My Discomfort Zones Update: 9/16

I haven’t been as consistently bold about jumping into areas that I need to be, although I did have some successes. I think that I need to write out some specific goals and just hold myself accountable (on this blog) for fulfilling them. Anyway, I was able to survive some discomfort zone excursions:

--I had to overcome an overwhelming sense of personal incompetence in the area of home improvement, but I did venture into this uncomfortable area a few weeks ago when I measured and laid down tile for my daughter’s bedroom. We’re planning to redo our entire home’s flooring, and now it seems very feasible. About halfway through the tile laying, I cut one of my fingers pretty deeply, but my wife tended to it and I was able to pick up where I left off and finish the task.

--I have been running more and more out on the open road instead of just running the treadmill. It hasn’t been the easiest thing to do, especially with the weather as hot as it has been at times.

--I finally went to my dentist and got help with a mounting tooth problem. She pulled out the tooth fragments that had been left embedded in my gum and prescribed some antibiotic against the infection. A surprisingly pleasant all-around experience from such an uncomfortable, dreaded place to go (the dentist’s office).

There is a whole slew of tasks that I need to just roll up my sleeves and do, one at a time. And all of them reside firmly in my “discomfort zone”. But they’re all necessary, and I WILL DO THEM! Here are a few that I would like to accomplish:

--Clean out the garage.
--Keep the insurance filings current.
--First record, then restrict personal spending.
--Keep various sections of the house clean.
--Inspect areas needing repair in the house.
--Get car maintained.
--Restrict TV/Web time and record efforts.
--Consistently do piano, reading, writing (blog and fiction), and foreign languages and record time spent at them.
--Run daily unless special circumstances prevent this.
--Maintain yard weekly.
--Meet emergency situations head-on and responsibly.

No, I have little worry about running out of discomfort zones any time soon!

Monday Newsbreak: 9/15

--An estimated more than 100,000 residents of the eastern Texas coastal areas directly in the path of Hurricane Ike chose not to heed warnings to evacuate and instead chose to stay and try to ride out the storm. At this writing, more than 600 rescues of stranded residents have been made, but only time will tell how many casualties resulted from decisions to remain instead of fleeing to safety. One might have thought that the disaster at Galveston of 1900, when a hurricane killed around 4000, or even the recent tragedy down the coast caused by Katrina just three years ago, would have been enough warning. And it probably was, for most. But for those who did stay behind, their danger is still ongoing, since the area is full of hazards, including downed power lines, debris, and damaged buildings.

--The level of mud being slung around in this presidential race has reached such epic proportions that I can barely continue to cover it. What may have been the final straw with me was the “pig with lipstick” comment Barack Obama made in reference to a failed policy that the Republicans, including John McCain, immediately blew up as a personal attack against Sarah Palin (Obama was in no way talking about her). Never mind that McCain himself had used the expression on a number of occasions with reference to Hillary Clinton’s take on issues. Don’t those slinging the mud realize that if elected, they will have an impossible task of reconciling half of the country with them? Or do they just seek naked power without regard to any sense of decency? And why do I already know the sad answers to these questions?

--As a response to Russia’s recent incursion into Georgia, The U.S. is stepping up its arms sales to allies in the region, including other former Soviet republics. Georgians living in South Ossetia are reportedly being harassed by local militias into leaving that region for Georgia proper. Although I understand how Russia could feel justified in intervening following the initial Georgian offensive against South Ossetia, allowing the persecution of an ethnic group (the Georgians) in a region under its military control makes its expressed concern about how Russian people living in the various former Soviet republics are treated nothing less than sheer hypocrisy. By putting the West on alert against them, this incursion may have been a very big mistake on their part. At least for the manner in which they executed it.

--In Steve Newman’s great feature Earthweek, ice in the Arctic Ocean has now melted enough to create an open, navigable circle of water for the first time in about 125,000 years, according to experts in the field. Of course, I don’t rightly know who would have been around to navigate the area 125,000 years ago! But this sort of information, which should help put to rest the notion that the melting ice is just part of a natural cycle, is going virtually ignored in the media (except by Mr. Newman). This is happening while a global warming denier is helping to catapult one candidate into the lead in America’s 2008 presidential race. Since we like to pretend that the ice isn’t really disappearing in the polar regions, why don’t we go a little further with our pleasant delusions and just proclaim that everything else is going hunky dory across the world? And bring the troops home.

Scrapbooks

Making scrapbooks became a tradition in my family as I grew up. My mother, my sister, and I all were avid “scrapbookers”. What I would do was go through old magazines lying around the house and cut out interesting pictures and paste them in. Once, when I was a little kid and didn’t know better, I got hold of an old Playboy magazine and cut out some of their comic drawings and pasted them in. And then proudly showed off my scrapbook to my mother. She said, “Billy, where did you get these drawings?” After telling her, she didn’t reproach me, but did make it clear that THAT magazine was off-limits to me!

Although my interest in scrapbooks waned after childhood, my mother continued the hobby. A few years ago, she gave us a scrapbook that she had put together, and I have to say that this was a great personal gift that was very inexpensive but which contained a lot of expression and communication in it. Kind of like a blog!

When I was taking American History at my local community college in the mid-1970s, I had as my instructor an elderly, very opinionated (favoring the political left) man who conducted his class in an unorthodox manner. We had a rather standard textbook that we would study and be tested on. And my teacher would let any student ask about anything they read or see him during his office hours. But the class time itself was dominated by the teacher sitting behind his desk, on top of which was an enormous scrapbook, full of newspaper and magazine clippings that he had inserted within over his many years of interest in history. The topics were not mainstream textbook topics; they were the kind that someone (like me) might have chosen to write blog articles about! But they all dealt with the topic of American history and had a bearing on the period in that history being discussed. And although this teacher’s demeanor was that of stubborn rigidity regarding his own views and angry intolerance regarding others’ dissenting views, his unusual “scrapbook” approach to teaching left his class as an indelible experience in my college education.

I’ve been discovering lately that I often come across an interesting article or editorial letter in my local newspaper and then lose it a few days later when I want to refer to it. I may find that a story may be developing in the news that I’m interested in but which I don’t feel is complete enough for me to write about. Also, it’s sometimes very important to be able to trace the history of how a news story is reported, not just the story itself. Saving piles of newspaper doesn’t cut it, but clipping articles of interest does. So I’m starting my own scrapbook, patterned after that unforgettable, cranky old history instructor’s scrapbook. And the first things to do will be to buy a nice (but cheap) empty scrapbook and then go back through my old newspapers and magazines (that I haven’t thrown away yet) and start snipping and gluing (very selectively)!

I miss my mother greatly. She died of complications arising from lung cancer in 2002. I take after her in many, many ways. She was someone whom I know for a fact that I would have regarded as a very sweet, intelligent woman, even if she weren’t my dear, sweet, intelligent mother. And her use of scrapbooks is something that both inspires me and brings back good memories.

So interest in scrapbooking can be seen in kindly people (like my mother) and in cantankerous people (like my American history teacher). Or it can be seen in someone afflicted with an unstable mixture of the kindly and cantankerous (like me). I’m sure that my scrapbook will be quite different from those of others. I do think I’ll stay away from certain magazines and drawings, though (lesson learned from childhood)!

Cows and Whales

Recently, I noticed an exchange of editorial letters in my hometown “rag”, the Gainesville Sun. One writer wrote to belittle evolution in general and the idea in particular that whales evolved from cows. A few days later, another letter appeared whose writer challenged the first writer to substantiate her views with documentation, particularly the view that anyone had claimed that whales evolved from cows. He also ventured the speculation that this charge had arisen from an “intelligent design” advocate’s works, not from any pro-evolution scientist.

I believe in evolution. If there is such a thing as “intelligent design”, then it must complement, not contradict what is already known about natural selection and species differentiation. If anyone wishes to tailor his/her view of reality to precisely conform with the belief that a certain piece of religious scripture is “infallible”, then that’s all right with me, too. I know several respectable, intelligent people who believe in intelligent design this way. But I operate on the assumption that species evolved over extremely long time spans which are hard for people to get an intuitive feel for. And that the processes of evolution occur on many levels, especially on a submicroscopic molecular level that is equally difficult to picture. Hence, the gross oversimplification about cows and whales.

But I already know that, as mammals, cows and whales do have a common ancestor that was also a mammal, but which has been most probably long, long extinct for several million years. So I set out, with just the Internet, to see how much I could derive about this relationship between cows and whales, as well as their common source.

As it turned out, I didn’t have to go far, for Wikipedia had an excellent article about the evolution of cetaceans. It revealed that, although whales were originally thought to have evolved from carnivorous animals, in the 1990s, DNA and protein analysis seemed to indicate that they stemmed from artiodactyls and bear a close genetic similarity to the hippopotamus. The divergence of what were to eventually become whales, dolphins, and porpoises from other artiodactyls is now thought to have happened around 53-54 million years ago.

The earliest known species that led down the evolutionary road to whales was pakicetus, living about 53 million years ago. Largely linked to later modern cetaceans by its special ear structure, the teeth of pakicetus are also very similar in some aspects to those of fossil whales, according to the article. This article covers a sequence of some species leading up to modern whales: indohyus (48 million years ago), amuocetus, kutchicetus, protocetus, rodhocetus, brachiosaurus, durodon, and later species which were much closer to modern whales.Species from the bovine family, from which modern cattle came, go back to 18-20 million years ago. Their link with whales is rather indirect, the common ancestors going back before the appearance of pakicetus 53 million years ago.

I happen to personally know both the anti-evolution and the pro-evolution editorial letter writers. Both care deeply about this topic and are honest with their expressed opinions. For this I respect both of them, although I wonder how much either of them would respect my own opinions in return were they to read them! What was it that Jesus was reported to have said--Oh yes, it was, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Perhaps the most important thing in successful argumentation is the one thing often completely ignored: value and and show respect to your opponent. And casting them as part of an insidious conspiracy or discounting their opinions because they aren't in the "profession" are definitely NOT signs of respect.

South Ossetia, Russia, and Georgia

I recently read an article published on a Russian news website written by the former president of the South Ossetian Autonomous Region that’s recently become the focus of armed conflict between Russia and Georgia, which had been stuck with the territory when Russian expansion more than two hundred years ago incorporated Georgia along with this region. Later, the Stalin-era policy of splitting up nationalities among the republics reinforced this lumping in of South Ossetia with Georgia.

The Ossetians speak a distinctive language that is in the Iranian group of Indo-European languages. The languages in the area that it most closely resembles are Farsi (Persian) and Pashto, but it is written in the same (albeit modified) Cyrillic script as Russian. Over the years, both Northern and Southern Ossetia have attracted a large ethnically Russian population as well. And since Georgia only gained its true independence in 1991, the idea that South Ossetians immediately thereafter wanted no part in its future is not exactly the same thing as it was in 1860 when South Carolina seceded from the U.S. after being one of the original thirteen states.

I believe the United States is misguided in its condemnation of Russia for militarily intervening in this area after Georgia’s unstable president had South Ossetia’s capital shelled, causing more than a thousand deaths there. Criticism yes, condemnation, no, for any armed incursion in another area, even for the expressed purpose of restraining an agressor, is bound to raise suspicions on the part of others (just ask those opposed to the U.S. military presence in numerous countries scattered across the planet). And military action by its very nature involves destruction (we don't seem to be as worried about that when talking about our own military actions). But does anyone reasonably think that America would have held its own military back if a similar event had happened just across its own borders?

For Russia, Ossetia is a very sensitive area and has a direct bearing on its national security and its own “war on terror”. For it was in Russian North Ossetia where terrorists took over a school in Beslan in September, 2004 and massacred hundreds of innocent people, mostly children, when the authorities stormed the area.

Vladimir Putin is obviously a nationalist who knows that he can enhance his political capital among his countrymen by presenting an image of his country being strong and active on the world scene. But isn’t that what our politicians in America are doing as well? Remember that the Russian state is no longer ideologically-driven as it was with Communism under the old Soviet paradigm. Let’s recognize the Russians for who they really are and not get carried away with paranoia. They have just as much a right to defend their own interests as we do!

So Russia now recognizes South Ossetia as independent, and that region’s former president whole-heartedly approves. From where I am looking at this, Georgia should realize what its best, most stable path for the future is and try to engage its neighbors in as constructive a manner as possible while maintaining friendly ties with the West. South Ossetia looks as if it will opt to become a part of Russia. But that would still be a far, far cry from the accusations I’ve lately been hearing that this great nation has embarked on a campaign of naked imperialist expansion.

I'm not naive about Russia or any other nation. I'm neither a Russophile nor a Russophobe. For those Americans who see all kinds of threats and danger in the latest Russian behavior, I say that I'm a little concerned myself. But also keep in mind that what you're seeing in them is what an awful lot of people across the world see in us as well.

Gender and Presidential Politics

I would have been very content to support Hillary Clinton as the Democratic Party nominee had she won the nomination. But she didn’t. Barack Obama won instead, and I’m supporting him. Does that mean that I agree with everything he says? Not by a long shot! But I at least recognize that, after the November election is long over and we all have to reconcile ourselves with whoever ends up in power, what is going to count are the decisions that the new president will be making. Do you want that president to be pro-women or anti-women?

Republican John McCain, who (I think) practiced tokenism by putting an extreme right-wing woman on his ticket (in hope of attracting disaffected Hillary voters), does not believe in enforcing equal pay for equal work whether done by a man or a woman. Democrat Barack Obama, who (I think) foolishly let his pride get in his way by not putting proven vote-getter Hillary Clinton on his ticket, does believe in equal pay for equal work regardless of gender. If you’re a woman reading this, or just happen to believe in the cause of women’s rights, you really should look at things from the perspective of, say--2009 or 2010 looking back. You don’t want a packed Supreme Court beholden to male supremacy, the super wealthy, and large corporate interests. But that’s what you’ll get with a McCain presidency. You don’t want the Family Medical Leave Act so diluted that working women are put into hardship situations while trying to balance family with work. You stand to get that with a McCain presidency. You don’t want women, as they face various health problems, having to choose between food and medicine. Or being forced to remain in dead-end jobs with no hope for advancement simply because they may have pre-existing medical conditions that prevent them from obtaining affordable health insurance from a new employer. You will continue to get that with a McCain presidency. Regardless of what your feelings are about pro-choice vs. pro-life, do you really want the government involved in every sensitive issue that properly belongs within your own family? With a McCain presidency, the state will interfere more than ever before in your own personal decisions, not only with reproductive issues, but also with end-of-life matters (remember the Republicans and the Terri Schiavo “affair” in 2005?). How long do I have to go on to make my point?

Being personally miffed because one’s candidate was defeated is something that people just have to get over. Truthfully, although I believe that Obama’s passing over of Hillary for VP was a mistake, I think that McCain’s refusal to seriously consider Mitt Romney as a running mate is much more telling. For the former Massachusetts governor’s Mormon faith was a big factor in the so-called evangelical base of the Republican Party rejecting him for consideration. The idea that a theocratic element of any party could wield that much leverage should be a very, very scary thing. And if you vote for McCain/Palin, you are voting for that element as well!

If you supported Hillary Clinton in the primaries and believe that Roe vs. Wade should be upheld, then you are not only voting against your convictions if you support McCain: you’re also voting against Hillary Clinton as well! And if you oppose Roe vs. Wade while supporting her, I’m not sure what to say, except that you just might want to get past personalities and images and get more into the content of what the candidates really believe in. If Hillary Clinton were president instead of Barack Obama, she would pretty much be signing the same bills into law that he would, and vetoing the same bills from becoming law that he would as well. Her all-important Supreme Court nominations would be philosophically compatible with his. And all of this would be very, very different from the decisions made in a McCain administration.

McCain & Obama: To See or Not to See

A funny thing happened on my seemingly eternal voyage through time to vote for Barack Obama for president. After all the controversy about John McCain’s divisive and hypocritical (to me) running mate at the Republican Convention last week, the actual presidential candidate finally had the stage all to himself. I was at work during his nomination acceptance speech and, although I didn’t have access at the time to television, I heard his entire address, courtesy of Public Radio. And I was very impressed by his down-to-earth, slow, and clear presentation. He spoke to the audience in a paternal, but not patronizing manner (reminding me a bit of good old (late) Fred Rogers of Misterroger’s Neighborhood fame) that was reassuring and confidence-inspiring. I came away from listening to that speech thinking that he had hit a home run, to be sure. And then I went home and turned on my TV.

Naturally, the news channels were focusing on the last day of the Republican Convention and were replaying McCain’s speech. But instead of being entranced by it, as I watched McCain I became more and more irritated by his visual delivery. He seemed very uncomfortable and made a nuisance of continually batting his eyes whenever he wanted to make a point. As a matter of fact, just about everything I saw about him belied everything that I had heard from him. Suddenly, what had at first seemed like a great speech had transformed into a rather humdrum, mediocre one.

I’ve heard that, when John F. Kennedy debated Richard Nixon in the first presidential debates in 1960, a similar phenomenon occurred. Polling done immediately after the debate showed that listeners who only heard the debate on the radio generally felt that Nixon had won, but those who had seen it on television were convinced that Kennedy had won. What a difference between television and radio!

And I think that Barack Obama also presents a different effect on the audience, depending on whether it is a television or a radio audience. I’ve heard him on the radio, and he often seemed to be a little disoriented and grasping for words. But when watching him speak in similar situations, his face and mannerisms skillfully supported what he was saying and contributed to a feeling of empathy and understanding between him and his audience.

Try it some time: when either McCain or Obama are on TV giving a speech or an interview, first close your eyes and critique their audio output. Then open your eyes and see if your reaction doesn’t drastically change. I think it will! Of course, with McCain you may understandably choose to keep your eyes closed!

Monday Newsbreak: 9/8

--The secular People’s Party candidate for Pakistan’s presidency easily won election in that important, troubled nation in an election that carries important lessons for our own. Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of assassinated party leader and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, represents the majority sentiment in Pakistan of the desire to have a society devoted to civil rights, respect for diversity, and full integration into the world community. As such, he opposes the xenophobic and religiously narrow, intolerant, and violent minority who want to establish a theocracy and throw out Western influences (including democracy and civil rights). I think most countries have this sort of tension between those believing in social and scientific progress and those “my way or the highway” types who see anyone disagreeing with their religion or politics as part of an evil conspiracy that must be warred against. Although, in America, we don’t see the terrorism that exists in Pakistan, there are still groups that frame their xenophobia and religious bigotry in similar ways to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda sympathizers in Zardari’s land. Only their professed faith isn’t fundamentalist/political Islam; it’s fundamentalist/political Christianity. And now they have a voice in this election: Alaska governor Sarah Palin. Due to his regrettable, short-sighted, and cynical selection of Palin as running mate, I now see the possible election of McCain to be president as a potentially dangerous development. I’m counting on either my fears about Palin being dispelled by her own words or having those words eventually expose her extremism to the rest of the nation before the election (and before it’s too late). No, Palin is certainly not Al-Qaeda, but she does seem (to me) to promote a mindset that runs in opposition to the great American traditions of inclusion and progress.

--NASA Administrator Mike Griffin has revealed in an e-mail what I had been suspecting for some time: President Bush, in spite of his public pronouncements about establishing a Moon base and seriously preparing for a manned Mars voyage, in fact has no interest in either of these projects. Apparently, our president was only interested in scrapping the Space Shuttle program and used the carrots of returning to the Moon and exploring beyond to get people at the agency to work at shutting it down. The result: without any real funding for new ventures, the next president will probably just keep running the Space Shuttles, as old and outdated as they are, without implementing any new plans. But, as I see it, this is nothing new. The only presidents who have shown any real interest in our space program were Eisenhower and Kennedy. Johnson was indifferent, and Nixon was the first of a string of presidents who deliberately set out to sabotage our manned space exploration efforts. Ironically, if Vice-President Spiro Agnew, even with his public image as an anti-intellectual, had survived his 1973 income tax scandal and had succeeded Nixon (instead of leaving it to Gerald Ford) after Watergate, we might have been able to revitalize our space program. For Agnew was very captivated by our Apollo successes and was eager to get started, even in 1969, on plans to land on Mars!

--Hurricane Ike keeps altering its trajectory and now appears headed to the Gulf of Mexico after it batters the southern Bahamas, Haiti, and Cuba (which seems to be happening way too often this year). Then, if it hits Texas or Florida, expect an appropriate, measured disaster preparation response. But if it heads straight at Louisiana, then expect more ridiculous statements by New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin and ridiculous meddling by presidential candidate-turned-shameless-opportunist John McCain.

--The University of Florida Gators football team, with a little timely help from a questionable call by the officials (ruling an obviously incomplete long pass as being complete), were able to finally pull away from a tough University of Miami Hurricanes team and win 26-3. Now here’s what got me. The Vegas “line” on the game had the Gators favored by 21 and a half points. And they had built up a 23-3 lead late in the game. With time running out on the clock, Florida had the ball deep in Hurricane territory and could have just run out the clock, as was the expected custom of sportsmanship in these types of situations. Instead, they decided to kick a field goal, giving them a 23 point victory margin and beating the Vegas spread. H-m-m-m!!!

This season represents a departure for me: it’s the first time since the early 1980’s that I am not enthusiastically rooting for the Gators. I’m sensing a rather ugly streak of sports fanaticism and hero worship (of Tim Tebow and Urban Meyer) in this community that repels me. When Florida goes up to Knoxville to play Tennessee, I may well actually pull for the Volunteers, who have won my respect with their likable coach Phillip Fulmer. Plus, I dig Knoxville! (Of course, I understand that in the nineties, the Tennessee fans went a little over the top idolizing Peyton Manning as well.)

My Piano Update: 9/6

Unfortunately, I've let other things get in the way of simply taking a few minutes each day to practice my piano. There have been lessons missed due to holidays and injury (I cut one of my fingers badly a few days ago, though it's now nicely healed). Like so many things in life, it's all down to getting oneself into the habit of just doing it. So all of those great, ambitious ideas I laid out last time about devoting time to music theory and playing from memory came to naught. But that's why I am doing these updates: I can't keep writing disappointing articles like this. I know what my goals are about piano. But it may be necessary to set some more "public accountability" goals to rivet my attention to practicing properly. And by that I mean doing public performances. After all, last February's recital did make me practice more. Anyway, it's something to look into if I can't get my act together in front of the keyboard.

My NFL Predictions For 2008

Well, once again it’s that time of year for this very amateur fan of the National Football League to put out my hunches about how the season will play itself out among the various teams. My traditional favorite, the Miami Dolphins, looks to vastly improve on last year’s 1-15 disaster (although in fairness it must be said that many of those losses came in very close, competitive games). My least favorite team continues to be the Dolphins’ arch-rival New England Patriots. The crowning moment of last season came with about 35 seconds to go in the Super Bowl when the upstart New York Giants captured the lead and the NFL Championship, ruining New England’s “perfect” season and putting a (temporary) cap on their arrogance and cheating. Needless to say, come hell or high water, I’m now a New York Giants fan as well! Go Eli Manning!

I claim no expertise whatsoever with the teams, their players and coaches. I do know that the Dolphins have vastly improved in just about every area and should be able to count on veterans such as quarterback Chad Pennington and running back Ricky Williams, barring injuries (or with Williams, suspensions). I don’t expect the Dolphins to win it all, but I believe they do have a shot at an 8-8 season. And at least a split with those pesky Patriots.

Here is my rundown on how I see the standings at the season’s end:

AMERICAN CONFERENCE

EAST
1. New England
2. MIAMI
3. New York Jets
4. Buffalo

SOUTH
1. Jacksonville
2. Indianapolis
3. Tennessee
4. Houston

NORTH
1. Cleveland
2. Pittsburgh
3. Cincinnati
4. Baltimore

WEST
1. San Diego
2. Oakland
3. Denver
4. Kansas City

******************

NATIONAL CONFERENCE

EAST
1. Dallas
2. NEW YORK GIANTS
3. Philadelphia
4. Washington

SOUTH
1. New Orleans
2. Tampa Bay
3. Carolina
4. Atlanta

NORTH
1. Minnesota
2. Green Bay
3. Detroit
4. Chicago

WEST
1. Seattle
2. Arizona
3. St. Louis
4. San Francisco

My far-out Super Bowl pick?
San Diego beats Dallas! [Of course, I'd prefer to see the Dolphins facing the Giants.]

REM's Man-Sized Wreath

Now that's the REM I've come to love! OWW!

Broken Tooth Blues

I have been suffering for a few days from a lower back tooth that mostly chipped off after the filling that was in it came out, leaving an infected gum area with tooth fragments sticking out. Ouch! Fortunately, I have a very good, kindly dentist who removed the fragments from the gum yesterday and put me on antibiotics. Although it aches some, I feel that I am well on the road to recovery.

When an infection affects a part of my body, even if it seems minor, the whole body can suffer as a result. I remember the time a few decades ago (late 1979) when I accidentally cut into one of my fingers pretty deep and had allowed it to become infected. I came down with what seemed like severe flu symptoms, which lasted for days and wouldn't get better. When I finally saw a doctor, he diagnosed the problem, put me on antibiotics, and within a couple of days I had drastically improved.

This past tendency for me to ignore my own developing health problems when I was single is still regrettably a (hopefully shrinking) part of my personality. Fortunately, I have a wonderful wife who looks out for me! But, sheesh, I am in my fifties and should be a little quicker about addressing my own health concerns by this stage of my life.

Hurricane Bowling Alley

Right now, the Atlantic Ocean looks like a bowling alley, with the balls being hurricanes rolled out in rapid succession. And they all seem to be headed our way (and we‘re the pins)!

First Fay pretty much traced its path over the entire state of Florida, soaking it and virtually eliminating the drought and concomitant fire hazard that has plagued us for some time. Then Gustav slipped into the Gulf of Mexico, slamming Louisiana and spinning off some storms over us in north central Florida. Now Hannah is a hurricane and is dawdling around the southern Bahamas before it will supposedly pass Florida to the east (spinning off more storms at us) and hitting the Carolinas. In the mid-Atlantic is tropical storm Ike, soon to be a hurricane as well, with a projected path having it taking Hannah’s current position. And even further east is a tropical depression almost certain to become Josephine [correction: it has become Josephine].

So, in the span of less than two weeks, we’re talking about Fay, Gustav, Hannah, Ike, and Josephine. Okay, you up there, I get it; this is a busy hurricane season! But would you mind spacing out your rolls a little more? Or better yet, why not sit down and take a little break? At least roll some gutter balls, will ya?

Moral Hypocrisy and Politics

In light of the revelation that Republican vice-presidential candidate, Alaska governor Sarah Palin’s seventeen-year old (unmarried) daughter is five-months pregnant, Democratic opponent Barack Obama has proclaimed “hands off” this issue. I’m assuming that he isn’t talking to me, since, even if he becomes president, he can’t tell me what I can say or not say. Besides, the issue with this matter that concerns people isn’t the pregnant daughter, but rather her mother.

And the mother is a politician who has wielded her power in public office to enforce her vision of what is “moral” on the entire population regardless of their religious orientation. That includes insisting on abstinence-only-based sex education in Alaskan taxpayer-funded public schools, with the idea that showing methods and availability of contraception is immoral. And I suppose, if someone else’s teenage daughter became pregnant, that would be immoral as well. But since Sarah Palin is on the “right” side of the political spectrum, Focus on the Family's Christian Ayatollah Dr. James Dobson is all beside himself with fulsome praise for the Alaska governor. Tell me with a straight face that he would be reacting in the same way toward a liberal Democrat!

There is a concept tossed around in conservative Christian intellectual circles called “moral relativism”. The idea behind this is that it is impossible to determine whether a behavior is moral or immoral without placing it in its proper context. And conservative Christians have railed incessantly that this is a trait of “secular humanism” designed to dilute God’s absolute standards of morality. Yet conservative Christians like Sarah Palin and James Dobson seem to have no problem with shifting into this mindset whenever the behavior in question touches upon them in any way.

Look, this sort of thing can happen in any family, the way I see it. It’s a delicate matter that belongs to the concerned family to resolve. And that’s why I think that folks like Palin and Dobson are despicable in that they are the ones who set out to tell other families how to behave. While pushing for the police power of the state to enforce their views on others. What hypocrites!

Monday Newsbreak: 9/1

--Hurricane Gustav is hitting the Louisiana coast as this article comes out in the early morning hours. There is great concern in New Orleans as to the viability of their levee system, some sections of which still haven’t been properly repaired. But those in authority apparently have learned Katrina’s lessons and evacuated the low-lying city in anticipation of any unforeseen levee breeches. Meanwhile, New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin is back to his old patterns of hyperbole, terming Gustav as “the mother of all storms” and “the storm of the century” only three years after his city was devastated by Katrina with enormous loss of life.

--Due to Gustav, the Republicans are cutting back on their convention activities this week, at least for Monday’s first day. They are taking no chances at possibly being accused of indifference towards those victimized by this storm. President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, Texas Governor Perry, and Louisiana Governor Jindal are all getting into “position” around Gustav. John McCain and Sarah Palin made a public (i.e. campaign) appearance at a Mississippi emergency action center. Why? And McCain said in an interview that he may make his acceptance speech by satellite from the Gulf area. Why (again)? Why doesn’t he just stay out of the way and let the people do their work there?!

--Speaking of Sarah Palin, how much of an asset or a liability to McCain’s quest for the presidency she’s going to be comes down to two factors. One, does Palin have something embarrassing from her past that could trip up the campaign? And two, the more she speaks and interacts with the press, what is the developing national image of her going to be? But let’s keep in mind that people are still going to primarily vote based on McCain vs. Obama as the chief presidential candidates, not on the second-fiddles.

--This past Tuesday saw only about 25% of the registered voters actually voting in local elections here in Alachua County. The incumbents, some of whom I voted for and some of whom I didn’t, pretty much sailed through to their reelections with only a couple of them being defeated (one by a former incumbent). And I wondered how many of those who didn’t bother to take just a few minutes and exercise their civic responsibilities to vote actually support Bush’s Iraq War and its rationale of establishing democracy there on the other side of the world, even at the sacrifice of thousands of our brave soldiers.

McCain Chooses Palin As VP

So John McCain picked a very inexperienced politician to be one heartbeat from the presidency. Sarah Palin, who became governor of Alaska after McCain and Barack Obama started running for president, is on the ticket for one reason: she is a woman and that, according to McCain’s thinking, means that women who supported Hillary Clinton during the campaign will turn out in large numbers and vote for someone who is Hillary’s ideological opposite, just because she is a woman. I don’t think this strategy is going to fly, though. And if it doesn’t, there is a big danger on this selection ultimately ranking right up there with McGovern’s Tom Eagleton VP pick in ‘72 and George W. Bush’s Harriet Miers Supreme Court pick in ‘05 for bad decisions.

Of course, conservative talking heads are generally playing up McCain’s choice as being a stroke of genius, but crotchety right-wing radio host Michael Savage has a different take. Savage said he’s come to the conclusion that McCain has decided that he wants to lose in November. I have another conclusion.

Both John McCain and Barack Obama have, as I see it, two problems. One, they have such massive, bloated egos that neither could stand to have as running mates people who have demonstrated their ability to attract support and loyalty from voters. People like Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton. No, McCain and Obama have to always be the big shots. Which isn’t a good sign for the future, regardless who wins in the end. Second, I wonder how much these two are allowing others to call their shots for them behind the scenes. That may seem to contradict the view that they are egomaniacs, but our current president seems to fit both descriptions aptly.

Sarah Palin is a very staunch conservative who opposes a woman’s right to choose. Just how many of those Hillary supporters are going to jump parties, once that one solid fact seeps through past their resentment against Obama? Very few, I think. Governor Palin does have one thing going in her favor, though: she hasn’t thought of any more countries for us to invade. Yet. But she’s inexperienced, after all. Who knows what she’ll come up with, given a little time? After all, she’s going to have to go up against Mr. “Crush-the-Enemy” Joe Biden in the vice-presidential debate later on.

Saturday Afternoon Ramblings

Here I am on a Saturday afternoon, sitting in my favorite Gainesville Starbucks at Magnolia Parke on NW 39th Avenue. I had just finished running at my local YMCA and then cleaned up and came out here for a little bit. It’s not as crowded here at Starbucks as I had thought, it being a big “game-day” here in Gainesville with a lot of visitors.

The University of Florida Gators just won their first football game of the 2008 season by a 56-10 score over Hawaii at home. I thought they played together more as a team this game than at any time last year. And their defense seems to be vastly improved. If UF had played a smaller college, then there would be no way of knowing this. But Hawaii is itself a good team. I’m looking forward to seeing how the Gators do in the coming weeks against Miami and Tennessee.

My son Will just came home from college for the Labor Day break and my daughter Rebecca is celebrating her birthday this weekend as well. Right now, they’re checking out our Oaks Mall with Melissa (my wife/their mother) and a friend of Rebecca’s.

I’ve gotten to where I like the café Americano as my favorite drink here. It’s not much more expensive than the drip coffees, but it tastes better. I also had an almond-toffee bar, my favorite of their desserts (now that they no longer serve their scrumptious coconut-cheese danishes for some unfathomable reason).

It’s interesting, noting the tropical weather we’re experiencing today in Gainesville, how a tropical storm as far away as Gustav is (south of Cuba) can extend its influence for hundreds of miles. It reminded me of the time in 1985 when hurricane Juan hit Louisiana and then just sat there for days, flooding that state and spinning off wave after wave of severe storms over Gainesville. I feel for the people living there now as the present hurricane threatens to cause suffering and damage when it most probably strikes them in a few days. Hopefully, the authorities there will get it “right” this time after the Katrina debacle.

Well, I’ve finished my dessert and coffee. I’ll be heading on back to the house now. Until later!

My Running Update: 8/30

My planned 5K road race on 8/23 was postponed until 10/4 due to tropical storm Fay. So the next opportunity to run competitively will be a 5K race on 9/13 (I’ve already jogged through that course). There’s a 4-mile race on 9/20 as well. Assuming of course, they don’t get bumped off by a hurricane further down the alphabet.

I ran more outside, and tried different improvised courses. I’m beginning to feel more comfortable running on solid ground instead of solely on the treadmill. This may be largely due to me rediscovering my ability to pace myself over longer distances and settle into a sustainable “groove”. Ah yes---after thirty-plus years, it’s all starting to come back to me!

I had planned to run certain days of the week cross-country, certain days on the treadmill, and one day per week on a running track. But the demands of my daily living, along with weather disturbances, caused me to veer from this. And lately, I’ve missed out on running on some days. But this is just a brief hiatus. I’ve got some fun races in store, and the temperatures are bound to get generally cooler.

Ultimately, I want to get to the point where I am going on 5-plus mile runs each day while resorting to the treadmill as little as possible. And maybe in 2010, if all goes well, I may run my first marathon race.

Here’s my running record since the last update (I denoted my own improvised outdoor courses with “x-country”):

DATE....MILES...TIME....MEANS
7-19..........2.0......10:12.....x-country
7-21..........1.0........6:64.....treadmill
7-22.........0.6........5:28.....x-country
7-23.........3.0.......21:28....treadmill
7-24.........2.0.......15:16.....track
7-25.........2.5........17:40....treadmill
7-26.........3.0.......21:09....treadmill
7-28.........2.0.......19:00....x-country
7-29.........2.0.......13:41.....treadmill
7-30.........1.0.........6:36.....treadmill
7-31..........2.5.......18:40....treadmill
8-02.........2.35.....21:52....Ormond Beach course
8-04.........2.0......19:05.....x-country
8-05.........2.5.......17:23.....treadmill
8-06.........1.27.....10:30.....x-country
8-07.........3.11......23:02....treadmill
8-09.........3.5.......25:58....treadmill
8-11..........1.0.........7:14.....treadmill
8-12.........4.0.......29:33....treadmill
8-13.........3.11......24:33.....track
8-14.........4.0.......29:24....treadmill
8-15.........3.11......27:26.....x-country
8-16.........4.0.......35:27.....x-country
8-18.........5.0.......37:18.....treadmill
8-20........1.5........11:14......treadmill
8-20...1 ymca-lap @ 1:29
8-21..........1.0.........6:58......treadmill
8-21...2 ymca-laps @ 3:20
8-22........1.2.........9:02.....treadmill
8-23........2.0.......15:03.....treadmill
8-23........1.6........14:41.....x-country
8-25........2.0.......14:50.....treadmill
8-27........1.0..........7:35.....treadmill
8-27...2 ymca-laps @ 3:04
8-30........2.3.......17:31......treadmill

Here We Go Again

I was on my final break at work Wednesday evening when I heard part of Joseph Biden’s VP nomination acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention. Parts of his very tough, forceful, address seemed to make some in the audience a little nervous and the response at times was a little tentative. It reminded me of the beginning of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, when Bilbo Baggins opened his birthday party speech to his fellow hobbits with the line, “I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.” That made the hobbits a bit nervous, too, with only Gandalf (and Bilbo) “in” on the joke. Well, regarding Biden’s speech, I’m no Gandalf, but I think I’m “in” on it. And bro’, it ain’t no joke.

Biden had a lot of good things to say that I agreed with, but when he got to our policies regarding Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan, my ears began to perk up a lot. Here is the text of that part of the speech. The italics are mine (for emphasis):

*****

I've been on the ground in Georgia, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and I can tell you in no uncertain terms: this Administration's policy has been an abject failure. America cannot afford four more years of this.

Now, despite being complicit in this catastrophic foreign policy, John McCain says Barack Obama isn't ready to protect our national security. Now, let me ask you: whose judgment should we trust? Should we trust John McCain's judgment when he said only three years ago, "Afghanistan--we don't read about it anymore because it's succeeded"? Or should we trust Barack Obama, who more than a year ago called for sending two additional combat brigades to Afghanistan?

The fact is, al-Qaida and the Taliban--the people who actually attacked us on 9/11--have regrouped in those mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan and are plotting new attacks. And the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff echoed Barack's call for more troops.

John McCain was wrong. Barack Obama was right.

Should we trust John McCain's judgment when he rejected talking with Iran and then asked: What is there to talk about? Or Barack Obama, who said we must talk and make it clear to Iran that its conduct must change.

Now, after seven years of denial, even the Bush administration recognizes that we should talk to Iran, because that's the best way to advance our security.

Again, John McCain was wrong. Barack Obama was right.

*****

It sounds like Biden is implying that McCain was wrong at every turn about U.S. policy over there and that Obama actually was right on target all along about what should be done. But consider the following points:

--Biden included the Taliban, the indigenous insurgent (and former nationally-controlling) political-military group in Afghanistan, as being part of those who “actually attacked us on 9/11” when there is no evidence to link them with Al-Qaeda other than that they had supplied sanctuary to that group and had an alliance with them for the expressed purpose of defeating their civil war opponents in Afghanistan. Naturally, when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan after 9/11 and began fighting the Taliban, the Taliban began fighting the U.S. back (there, not here). The Taliban is NOT Al-Qaeda any more than those Sunni chiefs and their insurgent soldiers in Iraq were. Once the U.S. began to negotiate with those chiefs, they cooperated with us to kick out what element of Al-Qaeda that was there.

--Are we talking at all with the Taliban or just using them as a political scapegoat to give the folks back home the feeling that we’re fighting terrorism? They aren’t going anywhere; to borrow McCain’s phraseology, we could be there “100 years” and the Taliban would still be there in some form or another. They represent a legitimately popular political sentiment in that part of the world. That it clashes with our ideas of human rights (particularly in its treatment of women and other religions) only makes the Taliban a safer scapegoat to set up and attack for domestic political consumption.

--Biden then said that we should talk to Iran because “that’s the best way to advance our security.” I agree with that. After all, talking to the Sunni chiefs helped the surge to succeed to the point where violence has greatly subsided in those areas of Iraq. But why not talk in the same way with the Taliban? And try to get them to break with Al-Qaeda?

During last night’s presidential nomination acceptance speech, Barack Obama also lumped the Taliban together with Al-Qaeda. Obama wants to step up the warfare against the Taliban (why?) as though this will lead him to the Al-Qaeda leadership. To me, all this will do will be to make the Taliban grow even closer to and more dependent on Al-Qaeda than it already is, strengthening the influence of that terrorist organization in the area.

It seems to me that U.S. aims in Afghanistan are getting just as muddled as they were in Iraq. I thought we were over there to catch and destroy the terrorists responsible for the 9/11 attacks against us. So what are we doing getting bogged down again fighting a group of people whose overriding gripe against us is that we’re over there fighting them? Sound familiar?

Here we go again!

This Blog: F.Y.I.

I had always thought that blogs were a good idea because they accorded individuals the opportunity to express their own views about issues without having to tow some “party line”.

If you go to a church or some other religious institution, you’re expected to speak in a certain matter and never broach sensitive topics that question doctrine. The idea is (1) you chose to attend this church, (2) here is the church’s belief statement, plain for anyone to see, and (3) if you don’t like it, you can go somewhere else.

The same can be said for the work environment. There are standards usually presented there by management that restrict to some degree the speech of the employees.

If I submit a writing for publication in a magazine or newspaper, or as a book, it must pass the scrutiny of that publication’s editor before it will be printed.

At school in the classroom, whether you are a teacher or a student, there are also standards which restrict and focus the expressions of those involved.

And so on.

I’ve written articles on this blog for which I’ve received comments both of agreement and disagreement. I welcome both of these types of responses with the realization that this is the whole point of blogging as I see it: it is a forum in which people can express their individual views and discuss them without being tied down by some externally-imposed doctrinal standards.

I’m not in this endeavor to garner anyone else’s approval. If you come across this blog and can get something out of it, then great! If not, then, F.Y.I., you don’t have to read it! But I will never censor my own legitimate opinions just because someone else feels put out by them. That’s not what this is about.

And that’s the beauty of personal blogging. I appreciate blogs whose writers are honest about their views and experiences, and aren’t just trying to tow someone else’s line for approval. Of course, getting included in a blog carnival or “circle” doesn’t imply the opposite; sometimes people with common ideologies or interests just coalesce.

I can tell you right now that….

--Skeptics may object to my occasional excursions into the mysterious and spiritual.

--Doctrinaire religious people may object to my disagreements with their doctrines.

--Conservatives and liberals alike may object whenever I don’t tow their ideological line on a given issue or personality.

--Academics may object to me, a lay individual, discussing a topic that lies within their professional spheres of expertise.

--Since my blog jumps around from topic to topic, anyone who just wants to read a blog that precisely fits a narrowly-defined category may object to it.

-And some people, incredible as it may seem, may object to me discussing my own life experiences since these didn’t correspond to their own (how could they?).

I’m basing some of what I’ve written here on my experiences in visiting other blogs and observing how their authors relate to each other. I'm also aware that more people who personally know me around town may be coming in contact with this blog. If you’ve taken the time and effort to read it with an open mind and/or even submitted comments whenever it suited you, then you can pretty much exclude yourself from what I’ve written above; you already “get it”!

Breath of Fresh Maher

I recently saw comedian Bill Maher interviewed on CNN's Larry King Show. After watching this segment, I realized that I agreed with everything that he said. From his assertion that Hillary Clinton would have been a better choice for VP to his compassion and advocacy for animals to his exhortation to true believers of various diverse viewpoints regarding God to just "man up and admit that you don't know", Mr. Maher may very well be someone intellectually honest enough to lay it out on the line. I don't get HBO, which carries Maher's own show, and his subdued, charming persona displayed with Larry King may not carry over into his other performances. But I'm going to have to keep my eyes and ears open for this "breath of fresh air" in the midst of the pervadingly stagnant, stinking, and polluted media cesspool.

Loud and Aggressive People

Max Erhmann, in his famous poetic exhortation Desiderata, urges the reader to “avoid loud and aggressive people; they are vexations to the spirit”. I certainly agree wholeheartedly with this as a general principle; who wants be around bullies and blabbermouths? Sometimes, though, one just must learn how to negotiate through unavoidable relationships with these types. But I’d just prefer to avoid them altogether. I also have a bit broader interpretation than most probably do of what constitutes a “loud and aggressive” person.

There are those whose overt demeanor would seem to disqualify them for a “loud and aggressive” designation; they may have soft voices and project a relatively pacifist, friendly image in their social interactions. But if they spread slander and gossip about others (behind their backs, of course) with their soft voices, and use other, more physically aggressive people to do their dirty work for them, then I’d also have to include these types as part of the thoroughly avoidable “loud and aggressive” crowd. And this more subtle group is more insidious and harder to ferret out. Even so, there is something about an up-front, obnoxiously pushy person that pushes my buttons! But at least with them, I can overtly stand my ground and give an assertive response. With the “stealth” aggressors, any confrontation on my part with them will be attributed to “my” aggressive nature, so simple avoidance is probably the best strategy.

Monday Newsbreak: 8/25

--My week was dominated by Tropical Storm Fay as it wound its slow, meandering way through the state of Florida. The “eye” passed directly over Gainesville, which was a blessing in disguise, sparing us from constant exposure to more outer bands and the concomitant flooding. It put a “damper” on my son’s preparation for college in Jacksonville, while my daughter’s school was cancelled on Friday. The road race that I was going to run in this past Saturday was postponed until October 4. Ironically, a thunderstorm unrelated to Fay hit us Sunday and caused more flooding than the tropical storm.

--So Barack Obama picked Delaware Senator Joseph Biden to be his running mate. I’ve always liked Biden, but he does have a tendency to put his foot in his mouth from time to time. I wish his own campaign for president had taken off instead of stalling. I still think that Hillary Clinton would have been a better choice for VP. But we’ll see how it all ends in November (or December if we have another “2000”).

--The Olympics have wound down, and I am glad of that. I liked watching certain events (running, swimming, beach volleyball), while I avoided others (boxing, synchronized swimming) like the plague. I also ended up tuning out the gymnastics after the extreme nationalism and rule-breaking (underage participants) on the part of the Chinese teams seemed to take the spotlight.

--My hometown of Gainesville is currently undergoing its annual population swell as thousands of University of Florida students inundate the area. And it gives me pause to think about my status as a UF alumnus. Being a member of their alumni association carries some benefits, and I may just be ready to take advantage of some of them.

--This Tuesday is a local election day for me here in Alachua County, with races for county commissioner, school board, sheriff, judge, and property assessor. Taking a few minutes to vote (after reading about the candidates and the issues) is one of the coolest and easiest things you can do for your community and country.

Let the Speaker Speak

One of the blogs that I have discovered lately is by Marcus A. Smith. Smith presents some very helpful insights about public speaking, one among them being that you don’t have to be standing up behind a podium addressing a crowd in a formal setting to be engaged in public speaking. Instead, it may be more beneficial to picture any opportunity for verbally expressing yourself to others as public speaking. To a great extent, I see some value in looking at public speaking this way. But there is an important caveat.

If I am “given the podium”, that means that I have the authority to make a reasonably uninterrupted presentation to others. When in other more informal settings, I rarely have this opportunity. Everyone seems to want to get their two cents worth in, and I can almost never get anyone outside my family to show the common civilized courtesy to hear my thoughts out until I’m finished expressing them (although these people do exist in small numbers).

Part of this rudeness on the part of “listeners” may be due to the shrinking attention span and increasing impatience on the part of people in general (as I perceive it). Another reason may be that people tune in to television and radio and pattern their listening behavior on talk show hosts who shamelessly interrupt their guests in mid-sentence to make their own (usually topic-changing) points. The worst offenders, as I see them, are CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and Fox’s Sean Hannity. But they’re just the worst of the bad. The commonly-seen rapid-fire format where a host shoots off questions to one of two or three guests (set off to the side of the screen in little boxes) may pander to people who are incapable of concentrating on anything for a sustained period of time, but they almost never produce anything resembling a resolution to the topic being discussed.

For a refreshing departure from this frustrating type of media experience, I highly recommend C-Span’s Book TV feature, which “spans” each weekend. I have learned more about just any topic imaginable than I’ve picked up on any other station, just from listening to speakers who were accorded a decent amount of time to speak on their topics of expertise and/or interest. There is almost always an orderly period for questions from the audience at the end.

Why can’t the networks run their shows like this? Well, I already know one of the answers. People at-large want somebody spoon-feeding them their opinions, and in small, tasty bites. Focusing on any one topic long enough for them to develop their own personal opinions would be too much of a drag!

My Foreign Language Study Update: 8/23

Although I haven’t studied as much as I had wanted, I still passed a milestone of sorts with my foreign languages. On July 22, I made small posts on this blog in Russian and Chinese. I was able to find some websites that I could use to write with Cyrillic and Chinese scripts. The Chinese was considerably slower to write because the characters were arranged according to which radicals they belonged to. I’ve grown used to using the Chinese Romanized pinyin spelling to reference different characters, so this is something that’s going to take a little practice on my part. I also found a site that would enable me to write in other exotic scripts, as well as in Romanized scripts tailored for specific languages (such as French, Spanish, German, Polish, and Vietnamese with each language's special diacritic marks).

I have all of the resources I need to make great progress in the foreign languages I want to become proficient in, but I need to just put in the time and effort. Hopefully, with future blog postings in different languages, I’ll get some responses and be able to interact with others on the Web.

I think the only way I’m going to take the needed time and effort to successfully learn these languages is to commit to regularly posting articles in them (or in something resembling them). So don’t be surprised if you’re looking at this blog and suddenly encounter some weird gibberish. It’s probably just one of my exercises in another language (or possibly just weird gibberish).

On a side note, I think it’s great that Google has an instant language translator. It’s useful for me in that I can translate words and simple, short phrases from a language into English and vice versa. But the process can break down badly when translating full texts and even single sentences. This service is useful, though, within its limitations. And Google does seem to be dedicated to making this service progressively better. Naturally, though, other than its use as a dictionary of sorts, I avoid the Google translation tool, the whole point of my writing in a foreign language being to practice thinking and writing in it.

Pseudoscience Vs. Popularizing Science

I’ve encountered on a number of occasions the complaint lodged by scientists and self-proclaimed skeptics that the popular media is oversaturated with pseudoscience and the paranormal. I tend to agree with this viewpoint, especially when I watch a channel such as The History Channel or The Biography Channel and get shows about ghosts, dubious legendary monsters, and “eyewitness” accounts of space alien encounters. I scanned my very large selection of cable-provided stations and couldn’t find one that was honest about devoting their programming to this sort of popular fantasy material. Instead, supposedly reputable channels lower their standards (and probably raise their ratings and advertising income) by showing this drivel. And driving out the treasure of programs that they could have been showing and which would have been truly educational. So in this regard, I’m standing right up there in agreement alongside the scientists and skeptics.

But some of these folks who want to defend the integrity of science and honest reality sometimes go a bit over the line with their criticisms of others. I’ve read criticisms of physicists Michio Kaku and Stephen Hawking for their assiduous attempts at making science interesting and available to the general public. Since mathematics, much of it very intricate, underlies hard science, Kaku and Hawking had to develop language that more or less summarized in more general terms what was going on in their fields. And also discussed topics that they knew would capture the public’s imagination (e.g. wormholes). To some, this was a “bad” thing to do.

I’ve seen a similar process happen in art and music. There will be a circle of artists who consider themselves pure to the art. When one of them decides to produce art that resonates with the public at-large, the rest of the circle often accuses him/her of selling out. Much of the criticism aimed at Kaku and Hawking within the scientific community may be partially motivated by the feeling that these two are reaping fame and reward out of proportion to their true contributions to their fields and have thus “sold out”. But their popular works are stimulating true interest in real science and moving (some, but not enough) people to abandon pseudoscience.

Scientists need to remember that they need to promote their fields to others on the outside in order to obtain the needed funds to sustain their own research and careers. Those who work directly for businesses may or may not have to engage in the tedious activity of trying to get grants from government and businesses to be able to do a research project. But for those who do, these scientists need to be able to explain their scientific aims in a plain language that strikes an appropriate balance between its simplicity and the technical nature of the subject matter. And in a more general sense, scientists need to become, like Kaku and Hawking, more engaged with the public in order to ensure that government funding of scientific research will continue to be politically popular.

My Top Twelve Favorite REM Songs

REM is one of the greatest all-time rock bands ever, in my estimation right up there with the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and The Who. Drummer Bill Berry, bassist Mike Mills, lead guitarist Peter Buck, and singer/lyricist Michael Stipe have shown over the years that unselfish collaboration and friendship can endure within a band regardless of its level of success. Although Berry had to leave his colleagues in the mid-nineties because of serious health concerns, REM has continued to this day producing quality, significant music. In my opinion, their “golden years” happened in the period from 1989 through 1994 when they (all four) produced four incredible albums: Green, Out of Time, Automatic For the People, and Monster. But they’ve done songs I like all the back from their debut EP Chronic Town up to today. Not only do I like REM’s music, but I like each of its members as well (I can’t think of any other band besides the Beatles that I can truly say that about).

Regarding my selections, I could have listed my “top 50” REM songs, but since this is primarily a writing blog and I wanted to write about each song, I had to undergo the painful soul-searching process of reducing the number to something manageable, like “twelve” (I couldn’t bear to cut it to “ten”). So, here we go:

#12: What’s the Frequency Kenneth
During the summer of 1994, I was poised to hear another refined and melodic album by REM in the mold of Out of Time and Automatic for the People. The first track released from the new album Monster was a radical departure from the previous two works. What’s the Frequency Kenneth featured a solid background of guitar that gave it a much harder edge. The strange title was based on the words a deranged man uttered as he assaulted CBS News anchor Dan Rather (a big REM fan himself). And the rougher sound typified by this first track permeated most of Monster.

#11: Pilgrimage
During the mid-nineties, I “caught up” with REM’s earlier works. Pilgrimage was a slow-developing, but ultimately loud song from Murmur, their first full-length album. For some reason, Michael Stipe kept singing the words “two-headed cow” at various moments in the song.

Yes, it was its musical, not lyrical, side that gave this song its special appeal to me.

#10: Walk Unafraid
REM’s late-nineties album Up was, for them, a commercial disappointment following a string a very successful albums. Bill Berry and his important contributions to the band in the studio were no longer there. The tracks that were picked for singles releases were usually poor choices (in my opinion). Up contained several good tunes that would have done better on the charts, Walk Unafraid being one of them. Walk Unafraid’s lyrics resonated with me and continued to reveal Michael Stipe's uncanny, deep empathy for issues I cared about (such as walking clumsily).

#9: E-Bow the Letter
From the generally-disappointing New Adventures in Hi-Fi album, E-Bow the Letter was one of REM’s many songs whose mood and production was so different that they stood apart, not only from other artists’ works, but also distinctly from REM’s. E-Bow the Letter was a duet between Michael Stipe and Patti Smith. It also may have been Stipe’s greatest single performance as a vocalist, although he basically talked throughout the song.

#8: Suspicion
Suspicion is the track from Up that I was convinced would have been a chart-topper had it been released and promoted as a single. Later I discovered that it had been released as a single, but still went nowhere. Go figure. Suspicion was a mysterious, slow, dreamy piece that would have had great cross-over appeal on different radio stations had it been properly promoted. Oh well, at least I got it!

#7: Man on the Moon
In early 1993, I fell in love with this song, which was also the song that set off my frenzied collection of REM’s albums. It was a memorial to the late comedian Andy Kaufman as well as a patchwork quilt of Michael Stipe’s takes on skepticism, religion, and urban legends (at least that’s my “take” on it).

#6: South Central Rain (I’m Sorry)
South Central Rain was a special REM song in that it was several years after I heard it before I heard any of their other songs. The only reason I even heard it back in 1984 was that MTV showed its video then as part of their regular rotation. A great, stirring old song, although I’m not exactly sure what Michael Stipe was trying to communicate with it (other than that he was “S-O-R-R-Y”)!

#5: Find the River
This song concluded the beautiful 1992 album Automatic For the People. Softly played and sadly sung, Find the River had a mysterious, prophetic mood to it that portended a future containing a finality, possibly that of life itself. To end an entire album this way left me saying “wow!” to myself. A very emotional piece (they keep getting more so the higher up I get with this ranking).

#4: Half a World Away
Buried deep within the 1990 album Out of Time is Half a World Away, another sad tune expressing the sentiments of separation laid out in its title. The acoustic, strummed guitar stands out in this track.

#3: The Wrong Child
From the moment I first heard it in 1994, this song from their 1989 album Green sent chills up my spine for the way it elicited strong waves of memories and emotions about my own childhood. Multitracked with Michael Stipe’s high-pitched singing and featuring acoustic guitar accompaniment, The Wrong Child was what I would call a massive “tearjerker”. I can’t think of any other REM song that even remotely sounds like it, either. It made me wonder what sources of such insight this band possessed to come up with something this sensitive and beautiful.

#2: Let Me In
My favorite track off of Monster, Let Me In was (to me) REM’s most instrumentally-intense piece. Mike Mills was chiefly responsible for flooding this song with an overpowering, constant guitar presence. The lyrics were a belated plea by Michael Stipe to his late friend Kurt Cobain for the troubled Nirvana singer to share his problems with him. Like The Wrong Child, I never heard Let Me In played on the radio. REM is one band whose albums contain the great bulk of their important material. If I had just stuck with listening to their singles releases, I would have completely missed out on some incredible songs (like Let Me In).

#1: Imitation of Life
Imitation of Life was one example of the best song from one of REM’s albums being released as a single. Coming off their inspired Reveal CD, this tune contained two compelling melodies playing off against each other until one of them, childlike and wistful, won out and was repeated to the end. More a collage of images than a coherent narrative, Imitation of Life was one of those malleable songs that could be whatever the listener wanted to make it be. Taking it as a mood piece worked for me. It’s one of those songs that makes me feel good whenever I hear it.

So that’s my personal version of the very best of one of the very best bands ever, REM.

Occlumency, Snape, and the Real World

To me, the most interesting character in J.K. Rawling’s Harry Potter series is Severus Snape, the sinister teacher at Hogwarts Academy who is always picking on Harry and his friends. Snape seems either unwilling or unable to conceal his disdain for others, especially for those with a connection, even if only indirectly, with his troubled and sad youth. Is Snape on the side of the good or the bad? You can never be sure, and this ambivalence in his personality is what makes him the most believable (and human) of all the Harry Potter characters, all of the adorning magic in the series notwithstanding. He is quite the hypersensitive type, never letting a personal slight escape him unnoticed. Yet in the fifth book, The Order of the Phoenix, Headmaster Dumbledore has Snape teach Harry the obscure and difficult art of “occlumency”. Occlumency is the magical art of being able to block others from telepathically transmitting information to oneself (Harry is experiencing a problem in this area). And Snape is supposedly a master in occlumency. But in ordinary social interactions, he wears his heart out on his sleeve and takes in everything!

In real life, if you choose to believe in mental telepathy, than I suppose you can go a step further and believe in something like occlumency as well. I don’t. But there does seem to be a lesson in all of this anyway.

As children, we haven’t yet developed the ability to discriminate between the relevant and irrelevant regarding our interactions with others. We take it all in, both the good and bad, and have to store all of our experiences somewhere in our minds. So taunts and threats from elders and peers can scar one’s attitude toward others and life in general. Later, as with Snape’s occlumency, we (if we are maturing, that is) learn skills to filter out the harmful and irrelevant transmissions from others while taking in what is constructive and positive.

I am fifty-one years old and am still in the process of learning this filtering skill. I know of kids from my childhood who, in spite of being the victims of harassment from their peers, were able to filter out the bad and function effectively. I wasn’t. But I also know of people older than me who never learned how to block out unreasonably-negative social input and are so lacking in self-confidence that they have difficulty deciding on simple courses of action in their daily living.

As for me, Rawling’s occlumency has provided a model for me to call up in situations where I am still learning to fend off attacks on my confidence and purpose, even at this stage in my life. Of course, occlumency is in itself make-believe, but so are all of the other psychological devices we invent to help ourselves cope! How using this self-help device works, as I see it, is to habitually insert the interjection “occlumency” into my thoughts at the appropriate cue, (feelings of pressure or harassment from others), to interrupt and change the direction of my feelings from those of becoming demoralized and dejected to those of become proactive and positive.

Oh well, it’s just a tool. Or, as I wrote a few days ago, a “good lie”!

This topic reminds me of a "Christian" minister I heard preaching on Jesus's teachings a few years ago. This man, "slightly" adapting Jesus's words to suit his own worldview (as so many do), said that if someone strikes you on one cheek (i.e. commits an offense against you), then turn the other to him. If he strikes that one, then slug him! I think my "occlumency" strategy beats slugging someone and getting thrown in jail (or suffering a much worse fate).

Personal Snippets: 8/19

--My son Will is going off to college today. We’re coming along to help him get set up in his dormitory. He only has three classes this school term, but they are going to be a tough three classes. It may take a little while for Will to feel comfortable and habituated to his new residence and lifestyle, but I know that he loves challenges and opportunities to better himself!

--At Borders the other day, I found a new game titled Hidato. So I bought the Hidato book, later discovering that it is the only Hidato book that’s been published so far. Hidato is another logic puzzle along the lines of Sudoku and Kakuro. With Hidato, the object of the game is to connect the squares by placing successive integers in adjacent or diagonal squares. I’ve already pretty much gotten the hang of this interesting puzzle type, although so far I’m only at the “Intermediate” level.

--It is interesting how the grass in my yard seems to be responding to seasonal changes. I’ve noticed a slight slowdown in grass growth for the last week. Since it has most recently been raining a lot around here, I know it has nothing to do with water shortage. Shorter grass to mow? Oh, the joy of it all!

--I am on the verge of running my first road race since the one I ran (without much interest) in 1976 in Hollywood, Florida. This one is to promote and help fund Gainesville’s local Red Cross. The course is a five kilometer block in the southwestern corner of the University of Florida campus comprising dorms, the agriculture college research area, the Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, and alligator-populated Lake Alice. I am long-familiar with this area and look forward to trying my hand (and feet) at it this coming Saturday morning. Not expecting record-shattering times or a top finish, I’m just in it this time to establish a new activity (competitive running), finish the race, and start collecting running-race tee-shirts.

--What have been your favorite Olympic events to watch (assuming you’ve been watching any)? I’ve enjoyed the table tennis, basketball, weightlifting, swimming, and beach volleyball. I saw part of a field hockey game, but it just looked like a composite of soccer and ice hockey. The big events to me are coming up: bicycle racing on that super-high-banked track and the running events. The women’s marathon was spectacular.

--My almost thirteen-year-old daughter has drawn a picture for one of her school classes showing something that she would like to do on a vacation: sky-diving. Wow! I’ve got two incredibly brave kids! But, you know, I’ve been itching to try a sky dive or two as well. Now that I’ve finally flown (as a passenger) in a plane (in 2006 at age 49 for the first time).

Monday Newsbreak: 8/18

--The Russian occupation of parts of Georgia has continued, with a delay between the cease-fire agreement signed by the two nations and the cessation of open conflict and withdrawal by Russian forces according to that agreement. Now Germany, which had blocked Georgia’s last application to NATO membership, is expressing interest in this beleaguered little country gaining admission to NATO as German Prime Minister Angela Merkel paid a visit to Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital. For whatever legitimate reasons the Russians may have had with its initial forceful response in this conflict to Georgian armed aggression against South Ossetia, its subsequent conduct and arrogant rejection of international criticism is going to severely backfire in terms of other countries willing to engage in mutually constructive relations with them. And it already has emboldened those critics who are resurrecting the old Reagan accusation of the former USSR (of which Russia was the dominant republic) as an “Evil Empire" in order to deepen suspicion of Russia's current intentions.

--Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama met for a discussion with evangelical Christian pastor Rick Warren at his California church. The questions were whatever Mr. Warren chose to ask and primarily concerned the issues of the candidates’ religious faiths, their character, and their opinions on certain hot-button issues like abortion, gay marriage (under the guise of how marriage should be defined), and the U.S. Supreme Court. Since both McCain and Obama expressed a Christian evangelical faith, they seemed comfortable accepting this forum (although McCain continually would change the discussion topic to get his “talking points” in). But what if a Catholic or Jew were one of the candidates? Rick Warren may seem like a pretty nice guy, but his religious beliefs are exclusive in nature, excluding adherents of other belief systems from acceptance by his (and his followers’) conception of God. Most Americans were shut out of this discussion with our next president, including Catholics, Jews, liberal denominations, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs, Hindus, other faiths, the nonreligious, agnostics, and atheists. Implicit in Warren’s presentation was the sense on his part that he and his religious circle have a corner on ethics and character. Now what I would like to see is a forum between the candidates run by leading scientists and educators. And how about one run by legal scholars as well? Or even postal workers?! Judging by the track record of religious leaders as I have seen it, just about any profession picked at random could speak with as much personal authority on the topics of ethics and character.

--At this writing, Fay is still just a tropical storm, but is expected to cut across western Cuba and enter the Gulf of Mexico, where it is expected to strengthen to possible hurricane status. Who knows where it will end up?

--The Beijing Summer Olympics have been pretty interesting so far. I could write about the winners, but one thing I noticed was the enormous range of reactions that athletes had when they lost. Some threw down their equipment in anger, some cried, some perfunctorily congratulated the winner with frowning handshakes, and then there was Dara Torres. Torres is an Olympic veteran swimmer who, at 41, is probably through with her Olympics “career” after this one is over. She participated in three events, including individual and team relay races, all three finishing in second place to the Gold Medal winner. She always displayed the most gracious sportsmanship toward others although she obviously must have been very distraught at not winning.

As a side note, I sometimes have a little difficulty rooting for the Chinese when I see how much pressure their country is putting on them to win the Gold “for China”. This hyper-nationalism really aggrieves me. Ironically, even in the midst of the concurrent, very regrettable Russo-Georgian conflict, it is encouraging to watch the Russian athletes competing. Although their performances are naturally a big deal in Russia (as ours are in the U.S.), I don’t sense that they are “under the gun” as propaganda puppets for the Motherland (as was the case during the Soviet years).

Hurricane Fay Danger

Although, at this writing it’s just “tropical storm” Fay, all of the forecasters are predicting it to strengthen over the next three days, first as it moves in a WNW direction skirting southern Cuba, and then once it turns more northerly after leaving Cuba for Florida. The projected path has Fay striking Florida, either in the southern part of the peninsula on Tuesday or further up the coast later in the day.

Living in Gainesville, I’m concerned that the center of the “cone of probability” has Fay hitting Gainesville early on Wednesday as a minimal hurricane (or a very strong tropical storm). Of course, four years ago, the same types of projections had Hurricane Charley hitting us directly, too (which it didn’t). But all of the state of Florida is concerned about what direction Fay will ultimately take and how strong it will get. If it hits Florida early, Fay is more likely to be a weaker hurricane, but that is not guaranteed. The further west it travels before turning more in a northeastward direction will give it more of an opportunity to strengthen, making wherever it does strike more vulnerable. Back in 2004, Charley was pretty much in the same spot off the southwestern coast of Florida where Fay is predicted to be late Monday/early Tuesday, but it suddenly strengthened into a very strong hurricane and unexpectedly changed its course to the east, resulting in a devastating hit in the Punta Gorda/Fort Myers area. The situation with Fay is just as uncertain.

As for me, hurricane season may have officially begun on June 1, but the “real” season is finally in full swing with Fay. This storm is particularly frustrating for us since we’re driving to Jacksonville Tuesday to help our son to get himself moved in as a freshman in college there. But regularly living through hurricane threats is part of what it means to be a Floridian, and I’m planning to go on with my business regardless, just as most everyone else is going to as well! If Fay is coming directly at me at a dangerous level of intensity, of course I’m going to make the necessary preparations. But I’m not putting my life on hold or holding my breath for it, either!