Two Stories: The Shack and Contact

[Warning: Contains plot spoilers for The Shack and Contact]

I recently finished reading William P. Young’s novel The Shack. It is a fictional novel portraying a man’s struggle with grief over his young daughter’s abduction and murder during a vacation trip many years earlier. One day Mack receives a cryptic note inviting him to a meeting with “Papa” in the very same country shack that his daughter had been killed in. Angry at first, he decides to go there and see who “Papa” is. And he ends up meeting God in the three persons of the Trinity (“Papa” is one of them and appears to him as an elderly, ebullient black woman). When Mack arrives at and enters the dilapidated, bloodstained shack, it and its surroundings are instantly transformed into a beautiful little cottage and well-kept grounds. Mack stays the weekend there, and through his dialogues and interactions with the three persons of God (“Papa”, Jesus, and holy spirit), he renews and strengthens his faith. Coming back, he suffers an automobile accident and wakes up in the hospital to find that time had apparently stopped in the “outside” world, for it is still the same day that he had set out for the shack! Mack recounts his experiences to his best friend Willy and his wife. Both accept his honesty behind his told experiences. But in the end, Mack knows that his encounter with God was essentially unprovable and always meant to be very personal.

The late scientist/educator Carl Sagan was quite vocal in proclaiming his atheism. He was equally adamant about his disbelief in the paranormal as well. But that did not stop him from writing his acclaimed novel-turned-movie Contact, which starred Jodie Foster as an astronaut who travels through space to have humanity’s first direct encounter with alien life. When she finally reaches the targeted planet for the contact, she discovers that the alien entity is presenting itself in the form of her beloved father. That experience is very personal in nature, much like Mack’s is in The Shack. And also, Jodie comes back to Earth to discover that her ship never took off. As was the case with Mack, the long stretch of time in which she experienced her voyage and encounter happened in an instant. And also like Mack, she had to reconcile with herself and others the extent to which her experiences were real.

In Contact Carl Sagan explored, from an alien’s point of view, how a first encounter with humans would most wisely be set up. He concluded that it would be done in such a way as to reduce the culture shock that would inevitably emanate from a highly publicized contact. Hence the very personal, subjective, and unprovable nature of the experience. In The Shack, it is God who is seeking contact. The message is that God wants relationship with all of humanity, but like the alien in Contact, goes about this one human at a time. And once again, the experience has a very personal, subjective, and unprovable nature to it. Both Foster’s character and Mack nevertheless, after some personal doubts, come out of their experiences personally transformed and feeling positive about their new (in Contact) or strengthened (in The Shack) relationships with the alien/God.

Just noting the similarities between The Shack and Contact doesn’t necessarily imply that William P. Young incorporated Sagan’s theme and transformed it into a Christian message. The two authors may each have been drawing on an common idea that’s been around for a while: when approaching an animal in friendship, go slowly and come down to its level to alleviate its fear and distrust. And assuming a role in that animal’s own social structure can both make it feel comfortable and go a long way toward successfully establishing contact.

Similarly, more technologically-adept cultures now tend to go easy on exposing themselves to more primitive cultures when encountering them. The idea nowadays is to avoid affecting the technologically-primitive culture adversely by quickly learning and imitating its ways so as to be as familiar and acceptable to it as possible.

The Shack will read differently, depending on whether or not you have been discipled in the tenets of evangelistic Christianity. To someone like me who knows the essential “ins and outs” of this faith, the book is just a repackaging of its doctrines to both seem more palatable to the believer and attract the interest of nonbelievers. Nothing wrong with that, but I would like to make one strong point. The big, big issue a lot of folks have with religion is that God chooses to be invisible and directly unapproachable . The Shack totally refutes that by making the deity visible and directly approachable. But it’s fiction, not real! And I think some people are reading and interpreting it reverently almost as if it were an added book of the Bible! Please don’t do that!
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Yesterday's Personal Stuff
I practiced a little piano, but laid off of the running to drive up to Jacksonville, pick up my son from college there, and bring him back home for Christmas vacation. What a wonderful reunion! It's great having the whole family back together again. I continued reading Twilight and Black House, both stories beginning to take a rather sinister twist.

Teflon Breaks

Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich is apparently an example of an idea that many in law enforcement hold to be true: the criminal mind is such that too long of a period of committing transgressions without getting caught can lead the perpetrator to become careless, even convinced that he/she simply cannot be caught. Hence the flippant arrogance of Blagojevich, already under investigation for corruption but still elected to a second term of office, as he apparently decided to auction off Barack Obama’s vacant U.S. Senate seat to the highest bidder. Openly. And then suggesting that he might just appoint himself to the seat! Given this, it was reassuring for me to see this jerk being led off in handcuffs under arrest. But is he still governor with the power to appoint?

I know, from seeing him several times on TV, that congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. was very enthusiastic about filling Obama’s seat. And I think his presence in the Senate would be a positive one. But what was his connection with Blagojevich during this office-selling scandal? Did he actually offer money to the governor in exchange for an appointment? Regardless of whether or not Jackson actually becomes Obama’s replacement in the Senate, I hope he comes out of this unscathed. Apparently, Blagojevich already holds Obama in contempt because the president-elect refused to wheel-and-deal with him regarding his own preference for the open seat.

Blagojevich may think that he is carrying on in the tradition of Chicago politics with his antics. But the success stories in that political machine were careful to cover their backs and not stick their necks out on their own, either. Blagojevich may have become so used to scandal within his administration that, with his own reelection, he thought he was a “Teflon governor” immune to consequences of his misdeeds. Well, he’s now discovering that Teflon breaks! But all may not be lost for him: If I were a betting man, I’d be laying down odds on the Fox News Network eventually hiring Blagojevich as an “expert” (to rail against Obama, of course) to complement their other “experts” like Oliver North, Dick Morris, and Karl Rove.
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Noteworthy Bumper Sticker: At Least the War on the Middle Class Is Going Well
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Yesterday’s Personal Stuff:
--Running: I ran 2.6 miles on the YMCA treadmill with a 19:00 time. Afterward, I ran a relaxed 1:35 lap around the Y’s field. I’m getting back “into the groove” little by little.
--Reading: I read some of Irish writer Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl series (third book: The Eternity Code). Pure escapist, funny stuff! And I read some more into Black House. I really like the beginning to this novel!
--Piano: I dutifully practiced my homework and my recital piece. It's a chore and not a passion. And that's the problem I'm having with it right now.

Lucid Dreams

Have you ever had a dream in which it finally dawned on you that it really WAS a dream, and that you had control over what happened in it? I think most all of us have had this experience of lucid dreaming, and some have expressed a kind of mastery over it, even going to the lengths of writing books and delivering speeches about how to have better lucid dreams.

I like the idea of having my own vivid “virtual” environment which I can manipulate at will. I guess most people do as well, which is why a lucid dream holds such a appeal. The problem for me is that, once I realize that I’m dreaming, the dream itself becomes unstable and I soon find myself waking up from it!

Most of my lucid dreams, which happen too seldom for my tastes, seem to involve the realization that I can fly. And although I enjoy the sensation of flight within a dream, I also find that it rarely occurs to me to attempt this. For most of my dreaming involves me in a rather “stupid” reactive mode to whatever events and imagery my mind produces. There is very little memory or initiative involved in my dreams. But I would like to encourage myself to have more lucid dreams.

The last lucid dream I had just recently happened and involved me standing on my back porch in the morning, helping my very old miniature poodle Taffy back into the house. As I was doing this, it occurred to me that this was 2008 and Taffy had died in 2006. I also thought at that moment something to the effect that 2006 had been a very significant year in a very profound way. So I knew then that I was dreaming. I soon woke up and realized that Taffy had died, but in 2007. I then tried to recall momentous events in my personal life, family life, and even events in the news that happened in 2006. But I couldn’t come up with anything that corresponded to the feeling that I had experienced in the dream. So there you go, another stupid dream!
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Yesterday’s Personal Stuff
--Running: I felt very under-the-weather in the morning, but I managed to later get myself down to the YMCA and run 1.5 miles on the treadmill with a 10:46 time. I need to get outside, though, and run longer distances.
--Reading: I’m nearly halfway through Stephenie Meyer’s famous novel-turned-movie Twilight. It is definitely aimed at girls, but is well written and enjoyable. I just began Black House, the sequel to The Talisman, by Stephen King and Peter Straub.
--Piano: My teacher says I need to read ahead in the music I’m playing and stop thinking “one note at a time”. I’ll be playing a short arrangement of J.S. Bach’s Bourrée in my recital in January.

Chris Matthews and Arlen Specter

So Chris Matthews, like Jeb Bush, is considering a Senate run in 2010. This time the state is Pennsylvania, and the seat that Matthews is seeking is the one held by long-time Republican senator Arlen Specter. How long has Specter been around? Well, he was one of the attorneys involved in the Warren Commission’s investigation of the 1963 Kennedy assassination. He has served long and well in the Senate as a moderate Republican. I have always felt that, in the midst of debates between the parties, Senator Specter was a fair, articulate defender of the truth. He always has been completely unfettered by ideology or party loyalty tests, instead using common sense as well as a desire to serve his people’s interests to guide his agendas and votes in the Senate. Specter recently served as the Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman when the last two Supreme Court appointees, John Roberts and Samuel Alito, were up for confirmation. He was very fair to all within the committee, regardless of their viewpoints, and produced two very productive and informative hearings. During the “nuclear option” period when then-Majority Leader Bill Frist threatened to bypass the Democrats’ judicial filibusters by radically changing the Senate rules, Specter was one of the handful of Republicans vehemently opposing this rash move. Yes, I strongly respect and esteem Arlen Specter as one of the best Republican senators in recent history.

But Senator Specter has been ill with cancer, twice undergoing chemotherapy for this disease within the past few years. Will he be able to continue being an effective senator while fighting cancer? I hope so, but many are wondering whether it may be time for another to replace him. And if someone does replace him, will it be a right-wing ideologue like Rick Santorum, a left-wing ideologue, or a more centrist Democratic candidate like Chris Matthews?

Chris Matthews is my current favorite cable news television personality. By far. Although he is by no means without faults, neither is anyone else in the business. Matthews is knowledgeable and passionate about whatever topic he has on his show. He deliberately gets guests who have a broad range of opinions and doesn’t shy away from confrontational debate. Matthews can provoke others to anger, but he also has a remarkably wicked sense of humor (my kind of host)! I can just imagine what he would be like on the Senate floor giving speeches (or even just presiding over the body with his gavel).

If Arlen Specter can endure his struggle with cancer and effectively carry on as a senator, then I support him staying on past 2010. But if his health continues to deteriorate, I think that Chris Matthews would be a great choice for the people of Pennsylvania to make if they want someone with a real personality who shares their essentially centrist-to-liberal political views.

Monday Newsbreak: 12/8

--It looks as if our soon-to-be president Barack Obama plans an ambitious public works program as soon as he is sworn in. As a matter of fact, this sounds as if it will dominate the news during the first few months of his administration. But the details are fuzzy, and we'll have to see how this promising story develops.

--I'm excited about the prospects for Caroline Kennedy replacing Hillary Clinton as New York Senator when the latter becomes secretary of state. Will it happen? I think yes, and she will make her presence felt in that body!

--Now that it's almost universally accepted that we are in a recession, I'm beginning to hear opinion makers stating that we're slipping into a depression. I'm no economist, but my experience has been that the last thing in a recession to recover is unemployment. Just because we're hearing reports of layoffs in many places does not necessarily mean that the recession is worsening. Retroactive analyses of the previous two recessions revealed that they had both essentially ended several months before the press reported on any recovery (I'm referring to the recessions in 1991 and 2000).

--The University of Florida football team won the Southeastern Conference championship and a place in the National Championship game with a tough 31-20 win over Alabama on Saturday. The Gators will play Oklahoma, who have made a point of running the score up on their opponents during the past few games.

--The NFL Miami Dolphins continued their incredibly turnaround this year with a 16-3 crushing of their divisional rival Buffalo yesterday. Miami is now tied with the Jets and the Patriots atop the AFC East Division with an 8-5 record. Still, they will probably need to win all of their remaining three regular season games in order to make the playoffs for the first time since 2003.

--Not exactly a general news story, but I decided to forgo the December 7th 5-kilometer running race that I had previously planned to run in. Instead, I intend to run longer in practice and begin to specialize in longer races, from 10-K to half-marathons. Gainesville will have a 15K race in January and a half-marathon in February. My goal is to enter each race and simply finish them successfully.

Jeb Bush

When Jeb Bush first ran for Florida governor in 1994, he was riding the crest of anti-Democratic sentiment that carried the Republicans to power in both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives that year. The only problem was that he was up against a popular incumbent governor in Lawton Chiles (“Walkin’ Lawton”). Simultaneously, Jeb’s brother, George W. Bush, was engaged in his own effort to unseat feisty, popular Texas governor Ann Richards. When the votes were counted on election night in November 1994, George W. had eked out a razor thin victory over Richards while Jeb had suffered a razor-thin defeat to Chiles, delaying his political career a crucial four years. So a relatively tiny amount of votes in these two states determined that it would be “Dubya”, not Jeb Bush, running for president in 2000. Jeb Bush did try again for governor in 1998, successfully defeating Buddy McKay in the election. He was a very popular governor in this increasingly Republican state, serving two full terms. In his campaign literature, his name was spelled with an exclamation point (JEB!), so I’ve made a running (and quickly pretty stale) joke of shouting out his name when referring to him in conversation. If people didn’t already think I was weird, that probably did the trick.

The supreme irony about Jeb Bush as it concerns me is that I voted for him when he lost in ‘94 and voted against him when he won in ‘98 and ‘02.

Even though Jeb Bush was a Republican with a clear GOP majority in the state senate and house, he was often at odds with these bodies, especially regarding their propensity to overspend. He was also a very competent leader in time of emergency, having guided Florida through several hurricane preparations and recoveries during his tenure as governor. He is fluent in Spanish, and would often hold press conferences where he would rattle off a speech and answer questions in Spanish. Which naturally makes a lot of sense in such a heavily Latino state as Florida.

I recognize that Jeb Bush was an effective governor in some ways, but I think that he was way over the top with his policy of keeping taxes so low that the state continually ranked near the bottom of the country with its public education system. Also, he was one of the culprits who interfered with the judiciary in the Terry Schiavo case, pushing through a bill design solely to overrule judicial rulings for this one single case (later the Senate’s majority leader Bill Frist would do the same on a national level).

Now Jeb Bush says he’s interested in running for the Senate in 2010. I say he’s a shoo-in if he does decide to run. I’ve always felt that Jeb Bush was a more intelligent, articulate, serious, and competent politician than his brother and father “W” and “HW” respectively. Who knows what would have happened had a few votes changed around in 1994?

It will be interesting, if and when Jeb Bush does start his “career” as U.S. senator, to see how long he will stay there before he takes the plunge and runs for president. You know that’s coming, sooner or later. Later, I’m hoping! Even though the country seems to be down on the Bush name, it’s also true that politics runs in cycles. Even if Barack Obama enjoys a successful and popular two-term presidency, conditions may be ripe for a more mature, seasoned Jeb Bush to make a successful run in 2016. Just spare me the exclamation point, please!

Who’s Happy?

“He’s dead, Captain. He died of too much happiness.” Thus said Dr. McCoy to Captain Kirk in the original Star Trek series episode titled I, Mudd (I probably missed a word or two with my faulty memory). Sounds nonsensical, doesn’t it? Well, that’s because it was meant to be nonsensical (see this relatively inferior episode to find out why, although you may discover that you just wasted an hour of your precious life). But I think I may, too, have just heard a little “serious” nonsense on the subject of happiness.

On National Public Radio's news show this morning was a segment about a study done to determine what kinds of people were the happiest. Using questionnaire results spanning nearly twenty years in people’s lives, the researchers concluded that social networking played an important role. Those in the center of social networks supposedly tended to be happier than those on the fringes. And happiness was defined by the researchers by certain possible answers on the questionnaire.

Broadly speaking (that’s how the radio reporter termed it), those in the center of social networks were more likely to catch “happiness waves” (I’m not kidding) as they swept through the network than those on its edges. The reporter then posed the question: wouldn’t those in the center of social networks be equally more susceptible to “unhappiness waves”? The answer given astounded me: no, because unhappiness spreads at a slower, SEVEN PERCENT less rate than does happiness. Now how did they pull that number out of the hat?!

I’m not against people speculating on subjective concepts like happiness and spreading their opinions around. After all, I do that sort of thing on this blog. But please don’t dress it all up with scientific, academic trappings and present it as some kind of objective truth! I could have just as easily assigned my own felt “happiness” weights to the different questions on their questionnaire, based on my own subjective values.

Everyone’s different, and happiness is not something at all quantifiable or even open to objective research. Going back to Star Trek (this time the beginning of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, a good movie), a recuperating Mr. Spock is on his home planet of Vulcan. He is recovering his memory and is being reeducated. A specially programmed computer exhaustively tests him on his knowledge and skills in the sciences. Then it poses a question that totally stumps the “objective” Spock: “How do you feel?”

Holiday Parcel Processing

When I watch television and continually hear about how badly the economy is doing and then go to work at the post office, I suffer from a deep sense of “disconnect”. For I am one of those people who process the Priority Mail packages that go out from the Gainesville area to all parts of the country (and world). And this holiday season promises to be just as big in the post office as before. Starting this week, we’ll see the volume of parcels dramatically rise, with my section of the processing taking “Priority”. During the next three weeks, there will be plenty of overtime, new temporary workers hired, no annual leave approved, a shortage of working space (because of all the parcels), and plenty of work to do!

There will most like arrive the time, as it usually happens with me each December when the parcel volume gets to seem overwhelming and I will once again begin to echo the immortal words of Ebenezer Scrooge: “Christmas? Bah, humbug!” But this annual exercise in work-overload is, of course, ultimately good for the U.S. Postal Service and for me as an employee, for it brings in much needed revenue. And it puts our economic picture in a more realistic perspective for me as well. Maybe the economy is running a little slower, but it is definitely still running!

AIDS Awareness

A couple of days ago, the planetary (and solar) statues of Gainesville’s Eighth Avenue Solar Walk were draped over in black. The reason: the annual observance of A Day Without Art, held on December 1 and designed to increase awareness of AIDS as an ongoing problem.

After the initial publicity and mass fear of the eighties, when some even termed AIDS as a species-threatening disease, those suffering with this terrible, terminal affliction are now suffering a different kind of fate in our society: compartmentalization. It seems that, as long as something “different” isn’t regarded as a general threat any more, than it becomes categorized, shelved, and pushed off to the side, at least as far as public attention is concerned. People are still coming down with AIDS, but most of us feel that it, unlike cancer, diabetes, or heart disease, is “someone else’s disease”. And quite a few still hold on to the notion that since AIDS is “preventable”, then those suffering from it deserved what they got!

If there is anything we should have learned over the past few decades, it is that most of the major diseases we suffer are largely preventable. Including the aforementioned “big three” of cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. But although people can take measures to reduce their risks, they still can succumb to them. Just ask those who knew and loved comedian Andy Kaufman, who died of lung cancer although he was always a non-smoker.

Prevention has always been an important element in the campaign to prevent AIDS. But like with other ailments, treatment of the already-afflicted is also very important. The latest advances in AIDS medical treatments are usually too expensive for the patients to afford, especially for those in the poor African nations where it is epidemic. So it requires a sense of altruism and generosity on the part of society as a whole to help its less fortunate members in this regard.

To this end, I salute the current president George W. Bush for his administration’s emphasis on global AIDS funding. He was recently honored for this at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church in Colorado, with others like U2’s Bono and Britain’s former Prime Minister Tony Blair weighing in their praise for Bush. Hopefully, he and his wife Laura will continue this humanitarian effort after leaving office next year.

800 KHZ

In late 1967, I had just begun the sixth grade at my school in Davie (near Hollywood, south Florida). Although I was a very fast runner and was generally healthy then, I had a tendency to get sick as well. I spent a good deal of time at the beginning of that school year at home bedridden, recuperating from illness.

It’s no fun being stuck in bed like that. But I had a radio I could fiddle around with. During the daytime, I noticed that I could pick up AM radio stations that I thought were relatively far away (like in West Palm Beach or Belle Glade). But when nighttime came, this revelation exploded into wonder when I found I could listen to stations hundreds of miles away like 1110/WBT/Charlotte, 750/WSB/Atlanta, 650/WSM/Nashville, and 770/WABC/New York. One of my favorite local stations, 790/WFUN, was difficult to pick up at night. One night I thought I was tuned in to it, but I was picking up a very strong signal. And they were broadcasting religious Christian programming. At the intermission, station ID was given: Trans World Radio, broadcasting from the island of Bonaire in the Netherlands Antilles (in the southern Caribbean). That was my first English-language foreign radio station (there were “tons” of powerful Spanish-language Cuban stations I could hear around the clock), and to this date it remains my favorite (although I have difficulty picking it up here in Gainesville).

Trans World Radio would broadcast on 800 kHz as station PJB with a booming, overpowering 500,000 watt signal. By contrast, American AM stations can only broadcast on certain frequencies with a maximum 50,000 watts. I never heard this station identify itself by its call letters on the air, but a station directory nevertheless gave them as being PJB. Later I discovered that this station also served as a relay station for Radio Nederland, playing shows in the early evening in Dutch and English (and, if memory serves me correctly, in Spanish). My favorite show of Radio Nederland, as I remember it, was The Happy Station. There was also Spanish-language religious programming just before and after the English bloc of religious shows, which would begin at 9 p.m..

Back then, the Christianity on those radio programs was a gentler brand, emphasizing God’s love and mercy while avoiding the strident, overbearing, and heavily political tone that today’s radio gurus tend to use. My favorite programs were Back to the Bible and Music and You. Back in 1967-69, Back to the Bible had a very pleasant-sounding host who presented the inherently very confusing Gospel message in such a way that made me WANT to believe it. But I was more captivated by the tone of his presentation than by its contents. And the traditional music was so soothing. Ditto, musically speaking, for the late evening program Music and You, which was a Trans World Radio production.

By contrast, the “teacher” in today’s version of Back to the Bible seems has, to me, a pedantic, overbearing style that is grating to my spirit. Sometimes I want to just kick the radio when I hear him speak!

Eventually, in 1969, I wrote a reception report to this station and received a souvenir QSL card(verification from the station that I heard it) in response. It was my first QSL card.

Later I discovered, that when PJB went off the air late at night, two other powerful stations from more distant lands would surface: rocker CKLW in Windsor, Ontario and XELO (later XEROK) in Chihuahua, Mexico. Usually I got XELO, which then in the late sixties broadcast in English. I especially enjoyed their endearing show titled Record Roost in which listeners’ requests were played, accompanied by a cast of on-air characters and special-effects talking animals. Lots of fun! In early 1970, I wrote a reception report to them as well (including in it a song request for Aquarius by the Fifth Dimension). The “QSL” card I received really didn’t verify that I had heard them, but I treated it as such anyway. And it showed the Record Roost cast! Did they ever play my song? Who knows, but I still felt like I was a part of "the family" anyway.

Up here in Gainesville, I would have thought that it wouldn’t be all that difficult to hear Trans World Radio on 800 kHz, but it is. Usually 800 kHz just sounds completely muddled on my radio, and that’s a shame. I wish they would bring back the peaceful tone they used to have on some of those old Christian shows. A gentle, caring voice and some beautiful music are what I need to soothe my sometimes troubled soul, not ridiculously convoluted doctrine barked out in a manner similar to the teacher in Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall!

Oh, one other thing: the lead-in theme music for the Radio Nederland relay station segment was a beautiful Caribbean-style instrumental piece dominated by a flute and an acoustic guitar. I never was able to identify it and continue to keep looking for what this "mystery piece" was.

Monday Newsbreak: 12/1

--Terrorists attacked the western Indian city of Mumbai this past week, causing many casualties and great loss of life. It is still early in the investigation to affix precise responsibility for the attack, but at this writing it looks as if the terrorists operated out of Pakistan. That country’s government is obviously afraid of the terrorist presence there and seems neither capable of squashing it themselves nor effectively cooperating with foreign governments (such as the U.S.) who have the means to accomplish this. I wonder how Obama will handle this friendly government which is nonetheless harboring our greatest enemies?

--The insanity called Black Friday, where shoppers across the country line up before dawn to rush into stores the day after Thanksgiving to purchase Christmas gifts at big discounts, reached a new low on New York’s Long Island when a mob rushing the entrance at a Wal-Mart there trampled to death one of the employees. I never have understood Black Friday shoppers. Nor do I understand why stores participate in this lunacy. Hopefully, we’ll see more moderation in this spectacle next year as a result of this tragedy. But I’m not counting on it.

--With sadness, I note the passing of a good, decent man: Dr. James A. Himes, who was the Dean of Students at the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine as well as a co-owner of the local Cathay Tea House restaurant when I knew him in the 1980s. He was in his late eighties and had been fighting cancer. Dr. Himes was a kind, considerate man whose passing will be mourned by many who loved and respected him. Including me.

--The stage is now set in college football for the exciting showdown between the University of Florida Gators and the University of Alabama Crimson Tide for the Southeastern Conference championship. The winner of next Saturday’s game will most likely play Oklahoma for the national championship in Miami. The Gators finally seem to be taking my advice (I’m sure they’re all reading this blog) and have begun to have some fun playing the game!

--The 2008 hurricane season officially ended yesterday. From my place in north-central Florida, only tropical storm Fay had a direct effect here, with its eye passing directly over us. Gustav scared quite a few in Louisiana while revealing John McCain as an unstable candidate. Cuba was rocked with three hurricanes and suffered much loss. Ike hit Texas in the Galveston area and Hanna traveled up the U.S. east coast. We got through the letter “P” this year, although there’s still a chance for more storms in December.

Being Right Vs. Engendering Good Will

One of the toughest things I’ve had to learn in life is when to take a stand on issues that I know I am right about against others who are equally convinced of their own views. Take, for example, the folks I know in the evangelistic community who entertain rigid views about subjects like evolution, certain hot-button social issues, and the literal interpretation of the Bible. I doubt that my take on any of these subjects, if loudly expressed, would change any of the minds of those who disagree with me. But some of those holding differing opinions on these subjects tend to invest a great deal of emotional capital in their viewpoints and regard those differing with them as either being deluded at best, or as adversaries at worst. Whenever I come across one of these people and they bring up one of these subjects, I try my hardest to deflect the topic to another “safer” area. Now is that a reasonable course of action for me to take?

I know that I will probably never find another soul on this planet who is in complete agreement with me on everything. If I did, I probably wouldn’t want to hang around that person anyway. But then again, people do tend to hang on to their pet opinions with great emotional tenacity and can get upset when confronted by someone who disagrees with them.

We in the West tend to think of ourselves as more direct communicators, as opposed to Eastern traditions of face-saving and indirect communication. But take a look at any one of the old Andy Griffith shows where Sheriff Taylor is continually faced with the question I have posed: when to take a stand on something because he knows he’s right, and when to “let it go” for the sake of preserving a relationship (usually with his bumbling deputy Barney Fife). In spite of what you may generally see in the media, be it fiction or news/talk shows, our social lives are full of this dilemma.

As an American, it is important for me to lay out where I stand on issues that matter the most for me. I can use various indirect methods to do this, one of them being this blog. I can write letters to “official” people in positions of authority such as local, state, or national representatives, religious and business leaders, or anyone else whose position properly places them at the receiving end of correspondence directly related to the field that they are in charge of. I can also comment on issues by writing to any media outlet I choose as well. These are all relatively indirect venues of expressing my opinions. Even if one of those folks who knows me and disagrees with me reads my opposing opinion, they will not feel the immediate threat to their constitution that head-on expression would cause. Even demonstrating in public is, to me, more indirect a method of expression than a personal debate with another.

I would like to think that people could overcome their sometimes extreme personal attachments to their cherished viewpoints to be able to have reasonable discussions with others without feeling slighted or causing insult to their “opponents”. But people are people, and I’m also not above feeling miffed when someone directly contradicts me.

Of course, I also recognize, more and more as I grow older, that it’s important for others to know that if they want to have a positive, friendly relationship with me, they’re going to have to expect to hear my honest opinion about different things. And respect my differing view (and me) without having to agree with it. There is still that “Sheriff Taylor” within me, though. For although I’m now more likely to state my differing opinions to others, I’m still wise enough to know when not to raise “sacred cow” topics when in the midst of “true believers” of those “sacred cows”.

Who’s the President?

Back in late November 2000, the controversy was swirling across the nation about whether George W. Bush or Al Gore won the Florida vote, which ultimately would decide the winner of that year’s presidential election. All sorts of legal actions and recounts were underway, and the media was full of images of officials carefully examining ballots for “hanging chads” and the like. Both Bush and Gore were assembling tentative cabinets and staff in anticipation of things falling their way in the end. All across the country, people were emotionally taking sides, either for Bush or for Gore. In this setting, I was going through the drive-through at my local Checkers fast-food place when the worker there, with whom I had talked before, posed me the “$60,000 question”: “So who’s the president?” To which I immediately replied (disregarding his intended meaning), “Why Bill Clinton, of course!”

As we go through the transition period between current president George W. Bush and president-elect Barack Obama, it would be a good idea to keep in mind that it is Bush, not Obama, who is now president. Whatever Obama does will matter on 1/20/09 and beyond. Until then, he is just the president-in-waiting. Naturally, Obama is the big figure in the news as he puts together and announces his staff and cabinet. Speculation is running rampant among the media’s talking heads about which directions he will take the economy and our foreign policy in. But right now it is still the Bush Show regarding the presidency.

It’s important to keep this in mind, for in the past we’ve experienced important events happening in this grey zone between a new president’s election and his inauguration. In 1992, outgoing president George H.W. Bush decided to send marines into Somalia on a “humanitarian” mission which, by the time that incoming president Bill Clinton inherited it, had morphed into a dangerous combat adventure. In 1980-81, the release for the Iran hostages was successfully negotiated between Carter’s defeat at the hands of Reagan in that year’s election and the latter’s inauguration. In 1960, the Bay of Pigs invasion designed to overthrow Castro’s leftist Cuban regime was designed and finalized in the last months of the Eisenhower administration. Incoming president John Kennedy did sign on to the invasion, but it was not of his making. And the most infamous example of this was the period of time in 1860-1861 between Abraham Lincoln’s election and his inauguration when most of the soon-to-be Confederate states seceded from the United States under the ineffective watch of failure-president James Buchanan. It was Buchanan, who had earlier derived much of his political support from the South, who utterly failed to keep the union together during this period when he could have exerted his presidential influence on those disaffected states.

There’s still a lot that can happen in America and the rest of the world before Obama steps in, and it will be Bush, not Obama, who will have the authority and ultimate responsibility for how our government behaves. Bush is already leaving horrendous messes in the Middle East and the economy for Obama to try to fix. Hopefully, he won’t do something during his final days in office to further complicate Obama’s new presidency.

My Personal Blog Observations

From time to time I browse around the Web to see what others are doing with their blogs. And I’ve come away, naturally, with a few observations that I would like to make now:

--There are very few people whom I personally know who actually write a blog. I’m not counting Facebook, which is something that I’m not quite sure what to do with. You would think, for example, from all of the “smarties” I went to school with, at least a few of them would avail themselves of this totally free opportunity to express themselves. Especially all of those great speakers and writers. I’m admittedly a very insulated, introverted soul and I’M doing it. Why aren’t some of these hams I’ve known from the past writing blogs as well?

--I see other blogs holding something called “carnivals” that are topically-based collections of selected articles from various blogs that the one holding the “carnival” regards as standing out in quality or significance. Why can’t I do the same, only just make my periodic “carnival” based on articles that I personally deem to personally noteworthy?

--Google’s Blogger is loaded with different features. One allows the blogger to post advertising according to his/her blog’s topics and interests, with the blogger having right of refusal (I think). Supposedly, if a reader then clicks on an ad that the blog carries, money will be transferred to the blogger’s account. But the way I see it, I’m already getting a great financial deal with being able to transmit my thoughts to the world through Blogger! This blog is one thing in the world that’s truly under my control. Why allow other parties into it to dilute (or even pervert) my message just for the pittance of a little money?

--I appreciate Blogger for offering the writer the opportunity to switch from one language to another, at least as far as Blogger-supplied text is concerned. But I want to be able to directly compose on my blog using Cyrillic and Chinese scripts without going through the painstaking process of using outside templates (which has been hampering me so far in this endeavor). Why couldn’t Blogger supply these different fonts for writers to compose their text with? Or does this question reveal my ignorance of how fonts work in the cyber world?

--And about Facebook: I went and got a Facebook account. So far I have three “friends” on it. O.K. I see pictures of their “friends” and read what they are writing back and forth with my “friends”. And I can write little messages to my “friends” and post pictures on their pages. This all strikes me as being rather transitory and “chatty”, not something that suits me at all. If I have something to write, you may have noticed on this blog (and on yours if I’ve left comments on it) that I tend to get a bit wordy in my writing. Nothing inherently wrong with being terse; it’s just not my bag!

--I’ve heard that there are millions upon millions of bloggers out there. But what constitutes a blog, and how can I access blogs that reflect my interests in any sort of deliberative, organized way? The blog directories I’ve seen so far are pathetically inadequate and limited.

Well, all in all my blog experience has been positive, and I plan to continue writing indefinitely. But it would improve my experience to see some of the aforementioned issues resolved in a positive way. At least I know I can start my own “carnival”!

Enjoying Thanksgiving

I had a very enjoyable Thanksgiving at home with my family today. My son Will joined us, coming home from college for a few days’ break. And my brother-in-law visited us for Thanksgiving dinner, too. This year, I didn’t have to go to work, so I’m at the dining room table typing this out in the evening. Earlier, I ran about 1.5 miles as darkness descended on us after the ever-earlier twilight. My wife Melissa planned and prepared our wonderful meal, with courses of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, “green fluff” (a pistachio/pineapple/whipped cream dessert), deviled eggs, olives, rolls, macaroni and cheese, and pecan pie. I watched some football as well on TV.

Thanksgiving, of course, is more than stuffing oneself with food, football, and bringing family together for a while. It is also a time to reflect on the different things to be thankful for. Sure, we’re living in dangerous times, and the economy is unstable. But when hasn’t that been the case? I live in a country that peacefully and orderly allows its people to change governments through elections, and I’m grateful for the recent election and its results. I am thankful to have a good job with benefits that allow my family and me to enjoy affordable, comprehensive medical care. And to live in a time when the advances in that field show so much hope. And I am thankful to be able to freely express my thoughts on this blog! It is quite a liberating experience. If you’re a reader and don’t yet have your own blog, you are missing out on something that you could be thankful for as well! It’s free, so sign up and get in on the fun!

Window-Shopping Rocks!

This past Sunday I spent a little while walking through the Oaks Mall here in Gainesville with my thirteen-year old daughter. Except for the coffee drinks we picked up at the Starbucks there, we went on the trip determined just to look around, and not to spend any money. And it’s amazing how enjoyable a “shopping” trip can be when you know that you aren’t going to buy anything!

First of all, I must note that, as the case is with other malls, the Oaks Mall has changed over the years. At the front entrance, there used to be a Morrison’s Cafeteria (now a clothing store) and a Nero’s Italian restaurant (moved to about a mile from my home). Nearby was a pet store. When the pet store disappeared, I was initially disappointed. But now that I know something about the “breeding factories” that are set up for supplying pet stores with animals, I’m kind of glad it’s gone. Oaks also used to have a B. Dalton bookstore as well as a cool Disney store (one of my favorites at the mall). And one of the “happening” places to be used to be the Oaks Theatre on the eastern side of the mall. That’s gone, although there’s still the Oaks Plaza theatre at an adjacent shopping plaza. I used to buy my flavored coffee at one of two Barnies coffee shops there. I still don’t know why Starbucks won’t sell flavored-roasted coffee. The food court they have now represents a great improvement in the mall.

My daughter and I looked through several stores, especially those specializing in video games, shoes, hats, media, and sporting apparel. We browsed through Radio Shack (I saw a nifty, very comfortable-looking radio/headset that could plug into an MP3 player as well). We also checked out the Walden bookstore two doors down. Featured were Stephenie Meyer’s four books of her Twilight series (which I began reading yesterday). The movie Twilight just came out, and it is a major hit (especially with girls). The novel, presented in the first person by the protagonist, is very enjoyable reading so far, although I can see why it might appeal more to a girl than a boy.

One thing really stood out at the mall: there weren’t very many people there! To steal a line from Ross Perot, I think a heard a “great sucking sound” of penny-pinching shoppers flying over to the east side of town to the new, much cheaper Wal-Mart Supercenter! And regarding the above title...no, we weren't peering at rocks through windows!

The Fixed Rope

I am not a mountaineer. I’m not even a (plastic) rock climber. The closest I ever came to mountain climbing was in my imagination at age 12, when I read the short novel Banner in the Sky (adapted as a Disney movie with the title Third Man on the Mountain). That was back when my seventh-grade English teachers were doing a shtick on the theme of “The Noble Quest“, and climbing mountains seemed right up there at the “summit” of the Quest Scale (along with running marathons and running for president). But I was listening a few weeks ago on National Public Radio about a climber’s “quest” to climb Mount Everest and discovered a phenomenon that I believes cheapens this concept: the fixed rope.

Back in the old days of climbing mountains, climbers tended to work in teams and did everything from scratch. One of the important jobs in climbing a mountain was to get ahead of the rest of the team and fix a rope, on which everyone else could secure themselves and use to climb the mountain. This very important task was usually something done by professional climbers, and in the Himalayas the local Sherpas often performed it. Once somebody installed the fixed rope, the rest of the climb went much more smoothly. It is a very important element of any quest to scale a peak.

But nowadays climbers often used the fixed rope that previous groups installed. To me, while this may (or may not) contribute to safety, it also detracts from the whole idea of the difficult “quest” and makes the whole project a little less than totally legitimate and complete.

The NPR piece on mountain climbing wasn’t really about the concept of “the fixed rope” per se. No, what made it stand out to me was the way it was reported. You would have thought that the rope had always been there from the beginning, something providentially hanging down from the sky, inseparable from the mountain! But mountain climbing isn’t the only area that I see this sort of thing.

When Lance Armstrong was doing his seven-year stint as the Tour de France champion, there would often be TV segments showing his training routine. He’d be in a sports/science lab on an elaborate bicycle apparatus, with his body all patched and connected to devices measuring his functions during his workout. Every motion on the bicycle would send out data to a computer which would in turn analyze his training performance and then give feedback to make him ride more efficiently. A far cry from just going out on the open road and training, wouldn’t you say? And people will still compare his racing times to previous riders who had nothing resembling these hi-tech “fixed ropes” to aid them.

Instead of using standardized equipment, professional golfers, bowlers, and tennis players use specially engineered balls, clubs, rackets, and (with bowlers) gloves and wrist supports designed to optimize their performances. Since these sports are all about out-competing one another, wouldn’t it make more sense to level the field by standardizing everything and eliminating performance-enhancing “crutches”?

And how about the sonar that some fishermen use to guide their boats in search of fish or the ridiculous sighting aids that shooters or archers use for killing their prey? What kind of sport or accomplishment is that?

Possibly the most obscene twist to this concept is the report during the campaign season that Alaska governor Sarah Palin would shoot moose from the relatively safe vantage point of an airplane overhead. Even if you are a hunter, how can you come away with anything less than disgust for such a cowardly and cruel “sport” done this way? But later, of course, Sarah is proudly standing over the corpse of the murdered animal, looking as if she had done it all on the ground and as if the moose ever had a prayer of surviving the ordeal.

If I’m going to climb a mountain, I’m going all out for having a secure, fixed rope already in place for me. Later I’ll carefully omit that and any other “aids” from my “quest narrative”, making it look as if I really went out there, faced the danger, and conquered the elements. Yessiree-bob, that’s what I’m gonna do. No Captain Kirk climbing the vertical face of a mountain with just his hands and feet for me! (See Star Trek V: The Final Frontier)

Monday Newsbreak: 11-24

--Lionel Beehner and Vikram J. Singh, in an article written for the Los Angeles Times, pointed out that the current Bush administration has weighed too heavily on personal relationships and feelings between the president and other world leaders to guide his foreign policy. Once Bush had bonded with a leader, that person could then do no wrong. Cited as examples are Putin, Musharraf, Karzai, and Saakashvili. Conversely, if a foreign leader, like Chavez or Ahmadinejad, was hard for Bush to get along with, then our relations with there countries suffered disproportionately. That’s no way to conduct a foreign policy. Beehner and Singh are urging incoming president Obama to depersonalize foreign policy and make it a matter of our national interests, not personalities. I agree.

--President-elect Obama is moving quickly to establish his Cabinet. Hillary Clinton, I feel, will be a great secretary of state. She just needs a little training on how to lie more effectively, that’s all. Bill Richardson and Tom Daschle in the Cabinet? All right!

--In one year, my Alachua County public schools have nearly halved their drop-out rate from 6.6 % to 3.6 %. This is indicative of a general trend I see around here of the public schools taking a keener interest in the welfare of its students. Bravo!

--Snus, a type of smokeless tobacco developed in Sweden which the user can swallow instead of spitting out, has hit the markets in America. Camel is marketing this product. The Associated Press reports that Snus has been banned in every European country except for Sweden because it contains carcinogens. It’s obviously an attempt by Camel to keep nicotine addiction alive and well here in the United States by making its usage more convenient and socially acceptable (no outdoor smoking breaks, no smoke, and no messy spitting-out).

--It looks as if the college football national championship picture has narrowed itself down to only two conferences that “matter”: the Southeastern, with Alabama and Florida, and the Big Twelve, with Texas and Oklahoma. I keep hearing that the SEC winner will play the Big Twelve winner in the title game. But the polls indicate another possibly that everyone seems to be ignoring: An unimpressive Florida victory over Alabama in the SEC title game may pit Oklahoma against Texas in a rematch for the national championship game. Those two schools are already ranked ahead of Florida in the BCS poll.

Wassiyé

Here is a song and video by the very talented Mali artist Habib Koité and his accompanying group Bamada. The song is titled Wassiyé. I loved the music and the performance. I hope you do, too.

Maybe I’m Just Being Naïve, But…

I consider the nations of Latin America that have such a wide gulf between the minority of the population belonging to wealthy, landed traditional ruling classes who have had the power of the police and army behind them and the large majorities of the population who are relatively very poor and lacking in the basics of what we here in America take for granted as being rights: clean water, sanitation, health care, freedom of speech, due process, equality under the law, and the ability to make a living wage, among other things. I consider these nations and wonder what my own country has against the people in these lands getting a fair shake.

The United States has long held that the people in any particular country should have the right to freely elect their leaders. This is called representative democracy. But ever since the Latin American countries became independent from Spain and Portugal in the nineteenth century, democracy has been both restricted and intermittent. The “uneducated” masses have, until recently, been shut out of the governing process in many countries and, even when there has been the presence of elections, the military has too often stepped in to overthrow the elected officials, usually in the name of “fighting corruption”. If America were to stand true to its principles, then it should rejoice, in my opinion, in what is happening in several countries down south. For the people at-large there have risen up, gone to the ballot box, and elected individuals who truly represent them and their interests. I’m speaking of countries like Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador, and Bolivia.

The U.S. government has long expressed the fear of leftist regimes spreading throughout Latin America by the type of guerilla warfare inspired by Castro’s success in Cuba during the 1950s. But what has happened there instead are peaceful and free elections leading to leftist governments.I understand that some of the leaders of these countries (especially Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Bolivia’s Evo Morales) have been very vocal in their denunciation of America’s national leaders and their foreign policy regarding their individual nations and the region as a whole. But we need to rise above the rhetoric and realize that it is in the interests of the world’s welfare as a whole for the poor to be respected and for their welfare to improve. If these leaders are working to help their people with their lives, then we should show respect and appreciation to them for that.

I feel fortunate to have been born and raised in the United States. I could have been a poor Bolivian peasant or a destitute Brazilian slum-dweller, with little or no opportunity to move upward in society or improve the economic status of myself or my family. Let’s all show some magnanimity and goodwill toward those new, more representative governments south of us as they seriously work to advance the interests of their own people, even if these interests sometimes don’t coincide with our own.

The “What If” Fallacy

I belong to a union at my work place. Each month, my union local holds a meeting for officers, stewards, and any members who would like to attend. Normally, few people attend these meetings (I used to but they were so boring that I just wanted to pull all the hair out of my head). They want to encourage a large attendance, so as an incentive, they hold a drawing each meeting. Any attending member (there are 300+ members) stands an equal chance of winning the prize, which increases each month if not won. Currently, I believe the drawing prize stands at $250.

In order to further motivate members to attend meetings, my union decided to print out the name of the member that was drawn, whether or not they were present to win the prize, and display it on the bulletin board at work for everyone to see. The reasoning for this is obvious: if member “Sally G” had shown up, she would have won the prize, and how oh-so-foolish she was not to attend! So don’t look foolish like Sally G! Attend meetings!

But if member Sally G, who now feels thoroughly humiliated and angry that the union plastered her name on the bulletin board, had actually attended the meeting, would she have still won the drawing? Even if she hadn’t been an active participant and only said “hi” to a few people and sat down in the back, that would have been enough of a chain of events to completely alter the actions of those in the union hall. And by the time that the drawing was held, someone else’s name would doubtless have been picked. And Sally G also doubtless would have said to herself “These meetings are a waste of my time” and someone else would have been singled out for non-attendance.

Plus, who’s to say that someone may not have caused an accident with Sally G on the way to the meeting. There are also remote odds for that happening as well, but it is still almost like taking a drawing each time you go out on the open road. Plus, Sally’s presence at the meeting would have meant her absence in wherever she would have been, and that may have a probability of something bad happening as well.

But the main point is that you cannot surgically and retroactively insert yourself or another into a past situation and then ignore the effects that the new presence would cause on the chain of events. There was a very disturbing but profound Star Trek: The Next Generation episode titled Tapestry. In it Captain Picard, regretting the folly of his youth, wishes that he could go back to a specific point in his past and rectify a reckless decision he once made that got him into a fight and caused him to lose his heart (he “now” uses an artificial one). His “friend” Q pops in on the scene and shows him what would have happened had his wish been granted. It would have completely changed his life to something Picard abhorred. So he came to peace with his past decisions, even the "wrong" ones, and went on with his life (and his artificial heart).

There's nothing wrong with wanting to increase attendance. Just try to be a little more reasonable and respectful of those whose attendance you yearn for!

Dolphins and Patriots Showdown

What a difference a year can make! In the National Football League this time last year, after ten regular-season games, the New England Patriots were undefeated at 10-0 while the Miami Dolphins were a pathetic mirror image at 0-10. Speculation was running rampant on whether the Pats would finish the regular season undefeated (which they did) or whether the Fins would finish without a win (they did win one game near the end). New England did go on to lose to the New York Giants in the Super Bowl (yippee!), but Miami had a lot of changes to make. They brought in veteran, former Super Bowl winning coach Bill Parcells as executive vice-president, and he went about rebuilding the team. Head coach Cam Cameron was replaced with Tony Sparano, and several trades were made (as well as some crucial draft picks). One of Miami’s acquisitions was Jet quarterback Chad Pennington, who had experienced problems regaining his old form following injuries.

This year, we’re at the same point in the season and the two teams are tied in their division at 6-4. And they’re playing each other this Sunday! Miami stunned the football world a few weeks ago by demolishing the Patriots 38-13 on the road in Foxboro, Massachusetts. A late November game at home should be to the Dolphins’ advantage. New England has been handicapped this season with future Hall-of-Fame and NFL record-holder quarterback Tom Brady being out for the season with an injury. And Pennington has stayed healthy and effective for Miami, as have their two star running backs Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams.

Miami is in the thick of a playoff hunt for the first time since 2003. I think I am now ready to forgive former coach Nick Saban for deserting them for the Alabama coaching job now. Especially if this turnaround for the Dolphins holds and endures for the next few years. That upcoming Dolphins-Patriots game stands to be a classic!

Scholastic Cyber-Priesthood

I just had a very unsettling personal experience. Relatively late in my life, but recent enough to be clear in my memory, I graduated from the University of Florida in December, 2002. To take the remaining few classes needed for my degree, I extensively used the UF Library West and its academic journals. Even by this time, some of the journals I needed articles from were on-line and restricted to those with the needed passwords and accounts (i.e. authorized scholars and students). But I could still freely access their valuable microform collection of newspapers that went back into the nineteenth century by simply finding the spool I was looking for, loading it into one of the simple machines provided in the microform room, and viewing it.

Since 2002, Library West was completely rebuilt and redesigned to be more compatible with our digital era. This past Monday evening, I went there for the first time since its recent reopening. And got thoroughly blasted with culture shock. Every student there, I mean EVERY student, had a laptop with them and was doing their work on it. That in itself was a major change in the span of six years for me. But the most unsettling and disturbing thing was that I could no longer access the microform collection since the machines were all now computerized and demanded user IDs and passwords. Except for one dilapidated old machine, the type of which I had never used and I would have had to stand at.

Digitalizing of our academic knowledge should be a liberating, not restricting experience. But nowadays, it seems that one either needs permission from the uppity muckity-mucks in academia or has to be willing to pay through the nose just for being able to read current academic journals or research microforms. Sure, I’m a UF alumnus and I can apply for the privilege of checking out books (for a fee) from UF libraries. And maybe with this I’ll be able to access the microforms as well. But before, I could just have walked in and viewed them “for free” (although my tax dollars are supporting UF) and now I need to apply for someone’s permission.

This reeks of academic elitism in its worst form. In the Old Testament accounts of the Israelites, their priests, and the tabernacle, only the high priests were granted access to the inner chambers of the tabernacle. In like manner, the state of our academics is becoming such that the general population is not only suffering from a vast gap of understanding and knowledge between them and the learned: they are now being physically denied access to that knowledge! This must change!

Short Break

I'm going to take a short break from this blog, hoping to resume later this week. Please feel free to browse through the archives and comment on any article that you want.

Koyaanisqatsi and the Pristine

One of my all-time favorite movies is the 1983 documentary Koyaanisqatsi, beautifully scored by Philip Glass. It is a wordless depiction of the beauties of pristine nature in the American southwest, contrasted with the ugliness and pollution of western materialistic culture in the area. The film explains that the term “koyaanisqatsi” is Hopi for “life out of balance”. And its message is clearly that things have gotten quite out of hand with the prevailing philosophy of mankind trying to dominate nature, instead of coexisting with it in a symbiotic relationship (which the Hopis were implicitly able to do).

The first few minutes of Koyaanisqatsi depict the awe-inspiring procession of a day in the southwestern wilderness. Everything seems pristine, untouched by human hands. But just as the viewer begins to expect more of the same, the camera shots shift to construction vehicles and high-tension power lines strung along the heretofore “natural” landscape. And it gave me pause for some reflection.

I remember pretty vividly a few years ago when Florida Senator Bill Nelson stood up on the Senate floor and announced his intention to hold up any bill that authorized oil drilling off Florida’s “pristine” shores, as he put it. His contention was that the natural beauty of Florida’s beaches was an important element of the state’s economy, drawing in much tourist revenue from out-of-state. And the presence of visible oil platforms and equipment would somehow make things “un-pristine”, I suppose. Well, I concur with Senator Nelson with his objection to oil exploration and drilling close to our shores. But just who is he trying to fool with his (repeated) invocation of the term “pristine”? I’ve been to quite a few Florida beaches, and even on the most remote of them, there is a noticeable LACK of anything “pristine”.

In like manner, Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander complained that the pristine beauty of Tennessee’s landscapes would be ruined if windmills were set up to harness the clean energy of wind power there. Hypocritically, Senator Alexander had no trouble opposing Senator Nelson’s desire to protect his state’s “pristine” beauty. But is there really anything pristine left, anyway?

We’re used to seeing photographs of natural wonders, unencumbered by the mark of civilization. But weren’t many of these specially shot at angles and locations designed to eliminate from view the close presence of that civilization? How many times have you seen breath-taking photographs of the Grand Canyon or some other national park? But you know, if you go there in person, you’re liable to have to search out places to recreate that same sense of natural isolation.

I live close to a natural sinkhole named Devil’s Millhopper. It isn’t pristine by any stretch of the imagination, nor was it ever intended to be. There is a wooden path winding down into the hole to its bottom. And circling around it is a dirt walking path. The park is bordered by a busy state highway, a housing development, and a very tall radio tower. A Publix grocery store and its shopping plaza are about a half mile down the road. But given the circumstances, this park does give the urban dweller a feeling of being out in nature. So I don’t think you have to eliminate all traces of human presence to accomplish this effect.

I think that setting large amounts of land aside for publicly-accessible parks can be a good thing. And in some cases, there may be a good reason to restrict the public’s access, especially if the ecosystem there is very fragile and/or contains endangered species. Also, sometimes there may be a particular vista that the area provides which would be ruined by development. But for the most part, we need to apply some reason here, recognizing that while we want to avoid destroying or polluting an area, we also may need to obtain natural resources from it or use it for people to live in. It is here that our federal and state governments, which we as a people have entrusted to protect our environment through regulations and their enforcement, must be independent of outside pressure to “tweak” things in the favor of one interested group or another. No, decisions like this need to be made deliberately and completely out in the open. Hopefully, the new administration will move in this direction.

Slow Count, Recount, and Run-Off

Not quite all is finished with this year's election. For the U.S. Senate, three seats have yet to be decided: Alaska, Minnesota, and Georgia.

In Alaska, long-time senator Republican Ted Stevens, having just been convicted on seven felony counts, won the preliminary vote against his Democratic challenger, Anchorage mayor Mark Begich. Begich, relatively young at 46, stands in stark contrast to Stevens, who appeared at times to be lost on the Senate floor. I think the reason that Alaskan voters still went for Stevens after the convictions was to ensure that, after he was forced out of office, Stevens would be replaced by another Republican (appointed by Republican governor Sarah Palin). But as the rest of the votes are counted (extremely slowly), Begich has pulled ahead of Stevens (by 814 votes at last count). Questions have been raised regarding the relatively low Alaskan voter turnout, especially since their own popular governor was one of the vice-presidential candidates and the Democrats had put on a large-scale voter registration drive there.

In Minnesota, liberal Democrat comedian, author, and commentator Al Franken challenged one-term incumbent Republican Norm Coleman for the seat. Independent Dean Barkley (whom then-Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura had appointed interim senator after Paul Wellstone’s tragic death in 2002) ran a distant third in the vote. The campaign was pretty vicious between Franken and Coleman, and the final vote count (so far) has them separated by only about 200 votes. So a statewide recount is about to begin to resolve this election. Franken had entered this race largely due to his past friendship with Wellstone and his resentment against Coleman for his behavior at the end of the 2002 campaign. The recount results are bound to enrage one of the sides regardless who wins. Although these two are ideologically very different, I respect them both and wish that they both could have been in the Senate. But I’m pulling for Franken to win the recount. Still, I think his grudge against Coleman is bogus.

And in Georgia, their Senate electoral system requires the winner to garner a majority of votes. One-term Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss won a narrow plurality with 49.8 % of the vote over Democratic challenger, Dekalb County chief executive and former state representative Jim Martin, who received about 47 %. The run-off election will be held December 2. Republican and Democratic political big shots have descended upon Georgia to try to influence the voters in one direction or the other. Including losing Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who in 2002 had severely deplored Chambliss’s campaign ads against then-incumbent opponent Max Cleland, who had lost three limbs in combat in Vietnam. The ads clearly implied that Cleland lacked the courage to make important decisions in the interests of our nation’s security following 9/11. Chambliss, for his part, skirted military duty during Vietnam (he was pursuing his law degree then). Which on its face I sympathize with, since Vietnam was a meat-grinder of a war with our soldiers deliberately placed in harm’s way to draw enemy fire. But his ads against Cleland were hypocritical and disgusting. Well, Chambliss’s current opponent Jim Martin also served in Vietnam, and I don’t think that hypocrisy is going to work this time around. I see two different scenarios with this run-off. On one hand, since greater turnout tends to favor the Democrats and Obama isn’t in it, a smaller turnout in the run-off election should favor Chambliss. On the other hand, the negative pre-election hysteria generated against Obama has abated and his overall popularity has soared. This, coupled with the continuing tanking of the economy, may change a few minds in favor of Democrat Martin.

These three races should be pretty interesting to follow. I’m just glad that the presidency has already been clearly decided this time around!

My Running Update: 11/12

My running has been a little spotty lately. I had been experiencing a soreness on my right side for about 2-3 weeks. Although running didn’t seem to exacerbate it, it wasn’t pleasant either. Also, I had been changing my running to a more outdoors, on-the-road type of activity and used my YMCA’s treadmill less often. While this represents a step forward in my training, it also breaks up a simple routine I had established, the YMCA being very close to my home and convenient.

On October 21, I ran an eight-mile loop around far-northern Gainesville nonstop. It was easily the longest I had run non-stop since early 1975. I didn’t seem to be much the worse for wear after the run, but then again it may have been one of the contributing factors to my soreness. But I was still in enough shape to complete the Florida Track Club’s Dog Days 5-K Run on November 1.

I’m trying to come up with a better format to list my training runs on this blog. The way I’ve been doing it is very tedious. I saw on another running blog how the writer was able to copy and paste a spreadsheet showing his training record onto his blog. That seems to be the road for me to take as well, although it seems that a database file would work better. When I compile it, I’ll insert it at a later date at the end of this entry.

As for my training, I do think I’ve found a course comparable to the old “block” I used to run around in Davie, Florida (encompassing the Broward Community College/Nova educational complex) when I was much younger. It’s about the same distance around (three miles) and has long stretches free of serious traffic concerns. It also was the site of two of the races I’ve run so far!

I think I will run in the next race in December. Titled the “Jingle Bell Run”, it will be held on the University of Florida campus and is once again being put on by the Florida Track Club. It, like the last race I ran, will be a 5-kilometer run.

Click on the image below to enlarge (yes, I figured out a method):

Self-Presentation Could Stand Improvement

I remember an old Twilight Zone episode titled A Piano in the House. In it, a cruel, malevolent man buys a player piano for his wife’s birthday. He soon discovers that playing it forces different people to openly reveal their concealed feelings. This man’s butler is a continually scowling, most unhappy-looking sort. But upon hearing the piano, he instantly begins to joyfully laugh, dance, and proclaim how much fun he has being this jerk’s butler! And when the piano piece ends, the butler immediately reverts back to his old unpleasant demeanor.

I don’t exactly project a positive, ebullient image of myself in public. Even when I am feeling all right, even happy, others tend to come away with the idea that I am miserable. I think a lot of it has to do with the natural expression I have plastered over my face. Coupled with the fact that I am usually a very quiet person, sometimes I believe others think that I am undergoing extreme depression.

In truth, I think that I am like others in that my life is a mixture of both the positive and negative, with things pretty much balancing themselves out over the long run. This doesn’t mean that my life is stagnant or “not” happy; those who insist on keeping up ecstatic feelings as a measurement of their joi de vivre, are also those, in my opinion, more likely to stumble in the areas of drugs, violence, and crime in general. They also tend to creep me out when I'm around them!

It’s normal to be sad, afraid, or angry sometimes. I just need to figure out a way to avoid wearing it on my face all the time! And a little positive initiative on my part in stimulating conversation with others can go a long way in revealing my emotional state as “normal”, not “depressed”. As a matter of fact, I have a few ideas that I’ve used on this blog that just might be good conversation starters. On the other hand, even if I just stood on my head spouting gibberish, that would probably improve my image to others as well!

Veteran’s Day

I’d like to take this time to salute those who have served in our armed forces. Their efforts and sacrifices are appreciated, as they carry out our country’s foreign (and domestic) policy. May those who served in the past enjoy the respect and honor they so rightfully deserve. And may those presently serving enjoy the protection they need to safely fulfill their assignments and complete their tours of duty successfully.

Some in our country confuse honoring our brave soldiers with endorsing whatever policy sent them into harm's way. Blurring this important distinction is, to me, inexcusable and actually dishonors those working to protect us. We are a civilian-governed nation because our armed forces do not dictate policy. That is ultimately the job of our elected leaders. Defending the U.S. Constitution is the highest calling of our fighting men and women. And the document puts political leadership into the hands of the people, both by means of the ballot box and by the recognized right to freely speak their minds about the government, either in agreement or in dissent. So criticizing a decision to go to war in no way disparages the honor of soldiers or of our armed forces in general. It instead actually validates them and is a legitimate exercise of our rights and responsibilities as citizens.

Again, thank you veterans!

Seether's Rise Above This

The hard rock band Seether came out with a hit single earlier this year titled Rise Above This. Lead singer Shaun Morgan wrote this song about his brother Eugene Welgemoed, who recently committed suicide. Rise Above This is all about choosing to survive through personal difficulties instead of taking what, at the time, may appear to be the easier way out. For when we do rise above our deep times of anguish, we sometimes look back and wonder why it seemed that bad. And we'll never know what tomorrow will bring. Choosing to be a survivor can sometimes be--no, it IS an honorable and courageous thing to do!

Here is the official video for Rise Above This:

Monday Newsbreak: 11/10

--Now that Barack Obama is the president-elect, people are wondering whether he will reveal an all-encompassing economic plan on the order of FDR’s New Deal, or simply tackle the various problems one by one, with restraint. I don’t believe that we in America, our problems notwithstanding, are anywhere near the level of trouble that we experienced during the Great Depression of the thirties. Making a complete overhaul of everything may be counterproductive. Part of what makes such a complex world economic system work is a sense of trust, derived in a large part from a feeling of continuity. Ironically, the cascading demise of financial companies makes government intervention necessary to restore this continuity. The stop-gap measures recently taken (“bailout”) may reflect agreement between Bush and Obama, but under the incoming president we should see a dramatic increase in regulation of the financial sector in order to ensure that this very continuity (and trust) continues into the foreseeable future.

--The American auto industry is undergoing bad times. The problem is largely due to the fact that they did not get ahead in technology and production to save mileage and promote alternative sources of fuel (while foreign companies did). Although they enjoy blaming the labor unions for their troubles, the simple fact is that they haven’t been making the products that people want to buy in large enough numbers to sustain their industry. Quality has to come first.

--Hurricane Paloma, a category-three storm, slammed into Cuba Saturday. It is the third hurricane to punish this island nation this season. Meanwhile, speculation is mounting on how far the new U.S. president will go toward lifting the economic embargo against Cuba. The way I see it, all that the U.S. accomplished by ostracizing Cuba and its Communist leaders Fidel and Raul Castro was to shield their people from the more liberal influences of the outside world (and thus help consolidate their hold on political power). We were so concerned that their ideology would spread to other countries in Latin America. But look now at Venezuela, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Brazil (I’m probably leaving some out), all countries with DEMOCRATICALLY-ELECTED leftist governments sympathetic to the Castros! And Mexico is teetering on the edge of joining this group. Just who do we think we are kidding with this embargo, anyway?

--The state constitutional amendments in California and Florida designed to outlaw gay marriage (under the guise of “saving” marriage) both passed. While we’re standing around patting ourselves on the back about electing an African-American as president, I can see that we’ve still got a long way to go in this country…

--My favorite football team, NFL’s Miami Dolphins, won their third straight game, 21-19 over Seattle. They are now 5-4 and in the running to make the playoffs. The Dolphins are what I would call a “complete team”, with both the offense, defense, and special teams playing important roles in their success this year (last year they went 1-15). Plus, like I’ve said before, they look like they’re having a lot of fun out there! And clearly their fans are as well!

--The University of Florida Gators football team achieved one of their main goals this season by clinching the Eastern Division of their Southeastern Conference with a convincing 42-14 win over Vanderbilt. Like the Dolphins, the Gators are a balanced team this year with strengths in every department. And also like Miami, UF is in the running to win the overall championship if they keep winning.

My Top Twelve Favorite Pink Floyd Songs

Pink Floyd, like REM, is one of those stupendous bands who made so many songs I liked that it was too painful to reduce it to a “top ten” list. So once again, I’m doing a “top twelve” (but I still had to make some hard decisions).

Three notes:
One, the most acclaimed album of theirs, 1973's The Dark Side of the Moon, has no entries here. I thought all of the songs on it were very listenable, but none of them ever really “grabbed” me. Except for one moment, that is, which I like to refer to as the greatest “instant” in rock n’ roll: the transition from the On the Run track into Time nearly sent me through the ceiling the first time I heard it!

Two, I never was very impressed with Pink Floyd after Roger Waters left. I did like Learning to Fly, but I think that was largely due to the wonderful video that accompanied it.

Three, it’s sad that former members Syd Barrett and Richard Wright have recently died. I suppose that this sort of thing just comes with growing older. More and more of the old rock heroes are passing on. But it still hurts.

Well, here’s the list, from #12 to #1:

#12: Mother
From The Wall, Mother is a rather morose, bitter song containing a sad “letter” from a grown son to his mother, describing his upbringing under her overprotective hand and how it contributed to the “wall” that ultimately arose to separate him from loving, close relationships. Pretty heavy, but then this was a pretty heavy (double) album.

#11: Welcome to the Machine
A truly science fiction song (as I see it), what struck me personally was the utterly maniacal tone of the crowds at its end. I have a phobia of sorts about disorganized crowds of people, all seeming to be talking at once. After a few minutes in this environment, the crowd will often seem to take on a sinister, even maniacal personality to me. And this song captures that perfectly.

#10: Have a Cigar
This was one of those tunes that I used to change stations on whenever I heard it. And then I realized that it was so hilarious that I couldn’t stop listening to it. Especially the line "The band is just fantastic, that is really what I think! Oh by the way, which one’s Pink?" And lead guitarist David Gilmour’s riffs toward the end are unforgettable as well.

#9: One of These Days
Another science-fiction type Floyd song, One of These Days reeks with evil lurking hidden behind a rock, occasionally flashing its presence until, at the end, the monster comes out in full view, thundering its frightening message. Well, at least that’s what my imagination did to this song. It’s the opening track to their underrated 1971 Meddle album.

#8: Pigs (Three Different Kinds)
Off of their rather spotty 1977 Animals album, Pigs is a pretty long track that is very biting with its satire and rage. But what impressed me with it was the texture of musical instrumentation that pervaded it. Once again, there is an atmosphere of foreboding and danger throughout the song that raises a sense of suspense within the listener.

#7: Shine On You Crazy Diamond (side one)
On the album Wish You Were Here, this song is divided into a number of “parts”, each of which theoretically represents a track. I don’t know why they did that, unless they had to fulfill some kind of contractual obligation for numbers of tracks per album. But Crazy Diamond is really a long, coherent piece dedicated to former Pink Floyd member and creative force Syd Barrett, who suffered mental illness and had to leave the group in the late sixties. You have to be very patient with this song (in this way it reminds me of Led Zeppelin’s Rain Song), but it works for me! Wish You Were Here is a great album of theirs, second only (in my estimation) to their debut album (featuring Barrett) The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.

#6: Goodbye Blue Sky
Another Floyd sci-fi piece, from The Wall, this song represents all of the fears I have about future potential nuclear and/or environmental holocausts that threaten to engulf us. I think, though, that Roger Waters’s original inspiration for this song may have been the air raids on England by Germany in 1940 during World War II.

#5: Wish You Were Here
The title track to my second-favorite Pink Floyd album, it is the complex interplay between guitars that thoroughly blows me away listening to it. Another ode to Syd Barrett, Wish You Were Here is a song that ranks right up there in the “air guitar” hall of fame. The lyrics and the singing are fine, but the lengthy instrumental lead-in is what carries it, in my opinion.

#4: Remember a Day
Keyboardist Richard Wright just recently passed away. He was a rare lead vocalist in Pink Floyd’s musical works, but made a bigger impact in the earlier Pink Floyd works. Remember a Day, from their second album A Saucerful of Secrets , was one of his songs (he composed it). He had a very soft, pleasant singing voice that was in stark contrast to the rougher, more grating voices of David Gilmour and Roger Waters. Remember a Day is a simple, but sad ode to yearnings for a better past. I can’t recall hearing this song’s beat in any of the thousands of other popular songs I’ve heard. And that’s amazing, considering the cannibalistic nature of this business (regarding songwriting and production).

#3: Fearless
Fearless, off the Meddle album, is a curious mix of a positive “face the fear” message, a satirical political swipe, and the admixture of a sports crowd cheering and chanting. But it works! And I loved the message expressed in the lines

[You say the hill's too steep to climb, chiding
You say you'd like to see me try, climbing
You pick the place and I'll choose the time
And I'll climb the hill in my own way]

#2: Run Like Hell
Hearing this song, from The Wall, literally puts my body into a get-up-and-run mode. It emanates the kind of urgency felt when a running a big race, or simply just running for your life from something really bad! There is also a “basketball” sense to this song, making me want to dribble a basketball up and down the court. Especially at the song’s end.

#1: Flaming
One of my all-time favorites, Flaming is a psychedelic “mind-expansion” song that Syd Barrett wrote and sang for their 1967 debut album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Very wistful and full of innocent wonder, Flaming makes me, the listener, feel more like a child enjoying the sights and sounds of the world around me without the overbearing and encumbering stressors polluting my adult existence. So it’s an escape piece, pure and simple! And I love it! And I like the opening phrase "Alone in the clouds all blue" very much, as some of you may already know.

Goodbye, Michael Crichton

American popular literature icon Michael Crichton died this past Tuesday at age 66 due to cancer. His death was largely met with complete surprise by the public. It sure did hit me hard. I had just bought a few of his old novels (The Terminal Man, Congo, Sphere, and Rising Sun). I had just finished reading The Terminal Man and am planning to begin Congo in a few days. A few years ago, I read his Timeline, an exciting time-travel novel largely set in medieval France just before the Black Death devastated Europe. I greatly enjoyed it (the novel, not the plague). I’m also thinking of getting and reading Jurassic Park since, although I know how the movie ended, I missed most of it and would like to see how Crichton treated it on paper.

But my favorite Crichton work (and one of my favorite novels in general) is his Andromeda Strain. I saw parts of the movie that was made from it decades ago, and I have to say that the movie paled badly in comparison with the book. I liked how Crichton made the crisis in this story into a kind of puzzle that invited the reader to try to figure out its resolution. And the novel’s conclusion ranks right up there with my favorite, most-exciting endings.

Apart from his novels, Michael Crichton was also was responsible for movies such as Coma and Westworld, as well as the popular TV series ER. And who can forget Twister, for which he co-wrote the screenplay?

I think I’m going to continue reading Crichton’s novels. Although they usually seem to contain the formula theme of prideful human technological and scientific achievements-gone-awry, they do get the reader thoroughly immersed and interested in areas that normally wouldn’t be examined.

As an important side note, Michael Crichton’s death from cancer is a reminder to me (and hopefully, to you, cherished reader) to have regular medical checkups for early cancer detection as well as to live a lifestyle conducive to the prevention of this terrible disease.

This Blog’s Outlook

If you’ve read this blog since its inception in April 2007, you may have noticed that I tend to get involved in various self-improvement projects, updates of which I put out from time to time as blog entries. Lately, I hadn’t been doing this. But it is a good device to publicly proclaim different things that I am doing to better my life. It gives me a sense of accountability that helps get me through times of discouragement and/or backsliding. So once again, I will be putting out weekly “updates” about various projects I’m engaged to make my life a little more interesting. Perhaps, if one or more of these areas overlaps interests of yours, then reading them won’t seem so tedious.

Another feature that I’m renewing is my “favorites”. And this could be any category of favorites that comes to mind, so don’t expect a pattern to this (not that one won’t eventually develop).
I’d also like to start going around town taking pictures of different Gainesville locales that are of interest. And then writing a little about them. I enjoyed doing the piece about the Solar Walk. Although Gainesville isn’t exactly known as a tourist or sightseeing city, it still has a few areas of interest.

I’ll continue the “Monday Newsbreak” feature that gives me the opportunity to pick out a few news items that attract my interest and elicit a reaction from me.

The rest of the entries will be pretty much whatever I happen to write on the spur of the moment. More often than not, when I sit down to write on this blog, I have no preconceived idea what I am going to end up writing about. And as Jack Crabb’s adoptive Cheyenne grandfather told him at the end of the highly recommended (by me) 1970 movie Little Big Man, “Sometimes the magic works; sometimes it doesn’t!”