Continuing with Medical Treatments, Working on Attitude

 So on this Friday, November 21st, I find myself with noontime approaching and a slight headache, although my cold symptoms have lightened a bit.  I took my fourth straight early-morning doses of TMZ capsules for brain cancer chemotherapy and am scheduled for yet another zapping by UF Health's radiiation-therapy brain-zapping machines.  As anticipated, Buffalo did lose last night's game, which is fine with me. At 6:30, the network evening news shows conveyed more and more political outrage as our so-called "leaders" want to execute their critics and even call political allies "traitors" for occasionally disagreeing with them.  For myself, all I want is to just get through this day with a better overall attitude and good prospects for a meaningful Saturday morning Depot Parkrun.  

Early Voting on GRU Control Today

Today represented the final day in Florida for early voting before this coming Tuesday's election day.  The only matter up for a vote on my part is the question of whether the locally elected Gainesville city government can regain operational and financial control of Gainesville Regional Utilities.  In his shameless plot to defame opposition Democratic Party officeholders as being irresponsible and corrupt, our dictator/governor Ron DeSantis removed GRU from local control and gave it to a purely Republican hand-picked committee.  When they tried putting this measure on the ballot, he sued to stop the vote (and lost)...DeSantis is a dyed-in-the-wool anti-democratic demogogue who should have been thrown out of office for mishandling the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-21...I believe many in Florida died of this pandemic because of his incompetence.  He doesn't want you or me voting, and I predict that this question, which I predict will easily pass, will garner his focus as he will do whatever he can to sabotage it.  This dude does not represent me or my interests in any way, shape or form.  Melissa drove us to our public library branch building for the early voting, which went off very smoothly with all the workers demonstrating competence and politeness toward us.  If the Republicans hadn't been so deadset against people getting to vote on something, this might have been a reasonable issue to discuss on its merits.  Well, I got up early this morning and exercised a bit.  Now I'm tired and still have a lap around the block to walk.  Still, I'm glad I voted, for what it was worth...

Cancel Culture from the Fascist Side about Kirk

The freaks hidden among the multitudes in our increasingly fascist America are the real menace in our society when it comes to assassinations, whether you're talking about JFK, Martin Luther King, Jr., RFK, the attempts against George Wallace, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan, John Lennon, or the attempts against Trump in 2024...and the sniper shot against Charlie Kirk recently.  With all the guns floating around in clear view in our gun-crazy culture, an adept, murderous maniac can seize the opportunity and commit a horrendous act, pretty much from the vantage point of anonymity, if he or she has successfully been concealing from others any intentions of taking such action.  It does not require conspiracies from an extremist group, as some in the current fascist regime have angrily gone off about in public rage.  You or I might become famous, and if there is at least a little controversy accompanying that fame then chances are that somebody, somewhere will allow themselves to become offended and at least consider making us into a target.  It's interesting nowadays that the MAGA Trump boot-lickers are the ones practicing "politically correct" cancel culture on anyone they can get away with accusing of inappropriate comments about the murder or Kirk himself...reference recent outbursts by Stephen Miller, JD Vance and Pam Bondi.  This canceling of Jimmy Kimmel for suggesting (in my opinion, presumptuously and probably erroneously) that the shooter just might have been pro-Trump, is a spotlighted case in point.  Long ago I tired of watching these late-night "comedy" spectacles like Kimmel, Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers because of the political ugliness behind much (if not most of) their jokes, so not having Kimmel on doesn't change anything with me.  Besides, you can get your audience to laugh at the politicians you dislike, but try coaxing the same fans to actively and consistently participate in the voting process.  In EVERY available election, even those "boring" local and state contests.  Yeah, good luck with that...I think these smartass professional jokesters need to start ridiculing the electorate instead!  Then again, a lot of these half-ass, apathetic and emotion-driven voters seem to think that the meaning of democracy is going to protest rallies after their side has lost the election. Now THAT is a sick joke...   

Boys with Toys

While shopping with Melissa the other day, I was very carefully steering our shopping cart past other customers along an especially crowded stretch of the store.  And then, straight toward us, an employee was casually pushing an imposing-looking pallet jack.  I watched him as he approached...and then he took out his cell phone and started looking at it while nonchalantly navigating his jack past without regard to anyone around...I guess it was up to us to get out of his way.  People whipping out their phones...what a scourge of our times.  Have you ever found yourself talking to someone, only to look over and see that they're zoned out and ignoring you, scrolling on their phone?  The only thing worse I know is the increasingly frightening circumstance of people...in anger...pulling out guns without any sense of restraint in using them.  It's become far too commonplace on the news to be met with the story of a shooter at a school, church, home or business...and often it's a minor who has committed the crime.  In the 1995 James Bond flick Goldeneye, Agent 007's Russian female partner Natalya Simonova had a contemptuous name for this phenomenon for pervasive and often harmful obsession with gadgetry: Boys with Toys.  So we're now living...or trying to stay alive...in the "Boys (and Girls) with Toys" era: whoopee...   

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...

About Politics (You're Welcome to Skip Reading This)

A few days ago I wrote a politically-charged article for this blog, but hesitated to post it because, well, it seemed a bit too harsh after reading it over a couple of times.  After last November's presidential election that made me sharply question the intelligence and integrity of the American voter, my political criticisms have alternated between calling out the gullibility and/or ugliness motivating too many people's voting trends these days and calling out the people that they placed in positions of power...the most notable one of course being Trump.  So instead of using pejorative designations like "dumbass", "fraud" or "hack", let me instead just relay that in no way do I feel any sense of trust in my elected leaders...especially the current White House occupant...nor do I think that the American electorate will, in either the immediate or long-term future, do anything to return this republic of elected representatives to a semblance of reason and comity directed toward the public good.  So, therefore, I've lived my whole life in a country that now makes me feel like a "stranger in a strange land".  I also don't think that any expressed political opinion of mine is going to make any real difference other than label myself, to the computer algorithms out there, as belonging to a particular political leaning after which they will concentrate on feeding me social media input that they "think" reinforces what they "think" I already think.  So there you go...let me just stay out of the way of all the crazies I see around me...oops, I think I just used a pejorative...

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 Saturday's Anti-Trump Rally

When I earlier discovered that a nationwide network of anti-Trump protests, dubbed "No Kings" and scheduled on the same day the president was staging a large Washington, DC military parade to ostensibly honor the US Army's 250th anniversary, I noted that in Gainesville it was being held at Roberson Park near where I do my weekly Depot Parkrun 5K walk/runs.  I thought maybe it would be good for me to attend this first protest rally of my life, and allowed myself the option...once there on the morning of the 14th...to choose whether or not to go.  After the Parkrun, which I ended up running a little harder than planned...coming out of it hot and sweaty...I changed clothes and headed out, not to the protest but rather to the nearby (to my home) donut shop for some coffee and reflection.  While there I got on my smartphone's YouTube and watched a little bit of one of the No Kings rallies on live-stream.  A woman was on stage with the mike and was yelling repeatedly, "THIS IS THE MEANING OF DEMOCRACY!", with the shouting audience parroting her in unison. That convinced me I had made the right decision in avoiding my home town's version, in spite of the fact that I strongly oppose this convicted criminal felon of a president. No, I absolutely do not trust Donald Trump, but I have even less faith in my fellow Americans for what they did to my country last November when they voted him back into office.  What constitutes democracy in its higher sense is the quiet, informed dignity of a country's citizens as they perform the regular ritual of making the effort to vote for the leaders they deem responsible, ethical and most able to lead their country into a better future, one that optimizes liberty, prosperity, enlightenment and security.  I don't know whether the United States will continue on its current track into fascism, but even if there is a backlash against MAGA in the 2026 off-year elections I don't trust the electorate's collective reasoning.  Go ahead and wave around a sign or an insulting effigy of the Orange Man...it seems folks have to get just as crazy and irrational as his own adoring personality cult idolaters to get them motivated to actually do anything.  And protest demonstrations won't elect anybody, nor will they, by themselves, toss out the worthless rascals from power.  But go ahead and demonstrate if that makes you feel better.  According to what I heard from my local news after our event, there wasn't any significant level of pro-Trump counter-protesters at the rally, just people standing around with signs and agreeing with the speakers.  Come next election day, guess how many votes that adds up to?  

Political, Media Manipulation Will Only Get Worse

A few weeks ago, while surfing through YouTube in their section devoted to running, I "ran" across a couple of Canadian middle-age brothers who decided to tackle distance running and triathlons in order to get themselves fit after undergoing some health scares.  They're really a couple of top-notch athletes, it turns out, and they have their own channel committed to their ongoing efforts and accomplishments.  These two are, however, a bit insufferable with their self-promotion and putdowns of those they don't feel measure up to their standards...I felt early on that they held themselves to be on a higher plane of existence than me.  That's okay, they have their thing and I mine...to each our own: I don't HAVE TO watch their videos.  I cannot say the same regarding our recycled president and his musky wingman.  It's clear that the convicted felon that my own country saw fit to return to office has, as a centerpiece of his strategy, the notion of keeping himself the focus of media attention EVERY DAY with some new outrage to say or someone to offend.  Sadly, I think he's on to something...America is hopelessly hooked on reality television and celebrities: the more off-the-wall they are, the better. Some folks think that all they have to do is outlast this president and then things will return to normal, but I think the change is permanent.  From now on future candidates, on both sides of the political divide, will apply the lessons in mass manipulation they're learning here to their respective campaigns. If you think it's bad now, wait 'til AI and quantum computing attain their full realization and seamlessly merge into our mass and social media, forever blurring the distinction between fact and fantasy. Hell, it's already happening.  At least those Canadian brothers are real (I think).  On the other hand, it seems to me that the American voter doesn't even care anymore what is real or not: they just care about how it all makes them feel...   

Country Deserves Incoming CCC-in-Chief

The incoming CCC-in Chief (Convict, Conman, Clown) is up to his old tricks, deliberately saying anything he can to steal the media spotlight from other people and events, in this case the solemn observance honoring former president Jimmy Carter, who recently passed away at the age of 100.  CCC is working mass and social media up into a frenzy, making hints of annexing Greenland, the Panama Canal...even Canada,,,along with renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the "Gulf of America".  The latter gesture, I'm guessing, was aimed at the hard-core voters who supported him from the start and thought twenty years ago that the old "change" from French fries to "Freedom" fries was a good idea.  When I went to school many decades ago, we had a bus stop bully who practiced the same kind of manipulation, threatening and deriding others he felt he could intimidate and always talking loudly about random subjects with outrageous statements abounding...just to keep attention on himself.  Now this dude, at an advanced age, is plaguing my high school reunion website...probably the same old narcissist he always was...sound familiar?  So, returning to our current collective problem, my country knew all about CCC yet elected him, even giving the degenerate a popular vote victory.  So this coming presidential term is on America, a country that has abandoned its sense of reason and decency in favor of self-brainwashing and fascism.  If you want to frequent Facebook (which has just abandoned its fact-checking policy after pressure from you-know-who) or those obnoxious cable news and opinion channels to get your news input, be my guest...all we're going to get in the next four years is more of the same constant, deliberately outrageous crap.  And my country deserves it for what they did on Election Day.  Enjoy...

Local Library Now a Crowded Early Voting Site

This morning Melissa and I were driving down NW 43rd Street here in Gainesville when we passed our nearest public library, the Millhopper Branch.  I had wondered when they would begin to pepper the surrounding landscape with campaign signs, for this place is a designated early voting site.  Sure enough, with today marking the beginning of early voting in the 2024 general election, there they all were, along with accompanying campaign volunteers waving at us and the other passing vehicles.  The parking lot for the library was packed with what I assumed were voters, cars circling within it looking fruitlessly for empty spots.  I'm not sure what the deal with these folks was other than maybe it's like the opening day of the local Friends of the Library book sale when lines stretching a city block attend this (also) multi-day event's opening moments.  Friends, there's going to be plenty of time to get your votes in...for what it's going to be worth...in the next few days.  Or, if you're like me, you'll just wait until Tuesday, November 5th, and visit your local precinct...for what that's worth.  For me, no way am I suggesting how you should vote, but sure, I've left a few of my own opinions in past articles.  In the final analysis, one thing is certain: power seekers will win their power, and dress it all up as public service...

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...

About the Tedious Presidential Debates

Everybody in social and mass media is abuzz about the recent debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris...at least that's how they'd like us to think.  I'm guessing that you're not all that much into that kind of nonsense...and I'm certainly not.  I can go back to 2016 when Trump debated Hillary Clinton...and in my estimation, she clearly won and her poll numbers soared.  Then FBI Director James Comey infamously decided to interfere in the campaign at the most crucial moment and, with great fanfare, announced he was reopening an investigation into, of all things, Clinton's emails.  This was happening among the opposition's cries of "Lock her up!", so Comey knew that what he was doing was interference and did it anyway.  Yet in 2024 it's apparently okay for their champion to be a 34-count convicted felon!  So no, I don't care about debates and discount their usefulness, although to be fair the previous one did get Biden to bow out.  I recently listened to someone recount their experiences listening to Tuesday evening's debate after I myself had studiously avoided it...and was affirmed in that avoidance.  If by this time you haven't figured out what you're going to do in this year's presidential election, I don't know what to say to you.  But then again, these elections always seem to hinge on how the stupid, emotion-driven pain-in-the-ass last-minute undecided voters sway, don't they...

Enjoying Watching This Year's US Open Tennis Tourney

I enjoyed watching the US Open this weekend, with the round of 16 taking place on both the women and men's sides of this major tennis tournament, held in Queens, New York in Flushing Meadows.  I got to see some really good matches, although it seemed to me that for the men they were too drawn out with their best-of-five sets per match, as opposed to the women's more reasonable best-of-three.  My favorites so far have advanced...Iga Swiatek and Daniil Medvedev...and I like some of the upcoming matchups as they head into the quarterfinals.  Tennis is one of those special sports that are a combination of exceptional coordination, strength, mobility, endurance, and a chess-like sense of strategy...too bad I didn't get past the beginner stage.  Still, it's fun to watch although I found it a little sad to see people like Nick Kyrgios, whom I followed in years past, relegated to the broadcast analysis role on the sidelines after injuries to his knee.  Although I don't dig hyped-up nationalism in international sports...the recent Olympics is a case in point...it still disappointed me that the Russian and Belarus players are there without any noted national reference, as if we're going to make a difference in those governments' ongoing military actions by simply pretending they don't exist.  The world is full of nasty little despotic, belligerent regimes and their athletes are still welcome on the world stage with open arms, along with their countries' banners.  Sure, express your displeasure with the war over there but let's cut it with the double standards, okay?

The End of the World as We Know It

Ever since COVID-19 made its grand entrance into our collective lives in early 2020, I have had the uneasy feeling of society's decline, both in terms of economic vitality and of people's will to succeed.  I know that's got to be difficult to measure or wrap your mind around, but it's a composite of a number of things.  For one, it seems that every business that used to operate later into the night now closes up measurably earlier, for some painfully early.  Housing and transportation costs have skyrocketed...young people nowadays must have a terrible ordeal with the narrowing choices they have for getting themselves independently established on a shoestring budget.  The availability of prompt medical and dental care...outside of emergency rooms and clinics...has deteriorated, with the professionals breaking appointments with patients and throwing their needed care sometimes months further into the future, and of course the costs of said care are soaring.  Speaking of decline, is it just my own subjective perception but are people more and more prone to voluntarily letting themselves get brainwashed politically by the mass and social media that they have now on their fingertips?  Furthermore, have people now redefined their view of reality itself to encompass virtual, digital realms instead of what is actually physically out there?  There's more I'm seeing as well, and it ain't getting any better, folks...but at least I'm still getting by (so far).  As Michael Stipe of R.E.M. prophetically wrote in a 1988 song, "It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine"...

Meaningless Florida Primary Ongoing with Early Voting

This has to be by far the deadest presidential primary season I've ever experienced since following them in 1968...both major political parties have pretty much folded up and closed shop with their anointed candidates, fascist Donald Trump as the clear consensus choice for Republicans and incumbent Joe "Not Trump" Biden for the Democrats.  And now early voting is underway in the Florida Primary...at least on the Republican side as Biden has no listed opposition.  But all of the major GOP candidates running against Trump have ended their campaigns without ever gaining any traction among the adoring masses enthralled with their orange personality cult idol.  I am currently a registered Republican and still plan to vote in the primary on "election day" March 19, for what it's worth.  Since former New Jersey governor Chris Christie spoke out the most vehemently against Trump during his brief campaign, I'm planning to vote for him...holding my breath in the process, not exactly being a Christie fan either.  And then it'll be on to the conventions where the parties will crown their dubious choices, with anti-vaccine conspiracy nut Robert F. "Neither-Trump-Nor-Biden" Kennedy, Jr. waiting in the wings as an independent option for voters looking for an even worse candidate.  So this is liberty and democracy...are you telling me that these three are the best my country could come up with?  Biden's my reluctant choice in November, but I won't waste my writing time trying to convince anyone to go out there and join me, much less dissuade those inclined to push one of the other major candidates into office.  Be my guest and do as you will, for all I care... 

Weekly Short Stories: 1993 Science Fiction, Part 2

Here again are some more reviews from editor (and science fiction writer in his own right) Gardner Dozois' anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Eleventh Annual Collection, covering the year 1993 in this genre.  Bill Clinton was starting his eventual two-term tenure as US Presidents. I supported him the previous November, in large part because his predecessor, George (Papa) Bush, vetoed the Family and Medical Leave Act, a cruel gesture that exemplified the often-contemptuous attitude of Republican elites against working Americans...Clinton promptly signed it into law.  But enough of politics, how about those stories...

A VISIT TO THE FARSIDE by Don Webb

A tale that curiously reminded me of a South Park episode about a whale, the Soviet Union has far surpassed the US in space and is a position to grant temporary asylum to Americans on the moon when their own base (on the far side) blows up. The author, I knew as I was reading, had to be perfectly aware that the USSR had broken up in 1991, so what gives here? Rest assured, all is explained at the end, with a little Romeo and Juliet thrown in for full measure in this loaded brief story...

ALIEN BOOTLEGGER by Rebecca Ore

Dozier tends to stick a lot of lengthy novellas in his anthologies...this one didn't work for me as I couldn't connect with any of the characters. It centered around a ruthless Virginia bootlegger/international investor who is fighting competition from, of all parties, a diplomatically protected insect-like alien setting up its own distilling in the area.  I don't think I've read a tale this long without bonding with at least one of the characters...the changing viewpoint of the narrative didn't help any...

DEATH ON THE NILE by Connie Willis

This story's title should be familiar: it's also that of Agatha Christie's famous murder mystery novel featuring Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot.  Poirot is nowhere to be found here, but the venue is similar with three couples traveling together by plane to tour in Egypt.  Told by one of the women, they encounter sudden turbulence in the plane...and afterward everything seems a bit out of kilter.  Our narrator suspects something dire has happened while the others...including another woman trying to seduce her husband...don't seem aware of anything different.  Ever have the feeling that you're in a dream but it's supposedly real?  Yes, I think that's from The Matrix...this story kind of reminded me of that...

Next week I continue with my reactions to stories from this 1993 retrospective anthology...

Just Finished Reading American Idolatry by Andrew L. Whitehead

The full title of the book I just read, by Andrew L. Whitehead, is American Idolatry: How Christian Nationalism Betrays the Gospel and Threatens the Church.  It just came out this year and expressed some concerns about conservative evangelical Christianity in this country that I have been feeling for some time.  The author also went a little too far is pushing his conclusions, in my opinion.  Whitehead is a professing Christian from his youth, attending the very types of churches he discusses in this book.  The American flag is prominently displayed in their sanctuaries, and much is made of the United States always having been a Christian nation, established on Christian principles.  He disapproves of the flag being there and disagrees with America's Christian heritage.  In fact, he seems repelled by both the word "heritage" and its common companion "traditional", since they usually imply that the social values of the "good old days" were better and more noble than our society in the present time.  But slavery lasted until 1865 and then afterward legalized discrimination against the former enslaved blacks was practiced until the US Supreme Court struck it down just two years before I was born.  Still, the struggle has continued for African Americans to get a fair shake in our country.  As for Native Americans, the push for much of our history had been to eliminate either them or their culture, with a strong push toward Christianizing the population, especially children.  I'm totally in agreement with Whitehead's grim assessment of these facets of our history...they should be taught in all the schools without any attempt to cover anything up.  Where I do have a problem with his book is that he tends to repeatedly emphasize something that, while true up to a point, has some sinister connotations: the notion of privilege, which he applies to whites whether they subscribe to Christian nationalism or not.  Historically, different groups of people have been collectively scapegoated for society's problems by essentially being accused of being unfairly privileged: this has long been a recurring theme with anti-Semites when railing against Jewish people.  Careful: attacking or criticizing people for being born a certain way crosses an important line and can place you in the company of those who are prejudiced...well, by its very nature it is prejudice.  Also, I don't like whole groups of people lumped together and judged by a few in their midst who espouse objectionable views: I think I know of quite a few Christian nationalists in churches I've attended...and quite a few much more tolerant and open-minded folks...should I automatically judge Muslims because some among them have radical notions?  This book is nevertheless an appropriate response to the type of Christian nationalism pushed by, of all people, a thoroughly secular reprobate who once as President had federal troops tear-gas peaceful demonstrators so that he could walk from the White House to a church he never attended and...in front of it and numerous cameras...hold up a Bible he never read, much to the adoring approval of Christian nationalist Franklin Graham.  The sad thing about it all is that the very people who need to change their attitudes the most are thoroughly (and happily) brainwashed and will only double down on their convictions.  Still, I thought the book was a worthwhile effort despite some of my disagreements.  Whitehead made a very good point of contrasting Jesus' walk on Earth and his ministry and sayings with the political, bellicose attitudes of many today who liberally invoke his name while violating his principles.  There's a fork in the road for Christianity, for sure: which way will it go?

My Take on Sports This Weekend

This weekend in the sports world has been marked by football...the American brand, not soccer...and tennis.  The US Open tournament is concluding...yesterday Coco Gauff defeated Aryna Sabalenka in the Women's Singles championship while later this afternoon Novak Djokovic faces Daniil Medvedev in a rematch from the title match here two years ago that Medvedev convincingly won.  I'm looking forward to today's contest...and have to say that after watching college football yesterday and some early NFL games this afternoon, I may well have already had my fill of that sport for 2023.  I don't know...ever since former Florida Gators coach Dan Mullen claimed in 2021 that his team lost a close game at Texas A&M because they packed the stadium with fans in the middle of the Covid crisis and wouldn't it be great to "pack the Swamp" for UF's next home game, I've felt that people have lost their perspective on the importance of spectator sports.  Observing the often-tasteless outbreaks in the stands at the US Open tennis tourney in New York has only served to reinforce this feeling that sports have gotten out of hand.  Sure, I want my teams and players to win, but losing from time to time's okay, too.  But the frenzy surrounding football is way beyond the pale...even on the high school level it's all incredibly overrated.  I think in the future I'll just stick to watching golf...

My Own Take on Ukraine, for What It's Worth

Just a brief piece here on the war in Ukraine, a full-blown invasion by Putin's Russia (with the help of Lukaschenko's Belarus) since February of last year.  I get the Russian leadership's problem with a large, instrumental part of the previous Soviet Union...broken up in 1991 after a failed military coup...now an independent nation outside the realm of its control.  A very large component of the former USSR's economy was in Ukraine, both agriculture and industry...as well as many Russians themselves. The political landscape there was evenly divided between pro-Russian parties and those favoring closer ties to western Europe to the point that Putin felt he could try to manipulate outcomes of elections.  When that ultimately failed, he invaded Crimea...initially a part of Russia proper until Soviet boss Khrushchev assigned it to Ukraine in the 1950s...and instigated armed revolts in the country's eastern sections.  It is those areas that Russia has succeeded in occupying and holding on to, already annexing them and insisting that they regard any recovery of land there by Ukraine as an invasion...talk about the pot calling the kettle black!  Russia to me...and I am only referring to the autocratic government behind the invasion of Ukraine, not Russia or Russians in general...is completely responsible for this war in which their military has targeted civilian sites like apartments, hospitals and schools.  Still, the two countries will always be neighbors and I want them to arrive at a cease-fire arrangement that will allow their people to resume a peaceful and civil life.  Right now, whenever I read that someone or some country has proposed a plan to end the conflict, almost immediately they receive a torrent of criticism from different sources.  As for me, I think that blessed are the peacemakers, but often it's the ones trying to break up the fight who end up with no appreciation for their efforts.  The only viable outcome for this, in my opinion (and you're free to disagree, but that's your opinion) will be an accord that ultimately neither side is very happy with, folks on both ends afterwards rising up to claim that it is a betrayal of their own side's interests...