Family Weekend Outing

My family (my wife, son, and daughter) and I came back Monday from our outing to Jacksonville and Orlando. In Jacksonville, where we helped our son get registered for his fall college classes, we stayed at a beach-side hotel (Marriott Courtyard). Unfortunately, although the college part of the stay was a complete success, the fun at the beach didn’t happen for me due to bad evening weather and me sleeping in late the next morning (due to exhaustion). Oh well, better luck next time!

After Jacksonville, we drove down I-95 and I-4 to Universal Studios in Orlando, where we stayed at their Hard Rock Hotel. A bit on the expensive side, we did this since our son will soon be going off to college and we wanted this type of pleasant family experience together. This time around, I did get to use the hotel’s large pool, although it was way too shallow, being less than four feet deep everywhere (except for a corner area). I went there one evening with my daughter, where we enjoyed a pool-side rock concert and afterwards could hear music played under water (it sounded like an old transistor radio). They also had a pleasant, winding water slide that we enjoyed riding and which made me want to go to a good water park (like Ocala’s Wild Waters). The hotel itself had a lot of rock music memorabilia displayed throughout, especially guitars donated (or perhaps sold) by famous stars. We avoided eating there, though; I heard that their breakfast buffet ran to about $17 per person. Ouch!

One of the advantages to staying at a Universal-owned hotel is that the room-keycard doubles as an unlimited Express Pass to almost all of the rides at the two nearby parks (Universal Studios and Islands of Adventures). The hotel was close enough for us to walk to the parks each day we were there (although there was also a boat shuttle available as well).

We split our time there between the two parks and the City Walk area of shops that lies adjacent to them. At Islands of Adventure, I rode the Incredible Hulk roller coaster a couple of times, tried out the Spiderman 3-D ride again (disappointed again, too), and went on Jurassic Park Adventure, Dueling Dragons, and the Cat in the Hat. Dueling Dragons is actually composed of two bottomless roller coasters, Fire and Ice, which coordinate their runs to pass very close at times to each other. Fire, my favorite of the two, is smooth and floats over Ice during the ride. Ice, on the other hand, is a much rougher ride. But some people prefer it that way.

At Universal Studios, we rode Jimmy Neutron’s Nicktoon Blast, E.T. Adventure, Revenge of the Mummy, and the Simpsons ride (brand new). Replacing the old Back to the Future ride, the Simpsons ride is pretty much the same, with the passengers sitting in a “car” that creates the sensation of motion in sync with a movie (on this one, the Simpson family is in an amusement park fighting an arch-villain). It was O.K. in a ho-hum sort of way. To me, it was essentially the same kind of ride as Jimmy Neutron, though not as funny. By far my favorite ride there was the Revenge of the Mummy. Its only drawback was that it seemed too short! The very end of the Mummy ride was very funny, too.

At the City Walk, we ate a good lunch at the NBA City restaurant, which I felt had better food and prices than at the Hard Rock Café next door. They need to update their continuously-playing basketball highlights, though, as they showed Ray Allen as playing for Seattle, when in fact he starred for the Boston Celtics in their championship run last season! We also saw superhero flick Iron Man at the City Walk AMC theater. All in all, a pretty good time! The weather generally cooperated with us, providing some afternoon cloud cover and cooling while only hitting us with a severe storm once.

We got back home Monday afternoon. We have annual passes to Universal, although they don’t include the Express Pass that eliminates those tedious, horrendously long lines. Using it this time sure did make the theme park experience more enjoyable, although it seemed that, whenever we “flew” in the express lines past the “regulars” standing in their long, slow-moving lines, some of those people would angrily murmur and even hiss at us (probably my imagination). But, you know, waiting a little while in lines is all right, especially if you have the constitution for it. And judging by the masses of people who put up with standing in them at Universal, there must be an awful lot of people who possess that constitution. Bully for them. I don't. But I'm working on it. So bully for me, too.

Old Musical Jewels Resurface

Back in the late 70’s/early 80’s, my local Gainesville cable television service had a channel (time, temperature, and public announcements) on which they continuously played classical music (without identifying the pieces being played). One of the pieces was a dreamy orchestral work with a chorus. It was repeatedly recycled on the air, and I loved it. But I never knew what it was or who wrote it until the other night when, on my local classical music station, 89.1-WUFT, there it was in its full glory (on the Radio Nederland-produced Live at the Concertgebouw)! Turns out it was Nocturnes for Orchestra by the late 19th/early 20th century French composer Claude Debussy. I should have known! Debussy is right up there at the top of my list of favorite classical composers. La Mer, Prelude to the Afternoon of a Fawn, Arabesque, The Engulfed Cathedral, The Girl With the Flaxen Hair, Claire de Lune, Gardens in the Rain, and Reverie are all incredibly beautiful works!

At the same time, many years ago, that I kept hearing Nocturnes, my local cable provider would also play a very exciting piece that had a more modern (but different) sound. About six years ago, I was listening to WUFT when it came up for airplay: Czech composer Leos Janacek’s Mlody (Youth)!

And that now leaves one remaining “mystery” piece from way back then that I am waiting to make its “appearance” on my radio. Like Nocturnes and Mlody, it has a modernist sound, but my memory of it is vague. So, like Billy Joel, I’ll just say “[WUFT], can you play me a memory? I’m not really sure how it goes. But it’s sad and it’s sweet and I knew it complete when I wore a younger man’s clothes!”

Debussy and Janacek were exciting, innovative composers whose works I am looking forward to collecting (one album at a time). There should be some legitimate websites out there that play classical music (with a subscription, of course). If so, I would just as soon use one of these, too. No point in just sticking around waiting for the radio to play what I want to hear! Of course, that is exactly what I’ll have to do, though, if I ever want to identify my final “mystery” piece!

Monday Newsbreak: 7/14

--Two deaths have saddened me this week. On Friday, Dr. Michael Debakey, simply one of the greatest figures in the entire history of medicine, passed away Friday of undisclosed natural causes at age 99. Dr. Debakey’s long, incredible string of contributions to cardiovascular surgery go back to 1932, when he invented the roller pump (which enabled open-heart surgery). He also invented numerous devices associated with artificial hearts and was a top heart transplant surgeon. On Saturday, journalist, commentator, and former White House press secretary Tony Snow died of colon cancer. I often disagreed with his politics, but I respected that Tony spoke from his convictions and was courageous and generous in the midst of his personal crisis with cancer. I wish there were more like him in public life!

--The Pakistani foreign minister has stated in an interview that the U.S. is not hunting for Osama Bin-Laden in Pakistan, and that the Pakistani government will furthermore not permit it to even if it wanted to. So, please help me figure this out: The United States attacked Afghanistan following 9/11 and drove out that country’s Taliban government for giving sanctuary and support to Al-Qaeda in return for its help in defeating the Taliban’s political opponents. Now take the current Pakistani regime: aren’t they giving sanctuary to Al-Qaeda and Bin-Laden while reaping the benefits of this terrorist presence (assassinations and harassment of the political opposition there)? But we’re supposed to regard Pakistan as our “friend”. Barack Obama was right to recently point out our “friend’s” recalcitrance in helping us find and capture the perpetrators of the attack on our country on September 11, 2001.

--The Senate renewed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act with a provision granting immunity to telecommunications companies cooperating with the government in its eavesdropping activities. Republicans supported the bill (which President Bush happily signed) as a bloc, while Democrats were badly split. I believe that one of the legitimate functions of government is to protect its citizens from terrorists, and that is the stated purpose for this bill. But I also know that laws can be perverted to suit the agendas of different presidents. George W. Bush is leaving office in January next year, and (as far as I can tell) he stands to benefit in no improper way from FISA. From where things stand now, a Democrat is just as likely as a Republican to succeed him. And who will come after that? The problem with FISA is not how Bush wants to use it (I believe, all criticisms notwithstanding, that his motives with it are pure), but rather how this law is constructed so that it can easily morph into something that some future national figure will be able to use to truly subjugate the American people (through the use of databases and files to build up dossiers, KGB-style).

A Few Days' Break

I'll be out of town for a few days, coming back early next week. I won't be entering anything new for a little while. Feel free to read archived stuff from this blog and comment on anything you want.

Favorite Songs of 1966

The Beatles continued to dominate the popular music world in 1966, both in terms of output, quality, concerts, and controversy. John Lennon’s “Christ” comment, a grotesque album cover, a scary episode in the Philippines, their last public concert (except for the 1969 impromptu Abbey Road roof concert), and the bizarre Strawberry Fields video put them continually in the news, not all of it favorable. In the midst of all this, they came out with their greatest album ever (to me): Revolver. In America, Revolver was chopped up, with some tracks stuck on their Yesterday and Today album. Tunes like Eleanor Rigby, For No One, Tomorrow Never Knows, Got To Get You Into My Life, and Taxman were among my favorites of the year, as well as the singles release Paperback Writer. The Monkees, America’s (successful) attempt to cash in on the Beatles’ success, kicked off their TV comedy series and with it, some pretty good songs, including Saturday’s Child and Last Train to Clarksville. Meanwhile, Donovan, Britain’s (not-so-successful) attempt to cash in on Bob Dylan’s success, decided to radically change his image after being booed onstage during American concerts. The result was a unique style and songs like Mellow Yellow. I used to watch an weekday afternoon rock music show on ABC called Where the Action Is. The “house band” Paul Revere and the Raiders came up with a string of hits for a few years, in 1966 including the likable Just Like Me and the anti-drug Kicks. Bobby Darin’s beautiful rendition of If I Were a Carpenter didn’t receive enough airplay, in my opinion. Neither did the Beach Boys’ God Only Knows, easily my all-time favorite of theirs. Herman’s Hermits, a band that rode the British Invasion wave to stateside success, finally came out with a song that really grabbed me: No Milk Today. In the “demented” category, Napoleon XIV had his funny They’re Coming to Take Me Away Ha-Ha while Count Five had their psychedelic Psychotic Reaction. Bobby Fuller showed great promise with his country/rock song I Fought the Law, but tragically and mysteriously died in a parked car. Cyrkle had their one hit with the Paul Simon-penned Red Rubber Ball. Syndicate of Sound and the Rolling Stones share the dubious award for the most male chauvinist song of the year with Little Girl and Under My Thumb, respectively. The Lovin’ Spoonful got my attention with their very descriptive Summer in the City, complete with honking cars. Shapes of Things to Come, by the Yardbirds, was one of those songs that I loved back then, but which slipped from my recollection until just recently. Eight Miles High, by the Byrds, was my #3 song of 1966. I liked how the song at times would just seem to disintegrate into a confused jumble of sound! #2 for me that year was the Vogues’s rousing love song (and hate to work song) Five O’Clock World (the male counterpart of Sheena Easton’s 1981 hit Morning Train 9 to 5). And my top favorite of 1966 (back then) was the suspenseful-sounding Time Won’t Let Me, surprisingly the only hit by the Outsiders.

Even The Best Fall Short

I was watching some of the old Twilight Zone episodes the other day (the Sci-Fi Channel was having a Fourth of July Twilight Zone marathon), and once again a certain familiar feeling began to creep up on me. The Twilight Zone is without a doubt one of my favorite series, and I know just about every episode. And yet, when push comes to shove, I really don’t like most of them! Sure, there are the great classic episodes, like And When the Sky Was Opened, The After-Hours, The Hitchhiker, and Mirror Image, along with a few that I moderately liked. But I could easily do without the vast majority of them!

Looking at many of my favorite series, musical artists, and writers, I’ve come to the same conclusion: with very few exceptions, I can quite easily dispense with a large part of the body of work of many of them! I like reading Stephen King and count his Pet Sematary, The Mist, It, Insomnia, Hearts in Atlantis, and Thinner among my all-time favorites. But much of what this great writer has produced simply doesn’t resonate with me (including Rose Madder, the book I’m currently plodding through). Some of the material put out by the late great sci-fi writers Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke is downright embarrassing to read. The original Star Trek series had some unforgettable episodes like The City On the Edge of Forever, The Corbomite Maneuver, The Immunity Syndrome, and The Doomsday Machine. But sometimes I’d tune in and they would be pathetic! The late New York-based humorist Jean Shepherd (author and narrator of A Christmas Story) used to have a nightly radio show on which he would do an hour-long monologue. Back in 1975, I was an avid listener. But looking back, most of his shows seemed a little lame, although from time to time he would come out with a “winner”. The musical artists that I extol the most, with the notable exception of the Beatles, have come out with a lot of mediocre (putting it mildly) material over the years. Of course, if you include the stuff put out by the individual members of the Fab Four after they broke up, even they fit this pattern (with a vengeance)!

I am currently struggling with confidence issues about writing fiction. And yet, when I look around me at the “cream of the crop” in the arts, I see some glaring unevenness in the quality of their output. And it gives me a sense of relief! I think I just need to get off my butt and produce my product, for better or for worse!

Who Am I?

Do you remember the old Tom T. Hall country and western song I Love? The idea of the song is that you’re supposed to get to know better who the singer is by discerning the details of his likes. Likewise, if you click on the My Profile link on this blog, it will take you to a page that tells about me by listing areas that I am interested in. The sum total effect will reveal a little about who I am. We can go a little further than this, of course, in our quest to find out “who” someone is, by physically describing that person, in as great of detail as practical. We can also take the sum effects of our interactions with that person to make an assessment about his/her personality or character. The idea is to create a multidimensional mosaic, the result of which will be the subject’s essence. But what really is the true essence of a person?

I know for a solid fact that I didn’t feel any different about who I was when I was two years old than how I feel now at fifty-one. But in the time between, the matter comprising my body has been completely changed, along with the form of my body, including my brain. Things that I do now, physically and mentally, I do very differently than how I did them (if I did them) at two. I have amassed an incredible memory of the world and myself between two and fifty-one. And yet, I can abstract a sense of who I am, deep down inside, by disregarding all of the differences that could, in a paradoxical sort of way, also seem to define who I am. So how do you determine who you are? By seeing yourself in terms of all your traits and experiences? Or by filtering out all of those traits and experiences and discerning the remaining kernel of selfness? It may truly seem to be a paradox, but I hold that both point the way toward self-realization. This is another example of duality, where in order to achieve a goal, one must simultaneously adhere in a discerning way to two seemingly contradictory doctrines.

Monday Newsbreak: 7/7

--Barack Obama is apparently trying to appear more centrist by expressing more caution about removing U.S. combat troops from Iraq, as well as trying to sound more sympathetic to the pro-life/anti-abortion movement. But what he seems to be accomplishing right now, at least the way I see it, is simply to confuse his supporters. I believe that the greatest danger of a serious, campaign-derailing gaffe can be when any candidate steps outside his/her ideological comfort zone and makes statements that either go against that candidate’s political creed or expose ignorance on his/her part. Obama needs to be extremely careful treading on this ground. For if he goes too far, he may just lose some of his most ardent supporters when they either stay home on Election Day, go over to vote for Ralph Nader, or even pick John McCain as the lesser of two evils.

--Former North Carolina senator Jesse Helms, an extreme right-wing conservative, died this past Friday at 86 of natural causes. I respect those elected office-holders whose strong political leanings (left or right) do not impede them from acting with dignity and respect for others who differ with them. For example, Alabama senator Jeff Sessions is currently one of the most conservative senators today. He speaks for his causes articulately and passionately. But I have never seen him display anything like the meanness of spirit that Senator Helms showed at times in his career. Helms was strongly against federal funding for AIDS research simply because the victims (in the U.S.) tended to be gay or illegal drug users. Although being a staunch opponent of abortion, he also opposed federally-sponsored low-income aid programs for poor families with children. Just from spite, he used his position in a senate committee to kill Bill Clinton’s nomination of former Massachusetts governor William Weld to be ambassador to Mexico. And he ran a racist campaign for re-election against his African-American Democratic opponent in 1990. I know that I’m not supposed to knock the recently deceased. So someone please tell me how great this guy really was (with reasons)!

--Atlantic tropical storm Bertha is expected to become a category-one hurricane within the next day or two. Its projected path has it passing just north of the Leeward Islands. Eventually, a developing high pressure area in the southeast U.S. should deflect it in a more northerly direction. By Thursday Bertha, although probably far out at sea, will also probably be close enough to north Florida beaches to cause bad surf and rip tides. And I’ve been planning to take my family to Jacksonville Beach the following day! Phooey!

--In the “out of the blue” department, Kent Couch successfully floated high in the eastern Oregon sky and safely landed, all while sitting in a lawn chair, supported by 105 big helium party balloons. On a whim, I had written an article about this exact type of endeavor back on June 15! It turns out that the original “chair-trekker” was Larry Walters, who lifted up three miles into the sky over Los Angeles in 1982 using the balloons/lawn chair/bb gun combo. So my question has been answered: this was no urban legend! But I heard that Couch invested about six thousand dollars on his “simple” device, most of it for the helium in his balloons! Well, back to the drawing board!

Starbucks Closings Ahead

If you’re sitting in a Starbucks right now, I wouldn’t get too comfortable if I were you. The corporation that has recently often been cited as a model of how to run a successful business just announced that it is planning to close down 600 Starbucks outlets within a year. My hometown of Gainesville has seen the number of Starbucks steadily rise since the first one came to town about nine years ago. Now I think we already have nine or ten in this only middle-sized (albeit university) city. So now the speculation is on: which Starbucks in Gainesville, if any, will get the axe? As far as I can tell, they all are doing quite a brisk business. Starbucks has stated that the most likely closures will come to the stores that opened 2006 and afterwards. If any in Gainesville close, my leading candidates are the ones in Santa Fe Community College and in Hunters Crossing (NW 43 Street) next to Publix grocery. But Gainesville, like Seattle, is such a hot coffee market that I wouldn’t be surprised if all of the Starbucks stores here stayed open.

And now I will submit an open suggestion to Starbucks. I like flavored coffee: not syrup added from a bottle, but coffee that is flavor-roasted. I can go to Books-a-Million or Borders and buy flavored coffee. But if I want it at Starbucks, I get the syrup and pay extra. If Starbucks is as customer-friendly as it likes to project itself, why won’t it offer flavored coffee? I can’t speak for everyone else, but I know that I would be a more loyal customer if it did. Is there some kind of snobbery among coffee aficionados that regards flavor-roasted coffee as inferior? Then maybe my money isn’t good enough for them either!

Adaptability of Humanity

The other day, I saw one of my old Twilight Zone favorite episodes: To Serve Man, written by Richard Matheson (it also came out as a short story). The gist of this story is that aliens landed on Earth and had all of the answers to the pressing human problems of the time, particularly in the areas of war and food. And they presented their high-tech solutions to humanity as gifts! Within weeks, while the Earth became covered with a web of alien-”manned” stations, the entire human race became complacent and dependent upon the newcomers. Even to the point of embarking on vacations and research trips to other worlds on their spaceships. The episode’s protagonist, toward the end of the story, reflected to his partner how quickly humanity adapted to new things and incorporated them into what they called “normal”. And that hit me as one of the more profound things I’ve heard from this series.

In 1969, when Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission, the whole world watched in wonder. By Apollo 14 few were paying attention, walking on the Moon having become passé. In the nineties, when Clinton was President, having the life of even one American soldier in peril was regarded as a national news event. How quickly people got used to hearing about the rising casualty figures during the Bush years!

And look at how quickly people are adapting to new technology that speeds everything up and interconnects us with multimedia! Eager customers camp out overnight to buy an I-Pod and find out a few weeks later that there are better products available. How quickly large segments of our population got used to the Internet in the late nineties, and then how quickly the laptop computer became a required piece of equipment for college students! If you’re riding the wave of technology, this may seem pretty cool. But if you are on the outside looking in, it looks as if the world is passing you by.

It is easy, with the seeming omnipresence of computers and the Internet, to simply assume that everyone has access to them and uses them. But many people do not use computers at home, and many have no intention of ever starting! Even among those who do, there is the constant pressure to upgrade in order to keep up with the latest innovations.

The idea that we can possess machines that speed things up and open up opportunities for us to reach out, either through communications or transportation, should make those who benefit from them happier, wouldn’t you think? But, since humans are such an adaptable species, what happens instead is that people adjust to the new reality and as a result just become more impatient and demanding. I remember when most of the cars on the road had standard transmissions, requiring a clutch pedal and manual changing of gears. At an intersection, when the light turned green, everyone would go through the gradual buildup of speed that standard transmissions required. But with the advent (and eventual dominance) of automatic transmissions, drivers now simply react with impatient annoyance to any manual-shift drivers they find themselves behind.

I wonder, if the global warming phenomenon keeps worsening, whether people will finally band together to heroically solve the problem. Or will they just adapt to the worsening situation as it develops, treating it as “normal”? Sadly, it looks as if the latter may be our destiny! Wouldn’t it be the ultimate paradox if, as was the case in To Serve Man, our adaptability turned out to be our downfall!!

Exorcism Works!---In Baseball

In an article last year, I reported on how I began listening to a Tampa Bay Devil Rays play-by-play radio broadcast on one of my local stations. And how the team, which was playing the Boston Red Sox, played so poorly that I had to switch the station after the first inning! Well, a year has gone by and this year’s edition of the Tampa Bay franchise has changed in more than one way. They have acquired some good new players, and some of last year’s are having good seasons. But during the off-season, they also changed their nickname by dropping the “Devil” from “Devil Rays”. Now they’re just the Rays, and have transformed themselves from being baseball’s perennial doormat to having the best winning percentage in either league so far this season! The Rays just finished beating their rival Boston and have jettisoned into a small lead in their division. Now I ask myself: is it finally O.K. to root for this team? Or should I wait for them to change their name to the “Angel Rays”?!

I have felt for a while that in some circles in this country, just mentioning the word “devil” was politically incorrect with some people. Apparently, in New Jersey it’s O.K. (NHL’s New Jersey Devils) as well as in North Carolina (Duke Blue Devils). I thought “Devil Rays” was a perfectly innocent designation (since it was just the name of an animal), but it was too long. At least they didn’t call themselves some ridiculous “abstraction” name as others did with names such as “Magic“, “Heat”, “Wind”, “Storm”, etc. So I’m happy with “Rays” by itself, but I suspect that the franchise probably dropped the “Devil” because some do-gooders felt that the Numero Uno Bad Dude was getting too much free publicity with this. Now, the name “Tampa Bay Rays” just naturally rolls off the tongue, and has such a virtuous sound to it! Now that they have repented and have become a “good” team, the Rays are ready to assume their rightful seat next to the Red Sox at the top (but I'm still rooting for the Yankees, with the great Derek Jeter)!

Favorite Songs of 1967

1967 marks the last of a run of four years in which I was consumed by listening to popular music on the radio. By the year’s end, I had dropped off considerably with listening to my radio for music, and instead had picked up the hobby of DX-ing (trying to receive distant stations). The Beatles and Rolling Stones were challenged for pop music ascendancy, at least in America, by the fabricated television-comedy group the Monkees, whose music surprisingly has largely withstood the test of time! And I was a big Monkees fan, watching the show, collecting Monkees cards, and listening to Monkees songs. My favorites in ‘67 of theirs were Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow) and Pleasant Valley Sunday. Speaking of the Stones, they continued to become more original with their songs, producing two that I especially liked: the Rubber-Soul-like Ruby Tuesday and the utterly cynical Mother’s Little Helper (with the classic line “What a drag it is getting old”). John Fred and his Playboy Band parodied the Beatles with Judy in Disguise (With Glasses). The artist Keith sang very softly in 98.6, while the Music Machine thundered out with the forceful Talk Talk. Sonny and Cher continued their output of hits with my favorite of theirs, the topical The Beat Goes On. The feminist movement had not yet taken hold, with two popular “women-in-their-assigned-role” hits”: Dreams of the Everyday Housewife by Glen Campbell and It Must Be Him by Vicki Carr. But at least Petula Clark had the upper hand in Don’t Sleep In the Subway. Jose Feliciano came out with my favorite pop Christmas hit ever: Feliz Navidad. Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit’s beautiful building crescendo and Grace Slick’s bellowing voice has made it one of the greatest short tunes ever; I don’t care whether it was pro-drug or anti-drug. Another quality-packed short song was the bubble gum tune The Letter by the Box Tops. The Mojo Men exhorted the listener to Sit Down I Think I Love You, while the Buckinghams drowned the listener with organ playing in Kind of a Drag (and pulled it off). In a pathetic-but-fun-to-listen-to-proto-rap song, the Hombres tried to sound “hip” with Let It Out (Let It All Hang Out). The song Come On Down to My Boat, by Every Mother’s Son, got a lift in sales and listening by being featured on one of the Man From U.N.C.L.E. television episodes. The Five Americans sang Western Union with beautiful harmony. The frantic You Better Run, by the Rascals (later covered by Pat Benatar), was my favorite of theirs. The Association’s romantic Never My Love was my favorite slow tune of the year. The Florida band the Nightcrawlers had a big local hit (around Miami) with Little Black Egg. It was my #3 favorite song of 1967 as I lived through it. And to find my top two favorite songs, I need only to go back to the beginning of this article and bring back out the Beatles, who produced two great albums that year (Sgt. Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour) and two especially pleasant and enduring songs: Hello Goodbye (my #2) and All You Need Is Love (my #1 for 1967).

NBC Olympic Coverage

According to the Associated Press, NBC, which has broadcasting rights to the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, is planning full-blown media coverage of the games. Six of its broadcast/cable/satellite television channels (how many does my cable service provide?) will be broadcasting different events. But it is on the Internet where NBC has revealed its biggest ambitions, pretty much making everything available to users who only need to “click in” on the part of the Olympics they want to see. Although events that NBC is broadcasting on TV will be delayed for Internet use (in order to encourage people to watch TV along with the commercials), this is a new step forward that I would like to take advantage of. For there are not only certain sports and events that I am interested in following (like distance running and bicycle racing), but there are also others that I would like to get to know better (such as field hockey). Criticism has befallen NBC, however, for its insistence of exclusive network coverage on the Internet, keeping other news groups from even broadcasting small clips there (NBC does allow this to a limited degree on television). But it will be fun to try out their Olympics website and see for myself whether or not the reality of promised coverage lives up to the billing. One problem that I’ve had in past Olympics with the television coverage has been overemphasis on the American athletes (even when they’re clearly out of the running for medals) and underemphasis of sports in which the U.S. is deemed unlikely to win a medal. Hopefully, with the new setup, this will all change. The NBC website for the Olympics is: NBCOlympics.com.

On a side note, University of Florida basketball star Nick Calathes is traveling to Greece to try out for the Greek national team to compete in the Olympics. He has dual citizenship, both as an American and as a Greek. I’m looking forward to seeing whether or not he makes the team (he should). Nick is a very talented player who will only be a sophomore this coming season for the Gators. It will be interesting to see whether, with NBC’s hyped Internet-access innovations, I’ll be able to watch the Greek team play its games during the Olympics.

People, People, People

In the classic Oscar-winning movie My Fair Lady, linguistics professor Henry Higgins asks his colleague (in a song), “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” As chauvinistic as this clearly sounds, we find through the course of the movie that it isn’t just women that the good professor has a problem with. Actually, he is an equal-opportunity humbug: he expects everyone to be exactly like him! Similarly, in the Twilight Zone episode The Mind and the Matter, comedian Shelley Berman plays a middle-aged big-city office worker who is fed up with “people, people, people”, as he puts it. By following the precepts revealed in a self-help book, Berman succeeds in willing the whole world to be full of exact duplicates of himself! And then finds out what a monumental drag he must be to others!

I wonder what the world would be like were it full of “me’s”. Aside from lasting only a generation (cloning not having yet been perfected), the human race would be so totally devoid of diversity that the specialization needed to sustain us as a species would be nonexistent. Also, we all need others who fundamentally differ from ourselves in a multitude of ways, if for nothing else than to hold our beliefs and behavior to standards worth living up to. For in a vacuum of diversity, how can we really know what’s best?

I am not known as a social mingler, preferring either solitude or small groups. It has been my experience throughout my life that when I have been in the midst of noisy crowds, I have had difficulty processing the audio input and often suffered panic/anxiety attacks from the sensory overload. But over the years, I have learned to separate this problem from passing judgment on people themselves. After all, each of us was thrown into this life, without (as far as we know) ever asking for it. And each of us must also figure out ways to get ourselves through life the best way possible. Everyone has their own path to follow, each one being unique, but also sharing commonalities with others. So I feel great empathy with my other fellow humans on this planet, but at the same time still harbor relatively hermit-like tendencies. And that’s all right, as long as I consciously fight the occasional impulse to shut out the world with its “people, people, people”!

Monday Newsbreak: 6/30

--Florida is scheduling its first execution in eighteen months, after a previous execution (using lethal injection) was “botched”. This time they’ve supposedly taken steps to ensure that the victim (whoops, I mean convict) is unconscious before the fatal doses are administered. This idea that the state has to prove that the “procedure” used in killing somebody isn’t cruel and unusual punishment, while the actual killing is acceptable, makes me question the entire moral underpinning of our legal system. Here is what I think about capital punishment.

--Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe has declared himself the winner of that country’s corrupt runoff presidential election, after his chief opponent dropped out and sought sanctuary during widespread pre-election violence and threats. I remember back in 1981, when the first (then legitimate) election was held. Mugabe easily beat out his main rival Joshua Nkomo, an election split not by ideology, but rather by ethnic identification, with most of the country’s majority Shona population supporting Mugabe. Now nobody ever reports on this obviously important factor in Zimbabwe politics. I know it hasn’t gone away. It’s just being ignored. I remember how, in an earlier election in Ukraine, one candidate was chiefly supported by the Ukrainian population while the other was supported by the Russians in eastern Ukraine. This doesn’t justify holding rigged elections, but it is still something that the press needs to inform us about. After all, you don’t need to look past the calamities in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia to see how strongly ethnic identification means to many people in the world. And the passions, violence, and tragedies that can result from suspicions and disinformation about others.

--Florida is purchasing back 187,000 acres of land, on the south side of Lake Okeechobee, owned by the sugar industry and used for sugarcane growth and sugar refining. The intent is to redirect water overflowing from the lake during the wet season back down through the Everglades in the “River of Grass”. The process of renewal may take many years, especially since Lake Okeechobee is itself very polluted with runoff from refining. Also, with such a large-scale change as this, many in the area who were involved with sugar will lose their jobs. But hopefully, south Florida will once again get their share of fresh water that they need (although I think this area is severely overpopulated).

--Ever since I wrote an earlier article about the “Great Florida Desert”, we in Gainesville have been drenched almost daily in heavy rains and storms. Although it isn’t fun getting caught outside in the rain, this is truly a most welcome development in our area!

Who Needs South Park, Anyway?

A couple of days ago, I witnessed a true media event. It seems that Hillary and Barack made up and are now going forward together in “unity”. Why, even one of Hillary’s supporters says that she now likes Obama because Hillary says it’s O.K. to! To emphasize the rapproachment between the two, they rode a plane seated together to New Hampshire, where they addressed a small, circularly-seated crowd in the remote town (if you want to call it a town) of Unity. Unity sounds like the kind of name that Stephen King would use in one of his novels (like Misery, for example). And it wasn’t all that far away from King’s state of Maine, either. Come to think of it, from the air, that assembly reminded me a bit of Pet Sematary! Although the crowd itself was small, one report claimed that in the New Hampshire Primary, Clinton and Obama ran neck and neck in Unity: each received one vote. So, anyway, the cable news channels were giving this meeting top live coverage. With speaker after speaker coming up to address the crowd. While watching the preliminary coverage, I noticed a headline news flash going by on the bottom of the screen: Obama’s tie matches Hillary’s pantsuit! And the announcers then sat around discussing the significance of this, wondering whether it was planned or just a good omen. Well, that just about does it for me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything covered so uncritically by the media as this contrived, staged event was. And I support Obama and would like to see Clinton on the ticket! If I were one of the folks working for the satirical show South Park (of which I recently saw an episode of them mercilessly taking apart the Walmart Corporation), I would simply animate the characters, stick a few regular cast members subtly into the plot, and otherwise show this story straight without any degree of exaggeration, especially about how it was reported. But who needs South Park, anyway? Just turn on the news!

Friendships and Intrigues

When two people form a friendship with each other, it is obvious that there will always be some differences between them. But each friend must be mindful of the dangers in overemphasizing them (as well as repressing them). Sometimes a friendship may seem to be developing, but something comes into the relationship and sabotages it, potentially transforming the relationship into one of enmity. For this article, I will call those dangers “intrigues”. Here are a few of them:

Competition-One of the main things that draws two people together is a common interest. And, in the course of the developing friendship, the two will probably discover that one is better, or more adept in that field than the other. There is nothing wrong with friendly competition among pals, but being overly competitive can breed resentment and jealousy as well, so competition needs to be guarded carefully.

The Organization (Missionary)-Especially prevalent in churches are friendships based on false premises. One party befriends the other, who is at least initially unaware that the whole reason for this is that he/she is being recruited for a religion/church/group by the other (who will grow in stature in that group for this “outreach”). Once the “organization” foundation for this relationship is recognized, the two can often get bogged down in a wrestling of wills, with one trying to get the other to “join up”. This “friendship” will usually only last as long as the “recruiter” keeps after the potential “recruitee”. Once the cause seems lost, the relationship and friendship ends.

Romance-When a man and a woman pursue a platonic friendship, there will sometimes be an undercurrent of romance which needs to be delicately quelled (so as not to damage the feelings of the other). Sometimes one party to the friendship will find out, through other people, that his/her friend has developed a romantic interest in the other. And then it’s pretty hard to go back to that simple friendship.

Gossip-When a friend begins to gossip about the personal lives of others, I get the distinct impression, true or not, that he/she is gossiping about me behind my back. So I immediately begin to distrust my friend and will henceforth be much more reserved and formal about what I share about myself in conversation. When I walk into a room and see people sitting around a table gossiping about another, I mark those people in my mind as being unworthy of friendship with me. And I don’t think that I’m alone in this!

Age-Age is often used to give one party an advantage of the other when discussing just about anything. One side may continually draw upon his/her experiences to dominate the conversation over the other. Of course, there will almost always be age gaps between people. This difference, though, can give flavor to the friendship and sometimes creates a beneficial and enduring mentor/student relationship. But if one side resents the other’s constant invocation of his/her age advantage, then that friendship will not grow.

Prejudice-I know people from all sorts of backgrounds who will pepper their conversations with generalizations about race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, age, and national origin. And there are a few who regard me is somehow being “bad” because I my skin color is relatively light or because I am a male. It’s great to be different, but most of the differences that people like to emphasize speak nothing about traits like trustworthiness, graciousness, dignity, compassion, generosity, and loyalty. And those are the traits that really matter!

Narcissism-There are certain people who, when they walk into a room, expect everyone to stop what they’re doing and breathe a sigh of relief, because “so-and-so” is here! Such people see everything and everyone as reflections of themselves. In conversation with another, they expect their partner to submerge his/her own self and fully concentrate on them alone. “It’s all about me” is the theme of this “friendship”, and only those are either in a dependency relationship or have very low self-esteem will put up with this for very long.

Life Narrative-Everyone has their own life narrative. And within this narrative, we all, whether intentionally or not, make certain assumptions from our experiences as to how people will behave. This can often lead to an unhealthy cynicism about human nature. If you assume that your new friend will eventually betray you because of your life experiences, then you will not try to wholeheartedly develop that friendship. Sometimes we just have to blot out our past and give others a fresh slate to work with! New friends are not responsible for our past slights!

Slippery Slope to Doom-When someone shares his/her opinion with me, I expect to be able to respectfully disagree, if that’s how I feel. But when most of one’s opinions are so starkly black & white & cut & dry, with the only alternative being the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it, I don’t really want to interact with this person and become closer, as a friend. It’s not that I feel “disrespected” about not being able to share my opinions. It’s just that I don’t think that there is only one right answer or viewpoint with any divergence leading to disaster.

Assigned Role-Sometimes in a friendship, one may find that he/she is regarded more as a reminder of someone else than as an completely different, unique individual. Even to the point of being blamed for the past person’s shortcomings and transgressions! As we grow older, we naturally see similarities between the people we know now and those of our pasts. But everyone is different, and not responsible for what others may have done.

Triangulation-A friend who triangulates will tell you one thing and act as if you are both bosom buddies. But behind your back the same “friend” will criticize you. The way to discover people like this is to notice how much they criticize their other friends when they aren’t present.

Pack Rat-Two people will often form friendships in the context of being in a larger group. And if one friend loses standing or leaves that group, the other may feel pressure or simply an inclination to allow that friendship to fade (if not abruptly end).

So, there are plenty of intrigues that can sabotage a friendship. And I recognize that nobody’s perfect, and some degree of what I have listed is present in many, if not most, friendships, to some extent. But I feel that the best, enduring friendships don’t permit these intrigues to get out of hand.

Geographic Dreams

I don’t know how you dream, but in my dreams, I almost always think like a complete dunce (the character of Patrick Starfish in SpongeBob SquarePants comes to mind). When I do wake up from a dream, I will often want to kick myself for acting so stupidly within the dream! I think that this is largely due to my lack of critical ability within the dream state. But this is not always the case. There is a certain kind of dream I have from time to time that somehow seems to make such an impact on me that I unconsciously have incorporated it into my “reality” memory: the geographic dream.

In eastern Gainesville, just on the other side of Main Street around a place called the Thomas Center, is a compact theme park with several rides, especially of the roller coaster variety. North of this park lies a vast area of concentrated, old apartment buildings some of which are abandoned. And there are railroad tracks running around this area. I have gone on several of the rides in the park, and I would have to say that, as far as theme parks are concerned, it ranks right up there at the top (especially since the lines are so short). But the catch is this: none of this is real! The theme park, apartments, and railroad tracks only exist in my dreams, and by “dreams”, I mean that I have dreamed of this place a number of times!

There is a solid wall in the building where I work that, in an earlier dream, connected to a library with a large sitting area. I sat in that place once, reading a book in Finnish (and understanding it). Now, whenever I walk past that wall during work, I think about that curious dream. By the way, I don't know any Finnish.

In the formerly undeveloped Everglades wilderness southwest of Hollywood, there is a back-winding road out in the middle of nowhere on which stands an all-night restaurant that I’ve eaten at (but only in my dreams). There is a special waterway running north-south through Fort Lauderdale that I’ve swum down, and which has a little pastry shop on the side (the best-tasting pastry ever), but once again, this is a figment of my dreams. There are specific real spots where, when I am dreaming, I can actually lift off of the ground and fly (out along the north side of my old Hollywood home and in the middle of the road directly in front of my current home). Recently, I took off with my family in a plane that was camouflaged as the second floor of an old house near the Office Depot on US 441 in Gainesville. I sat in a comfortable recliner, strapped on my seat belt, and the second floor took off! The pilot decided to go through a few loops over Gainesville, to which I whooped and hollered in delight! I could go on and on with dream experiences of this type.

I’m sure that you, too, can probably dig up your own dream experiences as they relate to real places. Those that I mentioned of my own experiences were just among the ones that I most clearly remembered upon awakening. I wonder how much of our feelings about our waking, real world are influenced by unconscious associations from unremembered-but-latent dreams. After all, we are all a mix of the rational and irrational. And sometimes we may get a feeling about a place that we can’t explain the reasons for. Perhaps this says something about my psychological makeup, but dreams about geography and travel have always been the most memorable and meaningful for me.

Favorite Songs of 1968

1968 was a peculiar year for me in music. At the time, I was 11-12 years old and had much different musical tastes back then than I do now. So many of the songs from that year that are now among my favorites were then among my least favorites! But I’m reviewing the years AS I LIVED THROUGH THEM, so my list of favorite tunes may seem a bit patchy.

1968 was the year of the long song, with hits like Hey Jude (by the Beatles), MacArthur Park (by Richard Harris), Time Has Come Today (by the Chamber Brothers), and Sky Pilot (by Eric Burdon and the Animals) taking up huge swaths of time on radio play (I liked all of them). It was also a year of national tragedy, marked by the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. Dion memorialized these two within his touching Abraham, Martin, and John. The Rascals summed up the social climate of the country with their People Got to be Free. Judy Collins’s Both Sides Now, which I called “Clouds” back then, has only grown in stature with me over the years. Mechanical World (by Spirit) and Journey to the Center of the Mind (by Ted Nugent) were two of the better hard rockers. Mighty Quinn, by Manfred Mann, was my #3 song back in ‘68. It was one of those tunes whose lyrics kept gnawing at me and wouldn’t go away. My #2 favorite song of that year was an example in the recording business of “phasing gone wild”: the psychedelic Pictures of Matchstick Men by the Status Quo. And my top favorite song of 1968? A long instrumental piece, dominated by the keyboard, whose title and artist escaped me all the way into the late 1990s, when a coworker told me that he had heard it while driving through Georgia; the radio announcer identified it as America, by Keith Emerson (of later Emerson Lake and Palmer fame) and the Nice. America was an inspired rock adaptation of Leonard Bernstein’s America (from West Side Story) and Dvorak’s New World Symphony. But back in 1968, I knew nothing of this. I just thought that it was the coolest thing I had heard in a very long time! And I still like it a lot.

Frustration With Running

I am feeling a bit frustrated about my running lately. First of all, last month I had my best two-mile time (12:46) and one-mile time (6:14) since 1974. It looked as if I was making progress beyond my wildest dreams. In the following weeks, though, I seemed a get more bogged down and tired when I would go for a run. Now, for the past week, my left foot (around where the toes are attached) has been aching, preventing me from running. I had been intending to run in a local 3-mile road race on July 4, but I’ve scratched that idea, hoping that I’ll be ready to run competitively by October. I miss the routine and exhilaration of intense running. But I also miss the old long-distance, slower running I used to enjoy many, many years ago. Although treadmill training is very convenient in many ways, the long run “out-in-the-country” really defines the essence of this activity for me. But I have to figure out how to run while protecting my feet better! Until I’m ready to resume running, I guess I’ll be going back to training on the cross-trainer machine at my YMCA. And doing hot, sweaty yard work.

Star Trek

When Star Trek Enterprise, the fifth series of the Star Trek saga, was cancelled before its scheduled run ended, there was an outcry from Star Trek enthusiasts against the action. After all, hadn’t Star Trek, in all of its manifestations, become something of an institution unto itself, complete with its own “history of the future”? I haven’t seen any of the Enterprise episodes, but if anyone thinks that they are being deprived of Star Trek, then they are severely deluded!

When the original Star Trek series, starring William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, was cancelled after only three seasons in 1968, I truly felt deprived, for I was just getting into the series when it was ended. And there was a period when reruns of this great old series had not yet hit the airwaves. There was no such thing as video or DVD rentals yet, so that period was truly a time of deprivation. What is the situation nowadays regarding Star Trek? If you were to add up all of the hour-long episodes for the five series (Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek Voyager, and Star Trek Enterprise), you would come up with a figure around 600 episodes! And all series are being shown around on the various cable/satellite channels. If watching Star Trek was your forty-hour-per-week job, then it would take fifteen weeks watching episodes end-on-end without repetition to go through all of them. And that excludes the ten Star Trek movies, all of the Star Trek books, and even the Star Trek cartoon series!

A few days ago, I saw that Star Trek Voyager was on, so I decided to see what it was like. In this episode, Captain Janeway (played by Kate Mulgrew), encountering a hostile computer, decided to initiate a self-destruct sequence to destroy her ship if the computer couldn’t be “fixed” in time. A few days later, I caught the end of another Voyager episode where the Captain was doing the same thing! First, I thought that I was just seeing the same episode, but no, it was different this time. Which brings me to a conclusion: there is a limit to how many different story ideas can be generated for a specific series with its characters and circumstances. I’d be willing to bet that, if you crossed over from one Star Trek series to another, you would find examples of old stories being recycled to fit the new series and its characters.

When Star Trek originally aired, people had not yet reached the moon. Space exploration was still considered to be the “final frontier” by most, while nowadays the emphasis seems to be more on how we can cushion our lives for ourselves here on Earth. And that includes being able to pretend, through more advanced special effects, that we have conquered space already. After all, compared to Star Trek, Stargate, Star Wars, and Battleship Galactica, real space travel is such a drag to follow, isn’t it? But back in the late sixties, that wasn’t the prevailing feeling.

I plan to watch more of all the Star Trek series, although right now I’m only familiar with the first two (and I still haven’t seen most of Star Trek: The Next Generation). But I am so familiar with the original series that I can forecast what the characters say before they say it! Any possible criticisms notwithstanding, from what I’ve seen, the Star Trek media "federation" has put out an interesting, quality product over the years that is a refreshing departure from the sickening “reality” shows and cop shows that have plagued television so much lately.

Correction: My figures were a little off: there are nearly 700 hour-long Star Trek episodes!

Monday Newsbreak: 6/23

--Several Florida Republican politicians, including Governor Crist, are reversing their previously-held opposition to oil drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. The headline article about this issue in Sunday’s Gainesville Sun mentioned not a word about the reputed drilling in the same area, either planned or already underway, by China and Cuba. To me, it’s one thing to regulate our own companies. But if other countries, not subject to our safety and environmental regulations, can fill in the vacuum created by the eastern Gulf ban, then that is not only preventing us from producing our own energy, but it is also endangering our environment more than if we had permitted regulated exploration and drilling in the first place!

--Republican presidential candidate John McCain took his campaign northward to the steps of the Canadian capital, Ottawa, as he discussed there the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and criticized Democratic opponent Barack Obama for his reservations with that treaty. So far, no one has yet had the heart to tell the poor, misinformed Arizona senator that Canada is not part of the United States, although, perhaps if he is elected President, that may be how he treats our neighbor to the north, anyway.

--I have heard several people, including political commentator Arianna Huffington, express opposition to Barack Obama asking Hillary Clinton to join him on the ticket. I realize that, in the midst of a campaign for a party’s nomination, the different sides and their supporters naturally will tend to get a little hot under the collar about each other. That happened earlier between the McCain and Romney camps on the GOP side. But as people have a little time to chill out, more should see the advantage of having a united ticket like this. I support an Obama-Clinton ticket. If Clinton is not the VP pick, then I wish Obama would select California senator Dianne Feinstein.

--There has been an enormous amount of flooding along the northern Mississippi River, with Iowa losing a large percentage of its grain harvest this year. I wish those involved in this widespread disaster a speedy and full recovery. It appears that local, state, and federal authorities are doing what needs to be done to assist those stricken by flooding.

--I recently saw my first WNBA game, which was between the Connecticut Sun and the Seattle Storm. This was a very close and exciting game. I noticed that women’s professional basketball is just as aggressively played (if not more) as the men’s NBA. There seemed to be fewer open shots, due to tenacious defenses. I’ve come to believe more and more in the importance of passing in basketball offense. The men, to me, still have the advantage in that area (with Phoenix Suns guard Steve Nash being the master of this aspect of the game). Still, one game is just that: one game, and I’m bound to change my view of the WNBA the more I see.

Stephen King's Dark Tower Series

I just finished reading the final (seventh) volume of Stephen King’s much-drawn-out epic series The Dark Tower. And I’m not sure how to write this article: should I just go all out and spill the entire can of beans on it, revealing what happens and ruining it for those who haven’t yet read it? Or should I instead tread on a tight wire, revealing just enough to make some points while concealing the series’ outcome? I’ll try the latter, for better or for worse.

Stephen King is easily my favorite author, and if you have been reading this blog regularly (or are in my family), you would already know that. I have read most of his works, long and short. But until last December, I had steered clear of the seven-part Dark Tower series. Well, almost clear. Because, in some of his stories, King alludes to the Dark Tower. Especially in his early 90s-novel Insomnia and the short story The Little Sisters of Eluria. Finally, my curiosity was stimulated to the point where I could stand it no longer and began reading the series with Volume One, The Gunslinger. Originally written in 1970, King had revised it recently, and it was this version I read. One thing I admire about Stephen King is that he openly reveals his sources of inspiration. And The Dark Tower is directly inspired by a poem he read by Robert Browning, while its main protagonist, a quiet, somber gunslinger named Roland Deschain, derives much of his personality from Clint Eastwood’s “man with no name” character from old spaghetti westerns like A Fistful of Dollars and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. King acknowledges that he had been an avid fan of Tolkien and Lord of the Rings, and wanted to write his own epic series. But King’s output over the years of successive installments to the series was extremely erratic, and many fans gave up on him ever completing it. Finally, a near-fatal accident in 1999, when King was hit by a minivan while taking a walk down a Maine country road near his house, prompted him to renew his efforts. And in a torrent of writing, he produced the final three volumes.

As in Lord of the Rings, a long quest and a fellowship of diverse characters are central to the Dark Tower. Instead of trying to dispose of a pesky ring in a fiery volcano, though, Roland’s ka-tet (i.e. fellowship) tries to reach the mysterious Dark Tower and save existence from the nefarious Crimson King (a character eerily reminiscent of Tolkien’s Sauron). Departing from Tolkien, though, King uses time travel and travel-between-worlds to advance the plot, and this tactic gets our contemporary popular culture involved in this very exotic story. He also ties together many of his earlier works and creates a “Stephen King Universe” of interrelated stories. And, of course, he can’t help but stick himself and his beloved state of Maine into the proceedings as well! King also weaves into his story his writing philosophy: he feels as if he is channeling his characters and story from another source, not of himself!

Does Roland save existence and reach the Dark Tower? Far be it for me to tell you. But I will repeat the message that the good author gives at the end. It is the journey of reading through the series that gives it such an appeal. The ending, which King acknowledges that he received a lot of flack for, is something that you can take or leave.

The Dignity of Any Job

One of the ads for freecreditreport.com shows a young man working at a small seafood restaurant singing a song of woe; it seems that he hadn’t been keeping up with his credit report and someone had successfully stolen his identity, thus ruining his credit and putting him in such a bad situation that he was now lowered to having to work in this demeaning job. And the whole commercial makes clear the point that greeting customers in a low-paying service industry job is indeed “demeaning”, if not outright humiliating. The attitude of all working there (apparently, they all had been neglecting their credit reports) was that of being far below their station in life. As a former low-wage earner in a restaurant, I find this commercial to be degrading and insulting.

The great, late Martin Luther King Jr. once exhorted people to treat any job they had seriously and with respect: to do the best they could do, no matter how insignificant others may regard it to be. And he was right. The dignity that one lives by depends on how much respect he/she shows others and by how much pride is derived from doing excellent work, without regard to what kind of work it is or how much pay comes from it.

Throughout my work life, I have encountered co-workers who have put me down for working hard at my job. The idea is apparently that if the powers-that-be aren’t paying you enough (in your own personal estimation, of course), then you need to cut back on your efforts to meet your conception of your work’s worth. That, to me, is a very unethical and self-defeating philosophy to live by. And (to risk a very bad pun), to their “discredit”, freecreditreport.com is guilty of promoting this elitist and (to me) antisocial mentality. Shame on them!

Martin Sheen's AARP Comment

On the cover of the July/August issue of the AARP magazine is a photo of actor Martin Sheen, along with a quote from him that reads, “Nothing ever gets done unless it’s done by a fanatic.” I wasn’t in a position to read the article within the magazine, but the comment by itself piqued my interest and gave me pause for some reflection. And this is what I came up with: Sheen’s statement needs analysis in two steps: one, what is the meaning of “getting things done” and, two, how true is the statement?

As functioning social human beings living a day-to-day existence, we (if responsible) habitually take care of our own business and that of our obligations to society. By habit, I again stress. I don’t think this is what Sheen was referring to by “nothing gets done”, though. It is when people need to step out of the box and come up with innovations to solve problems, as well as exercising the will the implement these solutions, that getting things done takes on the renown actor’s intended meaning. But stepping away from habits and doing things differently is not natural to anyone. Only someone who is already fanatically obsessed with the area that needs change will be there to do the needed work. And yes, I believe that this is true!

The late prolific author Isaac Asimov, regardless of his wealth and fame, adhered to a brutal regimen with his writing that he termed “candy store hours”, after the very long hours that his immigrant father put in for many years with the family candy store business. Fellow prolific writing superstar Stephen King has claimed that anyone who truly expects any real success in writing needs to set aside AT LEAST four hours per day to read and four more hours to write. Assuming that one already is working an eight hour per day job to begin with, the only conclusion is that King also believes that fanaticism is a prerequisite for success (at least in his field). Perhaps the supreme example of fanaticism leading to progress is that of Thomas Edison, the famous American inventor who would work continuously in his lab around the clock, only occasionally cat-napping in his zealous pursuit of technological innovation. And anyone who has been in the armed forces can recognize the imposed fanaticism of discipline, particularly during basic training, that can seemingly instantly transform raw civilian recruits into very disciplined, purposeful, and useful soldiers. And look at the activists of today, global warming activist Al Gore being a shining example: Gore eats, drinks, and breathes his cause. It is clearly the BIG THING to him and little else comes close. This is fanaticism, all right!

As I ponder this topic, I reflect on my own life and how I am so spread out with my interests. Does this mean that I have little hope of achieving any meaningful progress in any of them, since I am by no means a fanatic? Or does it matter? I once remember seeing a Twilight Zone episode titled A Game of Pool starring Jack Klugman and Jonathan Winters. Klugman’s character was a fanatical pool player whose only reason for living was to become the greatest player ever. He gets a chance to play against the all-time best-ever, played by Winters. Only Winters’ character was dead, and the pool match was a life-or-death match for Klugman (only in the Twilight Zone). As the match was drawing down, Winters gently persuaded Klugman that there was more to life than just pool, and that, though he himself had enjoyed some success in the sport, he had also enjoyed life in general and many of its joys as well. The moral of this episode was clear: balance trumps fanaticism. But is that a moral for chumps, and should everybody have at least one BIG THING that he/she is fanatical about? H-m-m-m!

Favorite Songs of 1969

During 1969, I wasn’t very interested in popular music. What radio I did listen to was largely either to follow sports broadcasts or to engage in my then-hobby of DX-ing (trying to pick up distant radio stations). It was through the latter that I ended up listening to some of my favorite songs of the year. Still, compared to the years that followed, there weren’t that many to report on in ‘69. And many songs of that year that I later grew to like a lot weren’t among my favorites (as I lived through it).

There were several “hard” rock songs that were popular in 1969, my favorite of them being Hot Smoke and Sassafras by Bubble Puppy. Oldtimers Sammy Davis Jr. and Peggy Lee each had big hits with the inspiring I Gotta Be Me and the deflating Is That All There Is, respectively. The Youngbloods gave the year a hippie, feel-good flavor with Get Together. Gitarzan, by Ray Stevens, was hilarious no matter how often I heard it. The Cowsills had Hair, another side splitter. Mary Hopkin had Goodbye, a sweet (if I’m not mistaken) Paul McCartney composition. The fabricated band the Archies had the year’s big monster hit: the simultaneously bubble-gum and suggestive Sugar Sugar. In the midst of trouble with the law, the Doors had their biggest single: the uncharacteristic-sounding Touch Me, complete with a horn section. Thunderclap Newman’s falsetto Something in the Air portended a revolution of sorts that never materialized. My #3 song of 1969, the ballad The Boxer by Simon and Garfunkel, was only bested by their earlier tune America. The Beatles came to my attention with O-Bla-Di O-Bla-Da and my #2 song of the year: Get Back (with a style and tempo they should have stuck with). I also enjoyed the Sergio Mendes & Brazil 66 version of Blackbird. Tops of ‘69: the upbeat-but-mysterious Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In, the crowning achievement of the Fifth Dimension.

Commercial TV on the Web

I am heartened by the proliferation of archived old television series being shown on the Internet. Although I’m not interested in most of them, some of them, like the original Star Trek, Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart, The Pretender, and The Twilight Zone are among my favorite series. AOL also plays old Man From U.N.C.L.E. episodes (although its collection is grossly incomplete). Although I have bought DVD collections of different old TV series, this is not really economically feasible for me on a large scale (not to mention the resulting generation of clutter). What seems to be working on the Internet is what previously worked so well on commercial television through the years: show commercials with the “free” shows! I have no problem at all with advertisements, and like many people, actually prefer to have a little intermission between segments of an episode. I see no reason why ALL old episodes of ANY old series shouldn’t eventually be available on the web (with commercial breaks). I’ll go one step further: when watching movies on my TV, I don’t have to see them commercial-free either. Why can’t we see any movie we want on our computers, as long as advertisers are willing to sponsor their showing? For those who still want to avoid commercials, there will always be premium channels, pay-for-view, and video rental companies like Blockbuster and NetFlix (who rent out now over the Internet). If this sort of thing can be done on a small scale, as it is today, and make money for those showing the episodes via the web, then it should be even more lucrative on a grand scale. I’m looking forward to the future of “free” TV (with commercials) on my computer! Now if those making the movies and TV series will only come out with new shows I actually want to watch! No problem, though, for I have a backlog of earlier material (such as all five Star Trek series) that I would like to view. Even if nothing new of consequence came out, I’d be thoroughly occupied with the old stuff for a very long time!

Of course, all of this hinges on the Internet provider companies refraining from limiting the amount of usage, or by charging money based on usage (which some of them have recently threatened to do).

Political Shibboleths

I have noticed that those in the media or the government can often give away their political inclinations by the use of certain words or phrases. Part of this is due to the deliberate process of “framing” that both the left and right engage in. For example, the existing “estate tax” is called the “death tax” by its opponents. Can you guess which side uses the term “illegal aliens” and which uses “undocumented immigrants”? And regarding global warming, the Democratic left is almost unanimous in accepting it as scientific fact, but the Republican right is divided on the issue. Hence Republicans, in the interest of not ruffling feathers among its own, tend to use the more bland term “climate change”. And what about opponents of gay marriage who try to conceal their underlying antagonism toward homosexuals by referring to their goal as “preserving the sanctity of marriage”? Supporters of gay marriage, on the other hand, will often try to soften the sound of the words by using the term “same-sex marriage”. It’s all in the connotation one wants to impart on the subject, and whatever is used reveals the speaker’s (or writer’s) opinion even before it is expressed.

That is all very well and fine with me. It’s a shame, though, that people are so insecure in their beliefs that they feel the need to develop separate vocabularies in order to discuss them with others. The hook in this is to get whomever you are discussing a particular issue with to use your vocabulary. If successfully done, the argument is already halfway won, regardless from which side of the political spectrum you are arguing, for the other is now speaking using YOUR connotative terminology.

This posturing gets a little more serious when discussing war and peace issues. For example, an occupying army in another country will often refer to the insurgents fighting them guerilla-style as “terrorists”, evoking images in the public’s eye back home of 9/11 and the like. Meanwhile, those supporting the insurgents often call them “freedom fighters” and “patriots”. When the Soviet Union sent their army into Afghanistan in 1979 (at that government’s request) to fight forces trying to topple that nation’s secular, left-leaning regime, the U.S. vehemently praised the insurgents there and supported them (e.g. see the movie Charlie Wilson’s War). After 9/11, the U.S. (in my opinion justified) didn’t wait for an Afghan government request before attacking those believed to be responsible and complicit in the attack. But now that we occupy that land, any action committed by Afghani insurgents is termed “terrorist”. It’s all in which side of the fence you’re standing on as to how you frame the issue.

Lately, I have become quite irritated at how extreme right-wing self-proclaimed political pundits almost universally refer to the Democratic Party as the “Democrat” Party. For some reason, this is supposed to be a slur against them. Sure, it is proper to use “Democrat” as a noun, (e.g. I am a Democrat). But as an adjective, -ic should be added. This arrogant misusage does help to quickly identify the political leanings and integrity of whomever I am listening to (or reading). So I suppose that they are unwittingly doing me a service (saving me from wasting my time expecting a reasonable discussion of the issues from them).

Monday Newsbreak: 6/15

--Now that the Internet has grown as much as it has, with all of the businesses and consumers depending so heavily on it, some of the biggest service providers (including Time Warner) are threatening to begin metering usage and charge heavy users for going over their imposed "limits". How utterly stupid of these providers. All this will do is ruin the growth of the Internet and its merging with television and telecommunications! This is not the time to play a "zero-sum" game. Investment in growth is called for instead. I feel, with this breaking story, that many businesses, such as Netflix and Blockbuster Video, are feeling as if a rug is being jerked out from under them.

--Several University of Florida professors from across the academic spectrum are packing up and leaving in pursuit of positions with institutions that believe in investing in the future instead of planned decline. It's not just about those who are leaving, either: in a university dedicated to new ideas, it is of paramount importance to continually bring in new talent. But with hiring freezes and cutbacks, how is this going to happen?

--The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that those imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay (euphemistically called "detainees") have legal recourse in American courts to legally challenge their confinement. For those who disagree with this ruling, I would like to ask how they would like for a foreign country to come over here, arrest their children, and confine them in isolation on some remote island somewhere without any criminal charges levied against them and any way for them to challenge their arrests and detention. The shoe fits differently when it's on YOUR foot.

--I am still wondering when I am ever going to be able to sit down and watch a WNBA game on television. Hopefully, with this dreadful NBA final series between the Celtics and the Lakers approaching its completion, there will be more attention paid to the WNBA. But maybe not.

Flying Cars and Chairs

Many years ago, on Art Bell’s late night radio show, I heard a story about a man living in the Los Angeles area who wanted to fly. Only he wasn’t a pilot and had no plans to be an airplane or helicopter passenger, either! No, instead he got a lawn chair and a bb gun. Then he tied several helium balloons to the chair and strapped himself into it with a belt. This individual then released his contraption with him in it. And it rose. And rose. And rose. And rose. Before too long, he was several thousand feet up in the air, drifting downwind for miles! I’m not sure how long this odyssey lasted, but this man finally began to use his bb gun to gradually bring the chair down by carefully shooting one balloon at a time. And from what I heard, he did successfully land! Have any of you heard of this incident? Or is it just an urban legend?

I don’t see why one would necessarily have to sit in a chair to perform this feat. It seems to me that one could rig up an apparatus on their back and attach the balloons to it, instead. Then, the experience would be more like parachute riding in reverse!

Sometimes I wonder why we aren’t living in that futuristic society predicted in the not-so-distant past, where, instead of being bound to the ground, people would be driving airborne cars instead. But then I look around me and see how people drive “on the ground” and am instantly shaken back into reality. The only way I see this “flying cars” system happening in the future is if the second-to-second control of the car is handled through computers, with the passengers more-or-less just sitting back and enjoying the ride. And I understand this technology is already available on the ground!

Tightwad in the Mid-Eighties

The years 1984 and 1985 mark the period in my life when I was at my absolute cheapest. I actually owned two cars, both needing repairs, but didn’t want to spend the required money. I resolved this situation by getting rid of both cars and instead riding around on a cheap, used bicycle. In April 1984, I began penny-pinching as well as (literally) penny-counting. In my little studio apartment, I refused to run my air-conditioner wall unit, even in the middle of a severe heat wave (nighttime lows in the mid-80’s (Fahrenheit)). In the winter, I didn’t run the heat. I would take pains to buy shelf-food in order to be able to keep my refrigerator turned off. I never used hot water when washing (even when showering during the coldest of winter) and cut my own hair. Although I would regularly visit coffee/doughnut shops to sit and study in, coffee was relatively cheap back then. Still, I kept a record of every expenditure, again down to the penny.

Now I know that this may sound rather extreme, but keep in mind that I was single and had a relatively low-paying job at the time. Still, I managed to save thousands of dollars and incur zero debt, simply by being very careful with my money. Since then, with marriage and my family (two children), my life has become considerably more complex (and I wouldn’t have had it any other way), and with that naturally arose the need to invest money into the lives of the dearly beloved members of my family. I could have successfully pulled this off financially by still being austere with myself while demonstrating a discerning generosity for my wife and children. And I could have continued tracking our money very closely as well. But I’m afraid that I let the change in my relationships change my attitude toward my personal finances. Still, I know what I am capable of, and it is much more than most other people (and myself in recent years). So, with some reasonable modifications (such as attending to car repairs), I am resolving to return to the spirit I had in the mid 1980s when I made a priority of caring for my finances. Good luck to me!

Soreness, Injury, and Balance

One of the difficulties that people face when trying to change something in their lives is the resistance that both their mind and body put up to thwart that change. We all have an embedded inertia within ourselves that stands in the way of habit-changes, both for the good and the bad. When we decide to train ourselves athletically, our muscles become sore, and we are faced with the question of whether we just need to train through that soreness or look at the possibility of having suffered an injury that would require abstaining from training. Similarly, in non-athletic areas of our lives, a change is likely to cause an unsettling of emotions as well as an increased state of mental fatigue. I believe that this is part of our natural resistance to change and must be combated in order to change our habits in a more positive direction.

Lately, I have been experiencing a greater amount of sleepiness, which seems to go around the clock. I’ve examined my lifestyle, and I have concluded that I have taken on quite a few projects that require some serious habit-changing. And the fatigue is a natural reaction to this. So what should I do about this? If you have read this blog, you’ll notice that I have a feature titled “The Eights”, in which every eight weeks I report on my progress (or lack thereof) in a particular area of personal self-improvement. And there are an awful lot of areas in this regard that I am trying (with dubious success) to juggle around! So, in order to facilitate effective habit-changing and reduce the associated fatigue, I am going to (temporarily) suspend some of them and concentrate on the very few that are the most important at this stage.

It is important to listen to your body when your life is becoming more stressful. Sometimes there are legitimate health concerns that need addressing. But usually, it is a sign that you are really changing (for the better), and your stubborn self is fighting it tooth and nail! It’s important to be able to discern the difference between the two and strike a healthy balance. And that’s something that I am now currently struggling with.

Favorite Songs of 1970

1970 was still another year containing a multitude of good, memorable songs. It was the last year that the Beatles were together, and their final album, Let It Be, was released. Although the title track became the big singles hit, my favorites were the "deep tracks" The Two of Us and For You Blue. I also loved The Long and Winding Road. Phil Spector, much to Paul McCartney's chagrin, had enhanced this song by adding orchestration and a chorus, greatly improving it in the process (in my humble opinion). Another famous act, Simon and Garfunkel, ended as well in 1970 with the release of singles from their Bridge Over Troubled Waters album (including the title track as well). But my favorite song of that album was the wildly syncopated Cecilia (my #5 song of '70 as I lived through it). Question, by the Moody Blues, was my #4 favorite song of this year. It would be more than two decades before I discovered the treasure trove of material that this talented and inspired band produced in a flurry during the late sixties/early seventies. During the summertime of 1970, I listened to local radio station 940-WINZ, which in that era would play songs that were only marginally popular nationwide. One of those songs, Oliver's I Can Remember, captured my heart and made me wonder why it wasn't a monster hit. It was also my #3 favorite song of that year. In the fall of '70, British blues/rock singer Joe Cocker, already famous for his covers of Beatles tunes She Came in Through the Bathroom Window, I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends, and the Box Tops' The Letter, outdid himself by raucously covering the old slow, sensual Julie London song Cry Me a River in a concert setting. This fast-paced version, with Cocker crying and screaming and friend Leon Russell going all-out on the piano, helped turn my musical tastes more toward both soul and hard rock (and was my #2 song of the year). But my #1 top favorite song of 1970 (back then) turned out to be an aberration of sorts. For reasons I'm still unaware of, I became thoroughly obsessed in the spring of '70 with the George Baker Selection song Little Green Bag. It was only a minor hit, and one day in late spring I discovered that my local stations were no longer playing it. This deprivation started me on a long period of Little Green Bag withdrawal (since it hadn't been popular enough to be recycled as a "golden oldie"). Later on, I bought that single and now scratch my head wondering what I saw in that song! Still, I like it. But nowhere near the fanatical degree of adulation I felt for it back in 1970! Go figure. Anyway, here are some other great tunes from back then that I liked:

Venus (Shocking Blue)
Arizona (Mark Lindsay)
Rainy Night in Georgia (Brook Benton)
Won't Find Better Than Me (New Hope)
Ma Belle Amie (Tee Set)
Didn't I (Delfonics)
Hey Mr. Sun (Bobby Sherman)
Come and Get It (Badfinger)
Love Or Let Me Be Lonely (Friends of Distinction)
Tennessee Birdwalk (Jack Blanchard & Misty Morgan)
Try a Little Kindness (Glen Campbell)
Everything is Beautiful (Ray Stevens)
Reflections of My Life (Marmalade)
Daughter of Darkness (Tom Jones)
Hitchin' a Ride (Vanity Fair)
The Love You Save (Jackson Five)
Yellow River (Christie)
O-o-o Child (Five Stairsteps)
We Gotta Get You a Woman (Todd Rundgren)
Overture From Tommy (Assembled Multitude)
Lay Down (Candles in the Rain) (Melanie)
The Pollution Song (Tom Lehrer)
Spirit in the Sky (Norman Greenbaum)
Ball of Confusion (Temptations)
Stoned Love (Supremes)
Up the Ladder to the Roof (Supremes)
Out in the Country (Three Dog Night)
One Man Band (Three Dog Night)
Instant Karma (John Lennon)
Your Song (Elton John)
No Sugar Tonight/Mother Nature's Son (Guess Who)
Hand Me Down World (Guess Who)
Our House (Crosby, Stills, Nash &Young)
Make Me Smile (Chicago)
Cracklin' Rosie (Neil Diamond)
Thank You Fallettime Be Mice Elf Agin (Sly & the Family Stone)
Jennifer Tomkins (Street People)
Everybody's Out of Town (BJ Thomas)
Mississippi (John Phillips)
A Song of Joy (Miguel de los Rios)
Long Long Time (Linda Ronstadt)
No Matter What (Badfinger)

The Great Florida Desert

In the past few years, hurricanes notwithstanding, I have seen my part of northern Florida turn from an almost swampy, wet area into a near desert. Recently, while watching my daughter play a game of flag football in her league, I noticed that anytime anyone ran or fell on the ground, a large cloud of dust would kick up around them. It reminded me of that terrible Dust Bowl period back in the thirties in the southwestern United States. And it also made me wonder how dry we are going to get here in northern Florida. When I moved into my house in 1989, the ground on which it stood was very wet, and often, during the then-common rainy periods, became very mushy and swamp-like. Starting around the late nineties, though, I have rarely seen the ground get very saturated with water. In 1998, northern Florida was inundated, not with flood waters, but rather with widespread forest fires. And since then, each year has seen dire warnings go up about fire dangers. This year is no different. I am not what you would call a lawn and garden enthusiast, and I pretty much let nature take its course with my lawn. And other than keeping it mowed, there has always been the same concentration of grass in it. Until this year. The last time I mowed my lawn, I experienced the same flying dust I saw at my daughter’s football game. We are drying up here. And the storms that we used to be so accustomed to getting on a daily basis are simply not materializing. In most other parts of the world, the latitude I live on (about 30 degrees North) is either ocean or desert. And the way things are shaping up, either ocean or desert may be the future for my beloved state of Florida!

But, as if to prove me wrong, yesterday afternoon we were hit by a severe thunderstorm, suddenly knocking the temperature down from 96 to 66! Yippee! Maybe tomorrow will be a repeat performance (I hope it's minus the lightning and tornado threats, though).

Blog Line Spacing Glitch

It’s been a good fourteen months for me and this blog, thanks in large part to Google and their Blogger feature. To be able to project my opinions and experiences to the world this way is truly something straight out of a visionary’s imagination for the future! It must be a monumental task for them to be able to manage the millions of blogs out there under their “umbrella”, but they have done so with a minimum of inconvenience and disruptions.

I do have a question, though, about something that suddenly happened to my blog recently, without me doing anything that I know of to cause it. The line spacing on my blog one day abruptly became more compressed than it originally was, and although I prefer the new spacing, the change is quite unsettling. This unsolicited change in line spacing retroactively covered my entire blog and its archives, all the way back to its beginning entries of April, 2007. I don’t need to remedy this, but I only hope that in the future Blogger can furnish me the choice of how I want to space out my blog without thrusting unrequested changes on me. Who knows, maybe it’s my own computer that is responsible for this glitch and it has nothing to do with Blogger. But I’m not an expert in this field, and I just want my blog to be safe from future unexpected deviations, some of which I may not approve. Once again, I must say that I appreciate Google/Blogger for having bestowed this opportunity for me to express myself as I have!

Monday Newsbreak: 6/9

--Rock n' roll pioneer Bo Diddley passed away this past week. He was a commonly seen figure in and around Gainesville, being very active in volunteer community work, especially in the area of keeping kids on the straight and narrow (and away from drugs and violence). I met him once at Sam's Wholesale (he was buying some tires and I was getting one of mine repaired). Bo was one of those special celebrities who was thoroughly unpretentious as well as being naturally friendly and likable. At the memorial held for him in Gainesville, Eric Burdon of Animals fame came and performed in tribute to this legendary musician.

--So Hillary Clinton has finally conceded the race for the Democratic nominations to Barack Obama and publicly endorsed him. But not before she projected an image of him being weak among white working-class voters by persisting in the race long after it had become clear that he would win the nomination. And what's with many of her supporters saying that they would vote for McCain rather than Obama?! As far as I can tell, the only "bad" thing Barack ever did to Hillary was to defeat her in the campaign. He has been an incredible example of grace and restraint in the face of vicious personal attacks coming at him from all directions. Still, I recognize that Clinton would be a good vice-presidential running mate choice and hope that this possibility is realized.

--It looks as if tin-pot dictator and all-around bad guy Robert Mugabe is going to try to intimidate and bully his way to "win" the runoff for Zimbabwe's presidency. Can't Saudi Arabia or some other despotic nation offer to give this jerk sanctuary and thus liberate this formerly prosperous southern African country from his clutches (it worked with getting Idi Amin out of Uganda)?

--The price of oil rose one day this week by eleven dollars per barrel in just one day. Economists say that the marketplace and supply and demand cannot account for this rise, and many claim that unregulated oil speculation is mainly responsible for the recent sharp price hikes.

--Thoroughbred horse Big Brown failed in his bid to be the first horse to win the fabled Triple Crown since 1978 when he couldn't keep up with the leaders in the long and hot (92 degrees) Belmont Stakes this past Saturday. His jockey, seeing victory slip away in the race, slowed him down in the interest of protecting him from injury. But Big Brown had already sustained a hoof injury and would never have been run in this race had greed not been such a major factor.