason, however, although I had indicated my own birthday to Facebook, they never do acknowledge it...that's fine, because although I'll occasionally wish somebody on it a happy birthday I don't do it regularly and...like I said, I'm more into celebrating the event among family.  After all, since we're all alive that means we all have birthdays...I like the traditional Eastern notion of everybody celebrating their birthdays together at the start of the New Year.  Still, I don't mean to snub or shun anyone by not writing on their timeline on their birthdays...I just don't spend a lot of time on Facebook, my primary use of which is to provide a link to my daily blog article...

And since my active involvement with Facebook pertains to this blog, it disturbs me that this site deliberately restricts...according to some algorithm of theirs...which of my Facebook friends see it appear on their newsfeed: apparently most do not.  I'm thinking of trying and seeing whether I can also use Twitter to increase readership...I have a couple of strategies I'm thinking of implementing there.  In any event, I'd just like to go ahead for the next 366 days and wish each and every one of you a Happy Birthday...whenever it comes...and while I'm here, go ahead and wish Gene a happy one for today, assuming that Facebook puts this link on your newsfeed, that is...

Lost: One Atlantic Tropical Storm

It's become a common practice in the morning for me to flick on the Weather Channel and hear what they have to say about the tropical weather, focusing on any real or potential tropical disturbances that might have an impact on Florida down the line.  Last week they were discussing Tropical Storm Karen, which had dumped a lot of rain on the Puerto Rico/US Virgin Islands area before entering the Atlantic east of the Bahamas and traveling northbound.  The forecasters then showed computer models that had it slowing down over the weekend and then dramatically shifting westward...directly toward my dear homeland of Florida and with a projected wind strength of 60 mph.  Well, I've heard that song before when just a few weeks earlier they had Dorian going through the Bahamas at the same intensity...before it actually strengthened to 185 mph and devastated the area!  So I was interested yesterday morning as to what was going on with Karen when I tuned in...NOTHING!  They were discussing Hurricane Lorenzo, much further east in the Atlantic and posing no threat to anyone but shipping, but where this "Karen" was supposed to be as a tropical storm and getting ready to turn toward us: nothing but empty space on the map.  And I didn't hear the announcers even refer to it having ever existed.  So I'm putting out an all-points bulletin: if you happen to be out and about and notice a confused-looking tropical storm hovering over you, let the authorities know your location so they can put it back on the weather map...

Quote of the Week...from Charlie Daniels

So I jes' reached out an' kicked ol' green-teeth right in the knee. ---Charlie Daniels

The above quote...if you're from my generation...is probably one you're familiar with.  It's from the Charlie Daniels Band 1973 hit Uneasy Rider, one of the funniest songs ever recorded.  It relates the experiences of a long-haired traveler of the time who finds himself in a "redneck-lookin'" Mississippi bar, surrounded by hostile locals making disparaging comments about his appearance and looking for a fight.  The quick-thinking narrator, sensing his impending beating, thinks up a distraction and kicks one of the "regulars", then going off on a rant about green-teeth infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan and working undercover for the FBI.  It's good enough for him to escape and reroute his trip to L.A. "via Omaha".  This song came to me as I already knew that Joe Biden, although not possessing any green teeth that I know of, was destined to figuratively be kicked in his knee during last night's second Democratic presidential candidates' debate...the question was who would be doing the kicking.  I had thought Cory Booker would have gotten the assignment, but alas, he was separated from ol' Joe after being placed in the first debate on Wednesday.  So it turned out that California senator Kamala Harris did it, repeatedly and directly criticizing Barack Obama's hand-chosen two-term vice-president on the issue of race, even dredging up his opposition forty-plus years ago to forced school-busing.  The mainstream media reaction to their onstage exchange was that Biden had lost and Harris had rebooted her campaign, in which she had fallen nationwide to around the fifth-place level among the contenders.  Now don't get me wrong: I am not at all critical of Kamala Harris for her strategy of going after Biden...any more than the dude kicking that guy with the green teeth was wrong for using misdirection to get out of his own predicament.  My problem is with the spin going all around in the media about how great she was and not pointing out the so clearly obvious and cynical motivation behind her action.  One of Joe Biden's greatest assets so far has been his relative popularity above the other candidates among the African-American community...besting even Booker and Harris, both black.  The debate ploy that Harris used was intended to chip away, if not destroy, this level of support and bring green-teeth's Biden's polling numbers down and elevate her own among this demographic group.  Like I said, this is politics and I don't disparage her having done so...but I'm getting the feeling that the "fix" is on and the media talking heads out there don't want the former vice-president to be the Democratic Party nominee.  We'll see whether this turns into a trend and whether I begin to echo the current White House occupant that it's all rigged...

Quote of the Week...from Stephen Hawking

Keeping an active mind has been vital to my survival, as has been maintaining a sense of humor.
                                                                            ---Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking, the renowned astrophysicist and decades-long survivor of the debilitating and usually quickly fatal disease ALS who finally passed away last year at age 76, has many good quotes...I even discussed the same one in two different blog articles.  The above quote is spot on for me, as I try both to keep my mind active and find things in life to laugh at.  But to me, being continually engaged in learning new things and finding and relishing the humor in my life has always been an integral part of who I am and isn't just some survival strategy.  When I see others who are utterly devoid of humor or are so close-minded that they refuse to try to see things from the viewpoint of someone with a different perspective, I don't react by thinking that they will soon perish, but rather perceive that they are lacking elements in their lives that would otherwise give them fulfillment and contentment.  Besides, in a way everyone has an "active" mind, but do they engage in thinking that enhances their skill levels and understanding of the world and other people, or do they absorb themselves in fruitless mental tape-playing reinforcing their own vanity, grudges, delusions and regrets?  I submit that you cannot be a compassionate person without the ability to laugh, especially at yourself.  I look at some of these "new wave" politicians, some of them running for president, and see neither humor nor compassion in their hearts.  I think a lot of people in today's runaway world of political correctness...and PC sees no humor in anything...are experiencing their careers and futures being ruined by past gaffes that they originally intended to be funny, even going back decades in the process.  But I digress...

I think I'm going to carefully look at the current and upcoming field of presidential candidates on the Democratic side and pick one to support over the others.  Two prerequisites: they have to be thinkers on both sides of the issues, being able to explain the other guy's side as well as their own.  And they must have a sense of humor...and a little grace wouldn't hurt, either.  As for my own thinking, I don't believe I have a career in astrophysics on my "event horizon", but that doesn't mean I can't study on my own level black holes and other areas of cosmology in which the great Stephen Hawking excelled...

Just Finished Reading A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Back in the primitive days of computerdom it was considered a great innovation to have a CD slot on one's PC to play music, and the educational CD-ROM came into existence as well...a lot of information can be stored on these discs.  I soon became the owner of a set of three CD-ROMS, each claiming to be the complete fictional works of a famous author: William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, and Mark Twain.  Yet I rarely used this format...now I'm wondering whether I want to dig them out and examine them.  For Mark Twain's 1889 novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, which I just finished reading, is no doubt included...

There is a lot of narrative to this novel...it is initially in the first-person by the author himself but switches to that of a New England native, Hank Morgan, who after suffering a head blow during a fight finds himself back in the times of Camelot when King Arthur supposedly reigned over England...in the sixth century.  Hank brings his Yankee independence and technological knowhow to this situation, cloaking his abilities as being that of a magician, one superior to the envious Merlin...and King Arthur buys it!  Along the course of the story he sees firsthand the injustices caused by what he deems the outright fraud of nobility, but also notes that the masses of oppressed people themselves willingly submit to their domination, something continually very consternating to him. Hank has his own ideas about how to change this society, and he uses America's late-nineteenth-century model of freedom, science, and self-reliance to implement it...including the development of electricity and mass communications.  And we know that Hank made it back to our time (i.e., 1889) because M.T.,the original narrator, had met and interviewed him.  Other than that I think I'd better leave the finer points of characters and plot to you should you want to read it someday.  Instead some side thoughts...

First of all, the dialog between Hank and the people of King Arthur's era is uproariously funny and reminds me of the hilarious repartee between Groucho Marx and others when the moustached comedian would continuously follow one zinger with another...now I wonder whether Groucho derived some of his act in part from Twain's writings.  For that alone I'd recommend this book, but there's more.  Hank's narrative, which really reflects the thoughts of Twain, is very incisive as he observes what's going on around him and it carries much application to the world today.  For one, I never did understand why folks in America are so interested in and endeared to English royalty...didn't we have a revolution to get away from that sort of thing?  And for another, I look at the political landscape today and marvel at how some of the poorest groups of people regularly support political leaders and parties whose very actions go directly against their own best interests...you can read this from either side of the political spectrum if you wish.  No, "our" politicians aren't technically "nobility" although that great Don Henley line speaks to me: "We're beating plowshares into swords for this tired old man that we elected King" (referring to President Reagan).  Yes, we in America have substituted other forms of royalty for that which we abandoned in 1776. And Twain, through his protagonist, had a lot to say about a Church that so monopolized religion and its expression that it had become a corrupt political institution in itself and a rival to the nobles in subjugating the vast majority of the people...

There have been a number of film adaptations to A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, including one in 1931 starring Will Rogers and another in 1949 with Bing Crosby...this one was a musical...a musical of all things!  I can't imagine how anyone could read this book and come away with a musical...well, now I'm intrigued, so I guess I'll have to watch it sometime.  But I'm already confident that, regardless which movie adaptation you see, you'll still be missing a lot of what the book has to offer...and maybe the most important parts...

Weekly Short Stories: '40 Sci-Fi, Part 4

This week I completed reading (again) the science fiction anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 2 (1940), which features short stories that editors Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg deemed that year's best. There was one, though, near the book's end that I didn't exactly think stood up to the high standard of being "great"...more on that later.  Here are my reactions to the four final entries...

FAREWELL TO THE MASTER by Harry Bates
If you've ever seen the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still (I only saw the 1951 masterpiece), with Klaatu the alien emissary and the terrifying giant robot Gort his "enforcer", you might be interested that it derived from this short story, one with a completely different plot sequence, its robot Gnut not anywhere as destructive, and the final message a complete surprise.  In Farewell to the Master, the Earth is not being warned from beyond...no, Klaatu and Gnut's mission is one of friendly initial contact gone horribly wrong when the former is accidentally shot to death upon arrival by an undisciplined trigger-happy soldier (this happens at the beginning, no plot spoiling here).  How Gnut reacts to this is revealed by the story's human protagonist, an unstoppable reporter named Cliff Sutherland.  The memorable closing line in the story notwithstanding, I still prefer the movie, which probably frightened me more as a child than any other I've seen, then or since...and I have no plans to watch the more recent version as it almost certainly will be a big disappointment in comparison...

BUTYL AND THE BREATHER by Theodore Sturgeon
This is a follow-up sequel to Sturgeon's humorous tale Ether Breather from the previous year, with the attempts to be funny still there but without the innovation the earlier story introduced.  Since the compelling mystery of who was playing the practical jokes on color TV broadcasts is already solved, I found myself looking to the story's last page to see how many more I would need to endure reading before it was all over.  I like Theodore Sturgeon's writing a lot...his It in the same anthology, which I discussed a couple of weeks ago, is a far better story...

THE EXALTED by L. Sprague de Camp
The author had an ongoing series of stories around this time centering on Johnny Black, a talking bear that has been made intelligent by eccentric scientist Ira Methuen through special treatments. In this story, Methuen has given himself the same treatments in hope of enhancing his own intelligence.  It works, but the resulting "genius" thinks he has figured everything out and has decided that nothing really matters, and spends his time devising machines to play practical jokes on those around him.  Can they reverse the process and bring Dr. Methuen back to his old, reasonable self? Johnny has the solution, which is utterly hilarious.  This story and the series it belongs to would probably fit well as a late night series on the Cartoon Network...

OLD MAN MULLIGAN by P. Schuyler Miller
In the 1939 sci-fi anthology there were two stories about Neanderthals, one of them about such a man who had survived the eons to this day (incidentally authored by the previous story's L. Sprague de Camp).  Old Man Mulligan is another of these, with Mulligan the Neanderthal who seems to have participated in just about every historical event and who is continually referring back to them, challenging to fights anyone accusing him of being a liar.  The setting is novel: Venus of the future, in its early stages of exploration and settlement.  The warm, humid planet of mid-twentieth century imagination, dominated by vast seas and steaming jungles...unlike what we know about it now...is a fertile location drawing pioneers from Earth.  Unfortunately, our worldly corruption has followed us there as well, and a seedy character named Hanlon has kidnapped the daughter of the planet's ruling Regent and deposited our cast of heroes out on a rock in the middle of the monster-infested sea, all naked...including old Mulligan.  Leave it to our experienced Neanderthal to make like MacGyver and
deftly bring everyone to safety and redemption.  One of my favorite tales from this book, and quite funny, too...

Well, that's it for the year 1940...next week I'll start with stories from Asimov's "1941" anthology...

Quote of the Week...from Erma Bombeck

If a man watches three football games in a row, he should be declared legally dead.  
                                                                        ---Erma Bombeck

Erma Bombeck (1927-96) was a famous humorist of the late 1900s who poked fun at suburban life of that time.  Her above comment could apply to me during football season...especially on Saturdays as the college football schedule usually starts at noon and doesn't finish until early Sunday morning.  Add to that my interest in soccer and baseball and you have someone who, at least one day of the week (I work Sundays when the NFL plays most of its games), is pretty much stuck in the recliner with my eyes glued to the set.  Usually: events and opportunities come along from time to time and I'm not fanatical about having to watch football...but some days it just happens to turn into a long, long string of games.  I've noticed something peculiar both about football as well as other team sports: if I'm not especially interested in who will win a particular game, then I tend to become more interested in following it from beginning to end...I wonder if others have the same experience.  And I don't bet money on anything...that's one vice that I learned to avoid by directly seeing its effects on others.  As for this 2018 season, which is about to begin...

I root for Florida, Miami, and Florida State in that order in college football while I support the Florida NFL teams Miami, Tampa Bay, and Jacksonville in like fashion.  By far I like to see the Gators and Dolphins do well, something that hasn't generally been happening too much in recent years.  UF does have a new head coach in Dan Mullen and he seems determined to bring back a robust offense to a team that hasn't had one since 2009 during the Tim Tebow era.  As for the Miami Dolphins, I have little hope of them sustaining any kind of success with their dull "player's" coach Adam Gase and their equally dull quarterback Ryan Tannenhill…this franchise is suffering from severe apathy and complacency in the crucial leadership positions, although it's apparent on the field that many if not most of the players care deeply about doing their utmost to win.  Who knows, maybe they'll do well enough to sneak into the playoffs, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for it.  As for the Gators, I'd just like to see them (1) have a good offense, (2) be competitive in each game they play, and (3) play a bowl game at season's end...I don't think that's asking too much, do you?

Quote of the Week...from Yogi Berra

The future ain't what it used to be.                   --Yogi Berra

The great New York Yankee catcher Yogi Berra, who passed away two years ago at the age of 90, was always a welcome baseball card for me to pick up as a kid...but his warmth and humor made him a larger-than-life public figure.  One of Yogi's trademarks was his tendency to twist words around in a funny way...some examples:

--Even Napoleon had his Watergate.
--It was impossible to get a conversation going, everybody was talking too much.
--I don’t know (if they were men or women fans running naked across the field, in answer to a question). They had bags over their heads.
--I’m not going to buy my kids an encyclopedia. Let them walk to school like I did.
--I never said most of the things I said.
--Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical.
And my current favorite:
--In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.

The above quote of his that I settled on for this article, though, while on the surface a bit nonsensical and silly, actually contains a deeper truth: in our times, our view of what the future holds has changed quite a bit from what others saw ahead of them in previous times.  In America, there had long been the notion that we could do anything...where there was a will, there was a way, so to speak...and the future was bright, full of technological innovations if not miracles.  After World War II, a different sort of outlook began to take root among the population: an apocalyptic future of nuclear war and its devastating aftermath.  In the early 1960s, another vision of a future...that of a planet sickened by man-made abuse of the environment...began to take hold.  The revival of Christian evangelism in the latter part of the century combined within that community the idea of worldwide apocalypse with Christ's impending return.  And there is now a developing fear among many of a future world run by autocratic strongmen in alliance with the super-wealthy that disposes of many of the individual's human rights and treats people-at-large as simply consumer units. One of the factors creating political tension within our society nowadays is a plethora of competing visions about what the future holds for us...and what we should do to create the best results.  I happen to believe that there are elements of truth contained within the various outlooks: we do have the capacity and can develop the will to solve many of our problems, but we have to come to some sort of consensus about what those problems are...and that is where I fall a bit on the pessimistic side of things.  For it seems that, in this present world of ours, people tend to just follow the "news" sources that serve to bolster their own closely held notions and prejudices, opting to refer to any opposing input as "fake news".  Not a good portent for the future...I wonder what ol' Yogi would have to say about this...

Baseball Great Yogi Berra Passes Away

The great Yogi Berra, who as New York Yankees catcher over the course of his playing career won ten World Series championships and three American League MVP awards, has passed away at age ninety.  As a little kid growing up in the early 1960s, I quite naturally assumed that he was named after then-cartoon superstar Yogi Bear.  I didn't understand his greatness then, but I did appreciate the baseball card of him I collected from the backs of Post cereal boxes...along with those of other early 1960s baseball players, including his teammates Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris.  Later on I came to associate the name "Yogi Berra" with the chocolate drink Yoo-Hoo, which he promoted for a long time on TV commercials.  It was only later in life that I came to esteem not only the on-field accomplishments of this iconic sports figure, but also his humanity and humor.  And, of course, all of those incredible "Yogi-isms"...many of which I'm hearing on ESPN as they pay homage to his memory: "If you come to a fork in the road, take it", "The game isn't over until it's over" "It's like deja vu all over again", "I really didn't say everything I said", "Baseball is 90 per cent mental.  The other half is physical", ....and on and on it went.  As his off-beat quotes piled up over the years, there began to be a question as to whether some of them may not have come from him.  Oh well, I love hearing them, anyway...

Just Finished Reading Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

The satirical novel Good Omens, a collaboration by Neil Gaiman (I recently read his novel Neverwhere) and Terry Pratchett, pokes some fun at the convoluted narrative some Christians like to spin (and, for a few, obsess) about the "Last Days".  This farcical adventure through the apocalypse turns down a different path than the standard tribulation horrors that feature the charismatic and evil Antichrist character.  Instead, the newborn son of Satan gets accidentally switched with another baby at an English hospital...and gets brought up instead in a normal, loving family environment in an English town with the name Adam Young (the boy, not the town).  Meanwhile, the supposed Antichrist, sent (in parody of the Omen movie series) to the American diplomat's household, gets the focus of the fanatical nanny sent to guide him, along with an eventual trip to the Plain of Megiddo in anticipation of the Great Battle. Sensing that something went awry with plans, demon Crowley and angel Aziraphale, mutual friends working on different sides who both have become unduly accustomed to their assignment on Earth among humans, set out to discover where the real Antichrist is and try to get rid of him before he wreaks havoc across the world...

There are several subplots and minor characters in Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (its long title).  For example, it is revealed that any audio cassette left for more than 48 hours in a car transforms itself into The Best of Queen...so there are plenty of references to their songs (some of which I really like).  There are the Four Horsepersons of the Apocalypse (the one representing War is a woman, hence the change), which has Pollution replacing Pestilence.  There is the legacy of Agnes Nutter, a 17th Century witch whose book of prophecies are always true to the last detail and whose descendant Anethema carries the last remaining copy.  And there is the Witchfinder Army, a group led by a hilarious, cantankerous old man named Sgt. Shadwell (my favorite character in the novel) and which includes a technologically inept young man named Newton Pulsifer...

Good Omens is loaded with funny little pieces scattered here and there...there is hardly a spot in it devoid of humor.  But if you have a religious orientation in the Judeo-Christian tradition, you may disagree with the theological assumptions expressed within it.  Just keep in mind that this story is not to be taken literally and analyzed for its flaws.  It is deliberately a farce, understand?  That being said, I can't imagine a similar satire being published about a certain other world religion, one in which some of its adherents go rioting and some on rampages of murderous violence whenever they judge its scripture or prophet to be "insulted"...

One word keeps getting a lot of attention in Good Omens: ineffability.  It is used by Aziraphale to explain away the often confusing decisions God makes...after all, the term refers to anything that is so grand and complex in scope that it is beyond understanding, not to mention the unpronounceable true name of The Lord.  It is the "ultimate" explanation for everything, I suppose...a real discussion-ender... 

Heidi Revisited and Kinison

The other night I was at home watching game four of the NBA West Conference finals between the Dallas Mavericks and the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Mavs, which I wanted to win, were leading the series two games to one and were trying to win another one. But this game, held in Oklahoma City, was going the Thunder's way and it was getting late. OKC had extended their lead over Dallas to a whopping 15-point margin late in the fourth quarter, 99-84. I sadly switched channels over to the Sam Kinison tribute program on Epix I had been wanting to see. Oh well, I thought, the series is just tied 2-2 and Dallas will have other chances to win it.

Later that night I just happened to surf through the channels and happened upon the game's final score: Dallas 112, Oklahoma City 105! What happened?

Right after I switched channels, the Mavericks went on a furious 17-2 run to tie the game at the end of regulation and then overpower the Thunder in overtime. The sudden reversal in this game after I had left it reminded me of the "Heidi" football game in the late sixties between the New York Jets and the Oakland Raiders.

These two teams were, at the time, dominating the old American Football League. This game between them was therefore a featured contest shown nationwide on NBC. The only problem was that the network on Sunday evening had a prior commitment to air a children's show, a brand-new version of the Heidi story. So late in the fourth quarter of that game, with the Jets ahead 32-29 and seemingly in control of things, the network switched over to Heidi and left the country to wonder how the game ended. Well, right after the game's televised coverage ended, all hell broke out on the field and Oakland made a dramatic comeback, winning the game going away 43-32. There was so much anger expressed over NBC's curtailment of its coverage that, from then on, televised sports events as a rule are shown to their conclusion and later programming is broadcast on a delayed basis.

I wish I had hung around to see the Mavericks' dramatic turnaround, but oh well...

As for the Sam Kinison tribute, I have mixed feelings about the late comedian. There is no doubt that he had a very funny delivery and style. He was unashamedly brash and loud, with that trademark scream of his that would send his audience into an uncontrollable frenzy of laughter. But on many of his topics, which ranged from the homeless to gays to relationships with women, I found myself sinking into the feeling that this guy was just acting out the part of a stinking bully. That's too bad, because Kinison could have chosen any material he wanted for his content and been funny (he himself said that), but for some reason he decided to pick on elements of the population that needed support, not more hateful bashing. What a waste, not just for his death in 1992 due to the negligence of another driver, but also for the legacy of the idea that piling on certain demographic groups is fair game as long as you call it "comedy" (from which conservative talk radio seems to have capitalized heavily).

Still, now that I have witnessed Sam Kinison's act, from time to time I will notice people behaving illogically around me (or in the media) and I'll develop my own inner "kinisonian" monologue about them, ending in the obligatory (but usually silent) "scream".