Epcot Visit

My wife, daughter, and I recently took a day-trip down to Disney’s Epcot Center near Orlando. We had all been there before and enjoyed this park. One of the big attractions there is the new ride Soarin’, which mimics the effect that one gets while hang-gliding. Although the three-to-four minute ride was fun, I didn’t think it was worth the nearly two-hour wait in line for it. We did experience something interesting while waiting in that line, though. All along the walls facing us in line were large screens on which interactive games with the waiting audience would be played. The audience would attempt to manipulate the action on the screen (depending on which game it was) by waving arms, clapping, or leaning to one side or another. So that part of the wait was pretty fun. But I don’t think I’d want to repeat the experience, just the same.

The Energy (with Ellen Degeneres) ride was shut down and Mission: Space and Test Track also had prohibitively long lines (we arrived too late in the day to make Fast Pass appointments to avoid the long waits). We did ride on Spaceship Earth (under Ray Bradbury’s famous “golf ball”), Nemo (a new ride) in the Sea building, Land, and Imagination (with Figment). I found it amusing, while walking by the large fish tank in the Sea, to notice visitors taking pictures and videos, not of the exotic aquatic life swimming around, but rather of scuba divers waving at them in the tank!

Later, we wandered over to the “nations” section of the park. We bought our dinner at a bakery in the French section and ate it outside on a bench (the weather was pleasant). Then we strolled around the nations. An extremely talented musical band from Morocco was giving an electrifying performance. It made me wonder whether or not there are some Internet radio channels that I could pick up this type of music on. I loved it!

We ended our visit to Epcot spending a little time shopping around the China zone. I noticed that there were plenty of eastern religious and traditional items for sale, including books on Buddhism and goods displaying Chinese astrological symbols. I saw nothing in any store that even remotely hinted of Mao Zedong or the Communist system that the People’s Republic of China is still nominally governed under.

We left the park before the nightly fireworks in order to avoid the heavy exiting traffic. All in all, we enjoyed our visit. It was a pleasant departure from the stresses and routine of our usual daily lives, and gave me a more positive outlook about the world and life in general. And, looking back on it, I was impressed at how friendly, helpful, and professional ALL of the employees there were to us. Here are a few photos we captured on the trip:

Recent Running Stuff

Yesterday morning, the Five Points of Life Marathon and Half-Marathon races were (simultaneously) held here in Gainesville. I had been considering entering the half-marathon (13.1 miles), but a number of personal factors weighed in against it. I let it go by, but by all accounts the race was a big success. The weather was perfect, and there were more than 1000 runners (most of them just running the half-marathon distance). I saw in today’s local newspaper The Gainesville Sun that they had filled an entire page in the sports section giving the individual results for the races, even broken down by gender and age categories. Only one problem: they completely left out the half-marathon results for men ages 40 and up! Which would have excluded me had I run! Let’s see if they make the correction tomorrow and print the rest of the results. I suppose that I should be happy that the Sun at least partially published the results of this race. They NEVER publish local running race results the entire rest of the year, regardless who is sponsoring it or for what charity the race is promoting. {Addition on 2/24: The Gainesville Sun did print the rest of the results the following day.}

The longest distance that I have run since 1975 was the eight miles I ran last October on a training session. But I could probably have endured through the half-marathon had I not cut back on my running recently due to health concerns. After those concerns were completely alleviated through exhaustive medical tests, I was given a resounding green light (how’s that for mixed metaphors) to resume running. And I am running, although I am a bit disappointed that I ended up passing by two longer distance races this year.

I have found something resembling the nearly 3-mile “block” that I used to run around during the 1970s in Davie, Florida. My current training block, which is also nearly three miles in length, takes me down four streets: NW 31 Drive, NW 16 Avenue, NW 22 Street, and NW 8 Avenue. I still have to contend with a little traffic, and I am almost always running on a hard surface (unlike with the Davie block). But I don’t ever have to stand around waiting to cross any big intersection, either. And sometimes that grassy surface can conceal small holes that could twist my ankle should I land in one of them.

Anyway, I’m still plugging away at my running and hope to enter a few five-kilometer races this spring. And if my training progresses the way I want it to, I may enter some longer races should the opportunity arise. Not that my local newspaper could care less (about my running or anyone else’s).

Easy On Roland

New allegations that Illinois Senator Roland Burris had engaged in fund-raising discussions on behalf of corrupt then-Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich pursuant to his appointment as interim senator (succeeding Barack Obama) are floating around. The emphasis that those who want Burris to step down (or get kicked out) are trying to make is that he had earlier denied any such discussions with Blagojevich about contributions when earlier seeking to be admitted into the Senate. It was Burris himself who pulled the Fredo Corleone-style loose-tongued blunder while campaigning (?) around his state during the Senate break. All he had to do was keep his mouth shut about the matter, but he didn’t. But whether or not Burris had lied about the contacts does not necessarily imply that he had engaged in a pay-for-play unethical transaction with the now-deposed governor. On the contrary, the fact the Burris had brought it up himself would seem to indicate that nothing had come of it.

I know that the fashion nowadays for “nabbing” people is not to catch them doing something wrong: it is catching them lying about something related to the charge, not the charge itself. This “gotcha on perjury” tactic is epidemic in our government. The first step is to cast aspersions on someone’s character or conduct and then to invite that person so besmirched to attend a formal hearing to speak about the charges or suspicions. Then, once that individual’s comments are “on the record”, these are henceforth used against him/her anytime anything comes up to contradict them. And I don’t think that this is any way to conduct ethical or criminal investigations and prosecutions.

The Democrats in the Senate want a strong candidate to run in the 2010 election against a possibly resurgent Republican Party. They know that having a strong incumbent in place would give them a great advantage in that election. Roland Burris may or may not run in 2010, but he is by no means a strong political figure. But any effort on the part of the Democratic leadership in the Senate to remove Burris from office because of some offhand remarks he made raises a larger question of their true motives in the matter. And opens up an even larger can of worms regarding the question of “who gets to be senator?”

Blagojevich, when he appointed Burris to the vacant Senate seat, was admittedly under a cloud of scandal, already under indictment for corruption and facing impeachment from his state’s legislature. But until he was removed from office, Governor Blagojevich had the complete authority and responsibility to carry out his duties as governor. And one of those duties was to make appointments to fill in vacant seats for the U.S. Senate. It wasn’t a question of how popular the governor or his choice was: that was the law. Choosing which person gets to be a fellow member of their “club” is not a privilege that standing Senate members are entitled to. The political power in the Senate, as recognized by our Constitution, must derive itself from the states. If there were any flaws in the process, then they rested within the state of Illinois and its laws and procedures. Harry Reid, for all of his other shortcomings as Senate Majority Leader, had been correct in relenting to allow Burris to be sworn into office.

Now they want to hold hearings and possibly even vote to throw Burris out of office. For what? Lying? Then they would have to throw themselves out of office as well! Whatever power the U.S. Senate has to expel one of its own members must be used in only the most extreme cases. Otherwise, it may become commonplace to target renegade senators who won’t tow the party line for investigations and removal. And our democratic way of life would greatly suffer.

The Wily Artist

I read in a earlier book long ago how an artist working for a ruler {I believe it was a chinese emperor] who would deliberately include flaws within his royally-commisioned works. The emperor, who this artist knew fancied himself as an artist, would then take great pride and pleasure in pointing out the mistakes. In this way, this artist became the emperor’s favorite. The trick was to insert mistakes very subtley into the works. Too much would have given away the artist’s strategy and would have backfired (with probably disastous consequences) against him. No, instead he produced his “perfection”, and then went back, in a couple of places, modifying just enough, to attract the emperor’s intention.

Often, in this blog, I commit transgression of spelling, grammer, word usage, and simple factual knowledge. But unkile the artist above, I am usually trying to put out a “perfect” product. But if an emperor somewhere (a kindly, concerned soul would also do) happens to stumbol across an entry of mind and derives personal fulfilment at poiting them out to me, than the moor powder too them!

Candy Store Hours

In his autobiography I, Asimov, largely written from a hospital bed while suffering from the kidney failure that would ultimately cause his death, famous science fiction and popular science writer Isaac Asimov tried to explain his prolific writing and workaholic nature. He went back to his childhood in New York City, where his father, an immigrant from Russia (oops, I mean the Soviet Union) in the early 1920s, did what single-proprietor shop-owners used to do: he essentially wed most of his waking existence to his business, which was a candy store, opening early in the morning and staying open until halfway through the night. Asimov dubbed his regimen “candy store hours” and incorporated this very disciplined and focused approach to his own life with his writing.

The general tendency of people nowadays, of course, is to hold up leisure time as a sign of affluence and fulfillment. A person who is so single-minded that (s)he devotes the major part of daily life to specific projects is often regarded as unbalanced and/or fanatical. The saying “get a life” itself carries the connotation that the one being so admonished needs to lighten up and take it easy. And I’m one of those who esteem leisure time. But there is something to be said for Asimov’s lifestyle as well.

There is a crucial difference between slaving away on behalf of someone else’s agenda and passionately pursuing your own very challenging goals. There may be an equal amount of effort, sweat, and tears expended in each of these, but one road will lead to anxiety, resentment, and emotional distress while the other will strengthen character, bestow confidence, and generally make life more interesting and inviting.

I have my own personal projects, any one of which I know I could excel in were I to apply Asimov’s “candy store hours” degree of devotion to it. And I’m wondering if this may not be the road I need to put myself on, instead of splitting up into several projects that I am not wholeheartedly pursuing. At least I can perform a test, for a designated time period (say, one month) in which I concentrate intensively on one single project. And then evaluate the results. Why not?

Another observation I must make about Isaac Asimov’s father and his candy store is more literal. Mom-and-pop store owners, at least as I see it, often aren’t as serious as they need to be in keeping their businesses open long enough in the day to accommodate different customers. They are often closed on Sundays as well. But then they will complain when a corporation comes into town and “steals” their business. I personally like small locally owned stores. But I get more than a little peeved when I go to one of them to do business and find out that they are closed because it’s a holiday like Columbus Day or that they decided to go on vacation somewhere!

Cigarettes and Me

When I was a little kid in the early 1960s, I loved cigarettes. I knew all of the main brands and could sing all of the different commercial cigarette jingles. My parents both smoked at the time, my father preferring Viceroy and my mother puffing on Spring or Salem. Cigarette ads dominated television. In the opening Flatt and Scruggs theme for The Beverly Hillbillies, the “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should” jingle was incorporated into its ending while Jethro would point to a Winston billboard ad (as he drove his family through town in their ancient jalopy).

I thought that cigarettes were so cool, not only the way they were packaged in their packs, but also the cigarettes themselves, with the tobacco on one end and the silky filter on the other, all finely wrapped in special paper. I enjoyed watching people on TV smoking cigarettes and studied how they would hold them in their hands and mouths. There was an entire culture to smoking, so it seemed to me. Smoking was something that you did when you got older, and as such I concluded that it was a “grown-up” thing to do. I couldn’t actually smoke, of course, so I had to be content with candy cigarettes instead.

But before I got old enough to begin smoking, my father flat-out quit cold turkey, never looking back. And then he persuaded my mother to quit (this took a few years). Both of my parents became strongly anti-smoking. As such, the earlier social conditioning I had undergone in favor of cigarettes dissipated before I had entered adolescence. I never started smoking and to this day at 52 years of age, have never taken as much as a single puff on a cigarette.

Others haven’t been as fortunate as me regarding cigarettes. Even with the ban on TV cigarette advertising in 1971, subsequent anti-smoking public information campaigns, and more and more restrictions placed on smoking in public places, that pro-cigarette cultural tradition still pervades our society to some extent. And nicotine addiction is very real and hard to kick.

It saddens me to see young people smoking. I wonder what they are thinking when they finally decide to light up. I had a friend my age with whom I went to school from the 2nd grade through high school graduation. Somewhere along the line he picked up the smoking habit and succumbed to lung cancer, dying ten years ago. What a tragedy that this big-hearted and extraordinarily talented soul would have gone so early in his life, and how sad that his family would be deprived of his presence for these and future years! Please, if you read this and aren’t already addicted to cigarettes, don’t start smoking! And if you are addicted to smoking, just know that it can be licked. I know. My father is a living testimony to that fact.

Comments on Comments

Recently I received two comments on one of my entries that I decided not to publish. One simply contained a short statement generally praising my blog and then sliding into a promotion for something else. Even though the “something else” was related to the topic in the entry, the comment didn’t really address anything I had written, pro or con, so I have treated it as spam. If that individual would resubmit something else, I’d be glad to consider it.

Another comment was done anonymously, with a very short, cryptic two word statement. I didn’t publish it either. If someone expects me to publish their comment, they can at least make the effort to present what they are saying in clear language. A comment can still be very short as long as it is relevant and clear, even if it’s just one word (I actually incorporated one of these pertinent one-worders directly into my blog recently).

I don’t get very many comments on this blog, but I do read every one that comes in and publish almost all of them. It doesn’t matter whether you agree or disagree with my article (well, I do wish that everyone agreed with me), I’ll publish it as long as it addresses the discussed topic, follows general socially accepted norms of acceptable language, and isn’t just a plug for someone’s own agenda. Not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with any particular agenda, but it doesn’t have a place in my “comments” section, that’s all.

President Signs Stimulus Bill

President Obama is signing the $789 billion federal stimulus bill into law today. Florida is expecting to receive $12 billion of it. Republicans have rallied in unity against the bill, loudly railing in the press in opposition. But they aren’t making much sense to me.

First, it must be recognized that the Republicans clearly lost last November’s election, losing the presidency and several seats in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. In other words, it is now the Democrats who are appropriately writing the bills and pushing the legislative agenda. Republicans are the opposition party. Still, several amendments were considered for the stimulus package and a few significant Republican proposals were adopted and incorporated into the bill, which only passed after three moderate Republican senators successfully further altered the bill in favor of GOP-endorsed tax cuts instead of spending. Republican Representatives Mica (of Florida) and Young (of Alaska) both are now publicly bragging about how THEIR accepted amendments will help their states. Republican Senators Isakson (Georgia) and Grassley (Iowa) each successfully submitted costly amendments to the package as well. And all four then voted against the bill! But wait, I’m not finished. After these and other GOP amendments were accepted into the package, after those three minority-party senators were able to tweak the bill strongly toward the GOP’s ideology, and after the conference reconciling the House and Senate versions further reduced the total cost of the bill, the Republicans loudly complained that they were shut out of the process!

Well, if this was their response to Obama’s outreach to them for bipartisan support (or at least constructive criticism), then I believe that once Al Franken is (hopefully) finally sworn in as the 59th Democratic senator (including the two Independents caucusing with them), that party needs to just focus on those three cooperative GOP senators (Snow, Collins, and Specter) from now on and just ignore the rest. And the House should totally shut out the GOP, since it pretty much can do anything it wants by simple majority (except for overriding improbable presidential vetoes). The Republicans may think right now that they won a propaganda victory over this stimulus bill, but I think the opposite may be the result. They appear as hypocritical obstructionists, and for a very good reason: they are! And this may well be the last time you see Obama and the Democratic leadership in either house of Congress reach out across the aisle in bipartisan spirit for quite a while, at least to this degree.

All of the above really isn’t about whether or not the stimulus bill itself is the correct remedy for our flagging economy. There seem to be as many opinions about it as there are economists. And I’m certainly no economist. But I do believe that a good part of our woes are psychological in nature, with pessimism about the future only contributing to the problem. And the Republicans are feeding into that pessimism. That doesn’t make them look very patriotic to me, all of their flag-waving and grandstanding notwithstanding.

Fun and Frustration With Dreams

The other night I was having a pleasant dream. I was playing basketball with some other kids (I myself was age-regressed to adolescence) on an outdoor court. We played the game on a higher level than I was accustomed to when I was younger. I played point guard, setting up plays, passing, and shooting. The game was competitive and fun, with a lot of good-spirited teamwork going on. As often (or usually) is the case with dreams, this dream drifted away from the game to other themes. Later on, though, I drifted back in my dream to another basketball game. I expected a repeat of the earlier game’s fun. Only this time, instead of the fun, there was only frustration. Shots didn’t fall, passes were stolen, and the opposing team ran all over us. What happened?

I’m coming to the conclusion that dreams (at least for me) have a self-regulating mechanism akin to a thermostat. If a dream is too “happy”, then actively seeking to duplicate that effect within a dream will lead to frustration instead. This may be an important “good” done to prevent me from using dreams as an escape from wakefulness and interaction with reality.

It happens too often to ignore: I seek some goal within a dream and then obstacles continually arise to block its attainment. Or I’ll realize that I can do something cool like flying and, before I can really begin to fully enjoy the experience, I wake up. It sure would be fun to be able to use dreams to have my innermost-held wishes granted, without having to endure their sometimes negative consequences in reality.

In J.K. Rowling’s first Harry Potter book Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, young Potter is sneaking around Hogwarts Academy (against the rules, naturally) when he stumbles upon a large mirror that shows any observer whatever deepest desires (s)he has. The danger is that the mirror becomes so attractive and pleasant that the observer spends more and more time in front of it while abandoning the real, present world. In like manner, dreams could also be like Rowling’s Mirror of Erised were it not for that instinctive self-regulation!

Christian Musicians and Christian Music

I've noticed an entire subculture in today's society: For every so-called “secular” area of the arts, there seems to be an evangelistic Christian counterpart that mimics that area’s various genres while adhering to a doctrinally-intense and doctrinally-exclusive message. The most striking example is in the area of popular music.

Just about everywhere, one can find one or more “Christian Contemporary” radio stations, usually in that part of the dial public radio is. There is Christian top forty, Christian rap, Christian hard rock, Christian just-about-anything. Musically, the songs closely resemble the genre that they are trying to fit in with. But the lyrics, albeit often sung in the vernacular or slang, strictly adhere to evangelical Christian church-approved doctrine. The artists whose records are played on these stations are often referred to as "Christian artists". Nothing wrong with any of this, as I see it. But there is something else to consider.

When people live out their faith (or a lack thereof), they may adhere to a set of clearly enunciated doctrinal beliefs, to be sure. But do they give lessons in doctrine in their faith’s theology every time they open their mouth in the “real world”? No, in just about every case the believer uses personal actions and words to “reflect” held beliefs. And usually this is translated into virtuous behavioral traits like generosity, mercy, honesty, gentleness, forgiveness, and service.

I believe that there are a whole lot more musical artists who happen to be Christian than there are musicians who are designated as "Christian artists".But those Christian stations won’t play their songs unless they convey an explicitly faith-oriented message. And that’s where I have a problem.

I know of several famous musical artists who are Christians, but whose songs are never played on “Christian” stations because they don’t lyrically tow the church line. The most glaring example is the band U2. I suppose that it’s up to each individual listener to decide what to listen to on the radio. But for a believer to restrict listening to a narrowly defined genre of music demonstrates a cowed fear of the world and not the message Jesus supposedly gave to go out and be a “light unto the world”. Those Christians who quietly go about their lives and show their faith by their virtues and examples are the true “lights”. I am tired of various churches acting as if their little circle of culture and doctrine defines the entire faith and that anything or anyone operating outside of that is in the “secular world”, to be pushed away as somehow “unclean” or a danger to them. And “Christian radio” sometimes unwittingly plays into this mindset, regrettably.

St. Valentine's Day

I'd like to express my deepest love and appreciation to my wonderful, beautiful wife, Melissa, on this St. Valentine's Day. Others can content themselves with celebrating the birthdays of Lincoln or Darwin; for me, Melissa puts them both in the distant background. She is a true treasure!

Southern Celestial Stars

I was taking a pleasant evening stroll around my block (2/3 of a mile) with my wife recently and observed, on the southbound stretch, the star Canopus shining brightly several degrees above the southern horizon. If I were to have a favorite star, Canopus would be it, for its evening presence in the southern sky indicates winter and its accompanying cooler temperatures and dryer air. And after so many months of high humidity and high temperatures here in Florida, that is very welcome.

I remember, growing up in south Florida, trying at various times of the year to see different standout southern constellations and stars that, due to my latitude (26.0 degrees north) would only appear for a short time above the southern horizon. Aside from Canopus, which would appear relatively high over the horizon down there, I could see Achernar, the brightest and southernmost star in the large, rambling December (evening sky) constellation Eridanus. Forget about me seeing it at almost 30 degrees latitude here in Gainesville! And even down in Hollywood, I never was able to observe Crux (the Southern Cross) or Alpha Centauri (the nearest star system beyond the Sun). But south of Miami, these too are visible at the appropriate time.

I’ve always wondered how the southern sky would look to one standing south of the Equator. I know the constellations that circle the southern celestial pole, but it is a different matter to see them in the night sky. Whenever someone I know travels to a place like Australia or Peru, I get a little twinge of envy because I know that had it been me, I would have “had my chance”. It’s something that I just need to “get up and do” someday. While my eyes are still in reasonable shape!

My Own View of the Old Testament

I am not a “Bible scholar” who graduated from a seminary or theological school. Nor am I an archaeologist or a historian (although I do have a B.A. in history). But I have read up enough on the subject to have established my own opinion about the Old Testament of the Bible. And why and by whom it was written.

Those writing the Old Testament (a.k.a. the Hebrew Scriptures) never could have envisioned it being printed, distributed, promoted, and read on a mass scale across the world. Reading the scriptures was an exclusive privilege designed for the priesthood and whomever they deemed qualified for the task. They were written with the view of justifying the regime in power by establishing it as God-ordained, with roots going back even to creation itself. By making this clear to the people, the ruler had the advantage of being approved and installed by God himself.

Which ruler was it that started the idea of having his rule justified by God and retroactively established? Well, I imagine that this sort of thing had been common for some time in the ancient Mesopotamian/Egyptian world. But in the area we now refer to as Palestine, or Israel, this all began with King David of Israel. The territory he ruled over comprised many different nationalities. How to convince the people there to be loyal subjects would have been a difficult task. One way to partially realize this would be to retroactively create a history that showed events leading inexorably to his rule, with God’s approval stamped over it. The idea that the god of all creation would be specifically interested in promising and endorsing the rule of an individual such as David may seem to be rather egotistical, but it actually was quite a progressive departure from other societies of the time, in which the ruler would often flat-out declare his own divinity.

I believe that reading old scriptures with the intent of discerning the original writer’s true message and motivations behind that message is more in line with the idea of reading “reverently”. For wouldn’t you consider it a simple matter of high respect (which is what reverence is) for a reader of your writings to want to understand exactly where you are coming from without adding extraneous or agenda-driven meanings to them? But nowadays the idea of reading reverently has been turned on its head and usually means reading through the filter of a narrowly-defined church doctrine that discounts the historical and social context of the writings.

Right-Wing Radio Revisited

Having vented my wrath against right-wing talk radio for the past two entries, it’s time for me to sing their praises (at least a little). So here we go (hold your nose if you need to):

--Mark Belling, who filled in for Rush Limbaugh for a week, brought up the innovation that apparently everyone else on Earth but me already knew about: the Amazon Kindle, which is the “book” counterpart to the I-Pod. With a Kindle, one can supposedly order entire books to be downloaded on this device. Sounds totally cool to me. I found out on Wikipedia that up to 200 non-illustrated titles can be stored on one Kindle, potentially saving an enormous amount of clutter (and trees). The prices I‘ve heard are around $350-$400. Anyway, this is an example of how non-political information is often transmitted through talk radio, independent of the political orientation of the host.

--Neal Boortz brought up a very good point on his show last week. Remember the brew-ha-ha over the bonuses paid out to executives in companies receiving public bailout money? And how Obama wants to cap executive salaries in these troubled companies at $500,000? Boortz noted that the same companies will have a great difficulty now attracting any new talent to hire with these salary caps in place. It is almost tantamount to a mandate for mediocrity. My outrage was about the bonuses, not the salary levels (which shouldn’t be restricted).

--Sean Hannity is probably the most obnoxious host on the air, but still I must grant him two things: one, he is one heck of a good communicator with a quick sense of humor. Two, he actually puts on guests who DISAGREE with him and usually treats them with respect (although he is hateful to ordinary callers who dissent from him).

--Michael Savage has so many negative qualities that I could write a pretty long piece on just those. But in his favor, he is a craftsman in the art of filling up a three-hour daily block of empty airtime with a collage of different topics and his strong personality. He is the most valuable as a host when he goes back to his earlier years living in New York City.

--In Gainesville/Ocala on 97.3/WSKY “The Sky”, there is a show from 3-6pm called “The Drive-Time Happy Hour” with co-hosts Chip Morris and “Mr. P.C.”. The two have an incredibly entertaining and often comic rapport with each other, and Morris is a genius in turning differing opinions on their head and revealing the absurdities he sees in them. Not that I necessarily subscribe to his conclusions (although I sometimes do).

--Regarding Mark Levin, I’d like to mention something complimentary about him as well. And if I ever come up with something, I’ll let you know!

--Rush Limbaugh resonates with many Americans because he continually hammers home the theme that we can run our own lives without the government intervening to take care of us at every step. It is during this enunciation of his political philosophy that he is strongest with me. But he spends too much of his time ridiculing people instead (as do most of the above-mentioned hosts). And I sadly think that’s what is really driving his ratings.

I guess the point of this article is that it often a good idea to hear “the other side”, not just listen to one’s one opinions being echoed somewhere. That’s one major reason why I enjoy following the Senate and the U.S. House on C-Span2 and C-Span, respectively. But these hosts do have other qualities that can be filtered past their often disagreeable diatribes.

Talk Radio, Blogs, and Overturning the Election

Which is a better forum for political expression, the blogosphere or talk radio?

Talk radio depends on commercial sponsorship for specific programs. This necessarily creates a conflict of interest between hosts and their sponsors, predisposing them to be biased toward the concerned business interests. Blogs may or may not fall into this category. Most personal bloggers (like this one) don’t carry ads and don’t feel beholden to any other interests but the expression of their own opinions. But the main difference I see between bloggers and talk radio is one of diversity versus mass duplication.

When Rush Limbaugh calls for listeners to write or call a politician or media figure about something that HE finds objectionable, that unfortunate individual is flooded with negative, sometimes hateful messages from everywhere across the country (and abroad). The pressure to conform to Limbaugh’s message, or at least to not openly criticize him, is very strong among conservatives. And it gives Limbaugh an unwarranted amount of power. Just follow the elected politicians who care more about pandering to him than their own constituents. That Georgia congressman who apologized to him on-the-air for having had the temerity to criticize him earlier no longer has any credibility as a public representative, in my opinion. But Limbaugh isn’t the only bully on the block. Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, and Mark Levin regularly target individuals in government for criticism, knowing that the hate element within their own legions of followers will quickly set to work beleaguering anyone who is the hapless target of their self-righteous wrath with e-mails, phone calls, and hate mail.

Even major blogs such as the Drudge Report or the Huffington Post don’t have this sort of intimidating power over our leaders. I for one find it a bit frightening that our recent election seems to be in the process of being overturned by leaders more concerned about what powerful talk show hosts think than about the people whose interests they are responsible for looking after and for whom they were elected or appointed to serve.

What’s really the final straw to me is when a Limbaugh or Hannity gets on the air and begins to rant against blogs that disagree with them. Or when Limbaugh, with all of the power that he has to publicly defame people (and which he regularly exercises), characterizes any media coverage that doesn’t conform to his extremely narrowly defined ideology as an example of the “drive-by media”.

Just who won the election last November? We had a Democratic president elected with the greatest majority of the popular vote in twenty years. The Democrats took away a net of seven Senate seats from the Republicans (and eight if Franken’s victory is affirmed by the courts). And they added considerably to their already-solid majority in the House of Representatives. So you’d think that the Republicans who are left would read the results and work with the majority-elected party to help solve the problems that the electorate is concerned about. But instead, they seemed to be lining up to suck up to a tiny group of powerful and loud political extremists who have gained, with the assistance of their corporate sponsors, a stranglehold on talk radio.

Stimulus Plan Prospects Good

The Obama/Democratic economic stimulus bill appears to be heading for passage in the Senate after three Republicans expressed support for a less expensive bill. After passage, expected tomorrow, the bill will be sent to conference between the House of Representatives and the Senate, where a compromise final version will hopefully be agreed upon and sent to President Obama for his signing into law.

I am a little taken aback at how, with less than three weeks gone in the new president’s first term (after a very clear victory in the election), the so-called “honeymoon” period when partisan politics are put aside as a gesture of good-will to the new president has never materialized. I owe part of this to the presence and power of virulent, poisonous right-wing talk jocks like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, who were never elected to anything but act as if they were high judges over anything political in this country. And the fawning reaction of our elected Republican officials to the diatribes of these “opinion-makers-for-hire” against the new president is disgusting. The Republicans who oppose the stimulus bill “on principle” had no such qualms when pushing through, year after year, grossly expensive appropriations bills funding our adventure in Iraq. The stimulus bill, unlike the Iraq quagmire, will send money and jobs directly back into our economy while tending to many different neglected areas of infrastructure. On top of that, tax breaks will also help send money flowing through the economy and help to reverse the business downturn.

Also, when the presidential campaign was going on full-bore and the mortgage industry collapse brought on calls for bailouts, Republican nominee John McCain actually “stopped” his campaign to rush to Washington and express his support of emergency government actions. Now, he stands on the Senate floor with a diametrically opposite position, strongly opposed to the government “jump-starting” the economy. On principle. It makes me wonder which John McCain we would have ended up with had he been elected to be president. And makes me glad that he wasn’t.

Newly Heard Independent/Alternative Music

Recently, I tried out one of the AOL Radio channels, titled "Indie Rock". I was pleasantly surprised at the string of quality independent/alternative songs that they played. For about a year, I had some difficulty with hearing music from this genre after the local radio station that supplied it changed its format. My cable TV service had a channel on it with this type of music, but the AOL channel is much better. Here are some of my favorites that I recently heard on it:

Don’t You Evah--by Spoon. This may be Spoon’s best so far, although I still am partial to the earlier, bass-driven I Turn My Camera On. Don’t You Evah also has a very strong bass component to it. Spoon reminds me quite a lot of Beck, another act which I greatly respect.

No One’s Gonna Love You--by Band of Horses. Just a sweet, beautiful, melodic tune. Their (officially-sanctioned) video was hilarious.

The Con--by Tegan and Sara. Twin sisters Tegan and Sara Quin once again produced a memorable song (I loved their earlier Walking With a Ghost). The Con is a fast-paced, frantic piece.

Chicago--by Sufjan Stevens. This extremely talented and inspired young man reminds me a bit of Pink Floyd’s Syd Barrett, without the drugs and mental breakdown. His music goes everywhere, and the song Chicago is so different from anything else on the air that it almost defines a genre of its own. Chicago is part of a state-based theme album that Stevens made and titled Illinois. Chicago actually came out a few years ago, but since I just heard it for the first time, I regard it as a “2009” song. After hearing it, I checked out a few other Sufjan Stevens songs. "Incredible" is an understatement!

The Fear--by Lily Allen. More popular in Britain than here in the U.S., Lily Allen already has a hit with her Smile. The Fear, I think, is even better and may yet hit the charts big over here. There’s no reason why it shouldn’t.

That’s just a smidgen of what’s out there. I'm grateful to AOL for having this channel on their radio lineup. I should get into the habit of turning it on whenever I use the computer. Who knows what great music I’ve been missing!

Gator Men Hoops at Crossroads

The University of Florida Gators men’s basketball team has reached the same point in this season that has taken them in different directions for the previous three seasons. Last year, this marked the time that they peaked and had begun to fade. But during the previous two seasons, they began to surge toward national titles after this point. In which direction will this year’s edition go? A clue came this past Tuesday when they hosted red-hot South Carolina, who had just a few days earlier handed Florida a heartbreaking setback by overcoming a seven-point deficit with two minutes to go, beating them 70-69 with a last-second fast break layup following a missed Gator foul shot. This time around, the game was higher-scoring (generally this is to the Gators’ advantage) and once again, Florida had a seven point lead with two minutes to go. And also once again, South Carolina mounted a furious comeback. But this time, UF players came through at the foul line and made most of their free throws to win 97-93.

When a team has struggled through a game to gain a marginal lead toward its end, it is crucial that its players can step up to the line under pressure and make clutch foul shots to sustain that lead. This time, they came through. And if they continue like this, I see an auspicious conclusion to this season. They are showing themselves to be a complete team and are beginning to resemble the national championship squad from recent history. But I think it’s going to take another year before they can begin to once again challenge for the title. This year, it will be interesting to see how far they go in the NCAA tournament (which they didn’t even make last season).

The Gators have a cohesive starting lineup with Nick Calathes, Walter Hodge, Chandler Parsons, Dan Werner, and Alex Tyus. Their bench also contributes a lot, especially Erving Walker (who scored 18 points in the win over SC). Except for Hodge, a senior, the team should return next year intact (and even better).

So far, Florida has a 19-4 overall record and is 6-2 in their Southeastern Conference East Division, in first place halfway through league play. But they have yet to play Kentucky, a team that many regard as being the best in the conference.

C-Span2 and the U.S. Senate

I am quickly (once again) becoming a C-Span addict, in particular C-Span2, which shows U.S. Senate proceedings. Not only am I getting reacquainted with some old faces on the Senate floor, but there are also quite a few new senators mulling about (and presiding over this body).

And there are plenty of bills and nominations to consider in the Senate, not to mention the time-tested tradition of a senator simply standing up before the almost empty chamber to deliver a politically-charged rant during “Morning Business”. I’ve been watching the stimulus bill being introduced and amendments being proposed. It’s interesting how $885 billion is apparently not good enough for some senators, who are proposing multi-billion dollar amendments to add to the legislation ON TOP OF the already-gargantuan price tag. On this occasion, I’m with the Republicans (and a few Democrats), who are keeping these bills from up-or-down floor votes through point-of-order objections (the amendments almost always exceed the allocated budget). In these cases, 60 votes are needed to defeat the objections and allow the amendment votes to proceed. In the long run, though, the entire stimulus package stands a better chance of passage if costly amendments are kept at a minimum. And the ultimate passage is what I want.

A few years ago, one of those weekly news magazines like Time or Newsweek listed and described who they decided were the five worst senators. I didn’t agree with their choices, and I don’t feel like making my own list of the worst. But I will list a few of my favorites:

Arlen Specter (R, PA)--A voice of reason and reconciliation, qualities needed to form the consensus needed to avoid gridlock in the Senate.

Chuck Schumer (D, NY)--Defender of the American middle class, he has a very persuasive manner of speaking that makes whatever he says seem to be eminently reasonable. Schumer is also very strong on domestic national security.

Jeff Sessions (R, AL)--Sessions is the finest conservative speaker in the Senate. He never beats around the bush, while still avoiding the appearance of being too blunt. If you have an open mind and want to understand the conservative take on issues, Senator Sessions is the place to start, NOT the mass media knee-jerk talking heads (like Limbaugh, O’Reilly, Hannity, Beck, Savage, etc).

Diane Feinstein (D, CA)--Some on the left express suspicions about her ideological purity, but Senator Feinstein is at heart a pragmatist who wants effective legislation passed and who recognizes the need to sometimes reach across the aisle to the opposing party. She recently spoke out correctly in favor of seating legally-appointed Illinois Senator Roland Burris when the Democratic leadership was blocking him.

Tom Coburn (R, OK)--I love this guy, he is truly “his own man” who cares little about his standing within his own party. Coburn has two passions driving him onward in the Senate: he expresses strong viewpoints on all of the typical right-wing hot-button issues like abortion, gay rights, and gun control. But Senator Coburn is also the Senate’s most zealous fighter against wasteful spending and pork. He has incurred some heated comments from fellow Republicans when he opposed special “pork” projects in their home states (chief among them the “million dollar bridge” in Alaska). Coburn often misses the point in his speeches, but he is fun to listen to and has a good delivery.

Robert Byrd (D, WV)--Is Senator Byrd 100 yet? I know he’s getting up there, at least in his mid-nineties. If you haven’t seen him deliver one of his drawn-out, bombastic, and rambling speeches on the Senate floor, then you’ve missed something very special and entertaining. For there is only one Robert Byrd (at least in the Senate).

Jim DeMint (R, SC)--Whereas Jeff Sessions expresses conservative sentiment with charm, humor, and grace, Senator DeMint manages to accomplish the same without any of that “icky” stuff. As blunt and in-your-face as you can get. In other words, someone whose confrontational nature goes against the spirit of comity that is so important to this body. But I perk up my ears anyway when he is speaking, for he is usually informed and does speak for many.

Tom Harkin (D, IA)--Tom Harkin is a true populist in the best sense of the term. His interests are simple and straightforward. He looks after his state and its people (and naturally its farmers) and serves as an advocate for ordinary people across the nation. I believe in a diversity of opinions and personalities in the Senate, but I think that a few Tom Harkin clones in there would definitely improve that body a lot!

John Cornyn (R, TX)--I always considered him to be George W. Bush’s chief mouthpiece during his tenure as president. Now he is one of the figures (along with minority leader Mitch McConnell) who is trying to rally the Republicans together as a united force opposing just about anything substantial that Obama and the Democrats want. Cornyn is very articulate and should have been the minority leader instead of McConnell, in my opinion. Of course, I’m opposed to the track of gridlock that he seems to be on, though.

Dick Durbin (D, IL)-- The Democratic Whip, Durbin is possibly the most glib speaker of all, choosing to look directly at the television camera when speaking (instead of the usual custom of looking at the presiding officer). If you want a good model for extemporaneous and persuasive speaking, Durbin’s the one. Sometimes, though, his penchant for off-the-cuff remarks can get him into some political hot-water (as was also the case with former colleague, now Vice-President Joe Biden). But I love watching him ply his trade on the Senate floor!

Well, I wasn’t going to list the “worst”, but there is one senator who is so boring and obnoxious that I have to mention him: Connecticut Independent Joe Lieberman, who can express a reasonable, centrist position on any issue and make it feel like you’re having your teeth pulled (without anesthetic). If you’re lucky though, his boring delivery will put you to sleep before the pain sets in!

Billy Joel

Billy Joel is the type of musical artist that people tend to either love or hate. The blog Slate has an article by Ron Rosenbaum excoriating this celebrity’s works. The main gripe, as I see it, is the tendency for Joel to display the persona of a very cynical critic of others in his lyrics. Ironically, it’s often those songs of his in which he’s ripping others that I like the most! Joel also seems to be quite the egomaniac, although in his case he’s just being honest about expressing this not-so-pleasant personal trait. Other artists go to great lengths to conceal this fact about themselves (I think one has to be a bit of a head case in order to make it in the entertainment business).

I first heard Billy Joel’s music in the spring of 1974 when his Piano Man single came out (greatly liking it). The follow-up single Travelin’ Prayer was quite good, too. It showed Joel to be a virtuoso on the keyboard, as did subsequent releases. Later, I had the opportunity to listen to the whole album Piano Man and liked quite a few tracks on it, especially The Ballad of Billy the Kid, Worse Comes to Worst, and Captain Jack. From the next two albums, I particularly liked Root Beer Rag (an instrumental), Summer Highland Falls, and Angry Young Man (Joel’s ultimate piano show-off piece). In 1977, The Stranger was released and proved to be his greatest album (to me), all of the tracks being good. My favorite track from it was his “epic” piece Scenes From An Italian Restaurant. From the following two albums, my favorites were the defiant My Life, Sometimes a Fantasy, and Don’t Ask Me Why. And then Joel really got political and serious with his Nylon Curtain LP. Allentown, Pressure, and Goodnight Saigon quickly became personal classics, and it looked as if this artist was entering a period of profound artistic output. But in 1983, he reversed directions and came out with the album An Innocent Man, which marked the beginning of the end of my enjoyment of his music. To me, the tracks from this album were simple-minded homilies to a never-never “Happy Days” brand of fifties rock n’ roll fantasy that, quite frankly, I’m utterly sick of (epitomized by the movie Grease). Although later works of his contained some good songs (e.g. A Matter of Trust and The River of Dreams), Joel never seemed to regain that sharp edge of his that I liked so much (and others apparently despised).

Billy Joel has retired from recording, or so he has said. But I don’t believe it. Sooner or later, he’ll reinvent himself and start cranking out new stuff. But I may just remain stuck in his early years, thank you. Here’s a top-ten list of my favorite Billy Joel songs:

1---Pressure
2---Angry Young Man
3---Scenes From an Italian Restaurant
4---Allentown
5---Summer, Highland Falls
6---The Ballad of Billy the Kid
7---A Matter of Trust
8---The Stranger
9---Piano Man
10---Goodnight Saigon

Monday Newsbreak: 2/2

--Eric Holder, President Obama’s pick to be Attorney General, was confirmed to the post by the Senate. Those who opposed him did so mainly because he had a record of being for gun control as well as having tacitly supported President Clinton’s controversial pardon of Marc Rich and leniency for Puerto Rican declared (by the FBI) terrorists, who were earlier convicted of some bombings. But even very conservative Republican Senators Jeff Sessions and Orrin Hatch voted for Holder, having expressed their respect for him and his qualifications before the confirmation vote. Attorney General Holder promises to restore an atmosphere of professionalism and respect for the Constitution to the Justice Department.

--The more than $800 billion economic stimulus plan proposed by President Obama passed the House without a single Republican supporting vote. The bill now goes to the Senate, where there will be an opportunity for numerous amendments. How the Senate Republicans choose to play this out could seriously backfire on them should they decide to filibuster.

--Tomorrow will mark three months since the November election that supposedly selected a senator from Minnesota. The dispute between declared winner Democrat Al Franken and Republican Norm Coleman is tied up in the courts. But why can’t the courts recognize the urgency of this contest’s resolution and expedite the matter? Franken (or Coleman, if he were to be the eventual winner) has already missed out on several important votes. And his presence (or absence) could be a crucial factor in ending (or sustaining) Republican filibusters in upcoming crucial legislation.

--Bad winter weather caused widespread and protracted power blackouts, concentrated in Kentucky. That state’s governor has called up its Army National Guard on an historic scale to assist its residents and to try to get power restored. This is the sort of thing that the National Guard is intended for; not patrolling streets in a country torn by civil strife halfway around the world!

--The Pittsburgh Steelers pulled off a spectacular last-minute win over the underdog Arizona Cardinals in yesterday’s Super Bowl, played in Tampa. Amazingly, the deciding touchdown pass happened with 35 seconds to go in the game, the exact time that last year’s winning touchdown pass occurred in the New York Giants’ Super Bowl win over the New England Patriots. It was fun at my house during the game, since I was rooting for the Cardinals and my daughter was rooting for the Steelers. We took turns cheering and booing, depending on the game’s exciting developments, especially in the fourth quarter.

The Wild Card Character

When I am reading a story or watching a movie or television episode, I often seek out something that I’ve come to term the “wild card” character. This is someone, either whose allegiance to good or bad is too ambivalent to ascertain or whose presence in the story is such that they may unwittingly determine its outcome, good or evil they may be. Here are some examples:

--In Ernest Hemingway’s celebrated war novel For Whom the Bell Tolls, guerrilla warrior Pablo continually vacillates between bravely supporting the Republican cause and abandoning it. His actions are ultimately crucial to the story’s outcome.

--In the Harry Potter series, Hogwarts instructor Severus Snape is a menacing figure who seems to carry a strong grudge against Harry and his father. Time and time again, Snape’s actions cast him in a suspicious light, but he ends up being vindicated. But will this continue through the series? To whom does this mysterious character truly owe his allegiances?

--Can you guess who the wild card character is in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings? That shouldn’t be so hard: it’s Gollum, aka Smeagol (thanks for the spelling correction, Barry), the pathetic creature whose obsession for the Ring draws him into an unstable relationship of simultaneous conflict and servitude with Frodo and Sam. And as the wizard Gandalf suspected, Gollum does play a very, very important role in the story.

--In the Matrix series, Agent Smith, originally the head “bad guy” enforcing Matrix rule, is the personification of evil. There is no vacillating on this character’s part about whether or not to do the “right” thing. But his unique circumstances place him in the crucial position to be the unwitting catalyst that resolves the conflict between the two antagonistic forces in this series. And as much makes him the series’ wild card character.

--In the movie A Beautiful Mind, protagonist and brilliant mathematician John Nash meets up with a clandestine U.S. government agent named William Parcher. What Parcher says and does determines the direction Nash’s life eventually goes in. The “kick” to this story is the actual nature of Parcher.

--In the quintessential spaghetti western The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, the “man with no name” played by Clint Eastwood is dubbed “The Good”. But he is by no means “good”, as demonstrated by his callous disregard for life and his horrible betrayal of his colleague Tuco (“The Ugly”, played by Eli Wallach). But he also displays a sense of decency and compassion for people at other times. The very ending of this movie literally teeters on the true moral nature of Eastwood’s character (and the truth of his aim as well).

--In A Christmas Story, Ralph’s father is the wild card. Alternately comical and menacing this character is, Ralph nevertheless needs him to fulfill his ultimate Christmas wish. And dad doesn’t weigh in on the matter until the very end.

--The Star Wars series has perhaps the most obvious wild card of all: Darth Vader, aka Anakin Skywalker. In The Return of the Jedi, Vader’s vacillation between Luke and the Sith lord is almost comical.

--Arthur C. Clarke ultimately wrote four novels for his Space Odyssey series: 2001, 2010, 2061, and 3001. Only the first two were made into movies. For those two movies, the wild card character was the computer Hal on the Jupiter mission. Not so apparent from the first movie 2001, the ending of 2010 completely hinges on Hal and “his” “allegiances”.

--In The Prisoner series, the wild card is the seemingly insignificant, diminutive, and silent butler, played by Angelo Muscat. Always there to assist Number Two (the protagonist’s chief nemesis) at “city hall”, the final episode places him in a crucial situation that reveals his loyalties.

--Another all-too-obvious wild card character is the alien Q in Star Trek: the Next Generation. Time and time again, Q puts Enterprise Captain Picard and his crew in life-or-death peril and then releases them, teaching Picard important lessons in the process. Q frames the span of the series, being featured in both the debut and concluding two-hour episodes.

--James Bond movies sometimes have wild card characters, and sometimes they don’t. For the ones that did, the most memorable were: Pussy Galore (played by Honor Blackman) in Goldfinger, Jaws (played by Richard Kiel) in The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker, and May Day (played by Grace Jones) in A View to a Kill.

--The 1957 Oscar-winning masterpiece The Bridge on the River Kwai featured a riveting performance by Alec Guinness as a captured British officer in a Japanese prison camp in Burma faced with the dilemma of trying to keep his men’s morale and sense of purpose alive under extreme duress. His ultimate act in the movie determines everything.

--In Bonnie and Clyde, Michael J. Pollard’s character C.W. Moss works for the outlaw couple, serving both to lead them to fame as well as their destruction.

--In the fifties sci-fi thriller The Day the Earth Stood Still (I haven’t seen the latest version), the giant alien robot Gort seems to be just about the most evil thing in the universe. And then you watch the rest of the movie and get “the rest of the story”.

I suppose I could go on endlessly on this subject. And you may think that other characters would have better fit the designation as the “wild card” than the ones I chose. But I do know that having these characters serves to enhance stories and build up the suspense, making them more memorable long after they have ended.

Super Bowl Again

Another year has come and gone, and here we are again on the eve of another Super Bowl in the National Football League. Last year’s championship game was a classic matchup between an undefeated New England Patriots “team of destiny” and an upstart, maligned New York Giants team with a lowly wild-card playoff status and a major chip on their collective shoulders. And that game was unforgettable, with the Giants coming from behind to upset the Patriots in the game’s final seconds. This year’s matchup has a vastly different feel to it. Yet the term “team of destiny” hasn’t gone away. It’s just being applied differently.

The Arizona Cardinals (formerly the St. Louis Cardinals, formerly the Chicago Cardinals) haven’t won an NFL championship since 1947, nineteen years before the first Super Bowl game was ever played. Usually consigned to the bottom of their NFC East division in the past, they “lucked” out a few years ago by being moved to the West (where they belong anyway`). And this division has been very weak this year, with Arizona winning it with its own weak 9-7 record. Not given much of a chance in the playoffs, the Cardinals proved their critics wrong and, behind popular and inspiring veteran quarterback Kurt Warner, they’ve managed to get this far. But now they are facing a pretty strong Pittsburgh Steelers team, who were impressive throughout the regular season and the playoffs.

I’ll be rooting for the Cardinals, but it will be an uphill battle. Still, that’s the kind of thing they said about the Giants last year. I’m not very passionate about this game (as I was last year), having had my NFL season this year already “made” when the Miami Dolphins won their division and made the playoffs. I just hope this year’s Super Bowl game is close enough to be interesting to its conclusion, regardless who wins.

And as a side note, I’m finding myself dreading commercial time during the game, as the quality of the ads never seems to live up to the hype leading up to their airing. I plan to take frequent kitchen, bathroom, and “chores” breaks during these commercials. And the half-time show? Forget it!

Ashley’s Pub Closes

Such was the heading on an article appearing Thursday in my local rag The Gainesville Sun. Ashley’s Pub was a Mexican-style restaurant/bar that had been in business since 1981. The site, toward the south end of the original Butler Plaza off Archer Road in southwest Gainesville, had originally been Allen’s Gator House. There were two parts to the restaurant: as you entered, there was a relatively lit up dining room on the right where you could sit, eat, and read if you liked. And if you wanted more of a “bar” atmosphere, you could step over into the more spacious, dark room on the left, where there was television, a nice bar, jukebox, pool table, etc. I used to frequent this place (both when it was Gator House and Ashley's) often from 1979 to 1982, since I worked nearby.

After the Ashleys bought the place and transformed the menu to Mexican cuisine, they kept the same divided arrangement for a while, which suited me well (I liked to sit and study in the well-lit section). But in 1982, they redesigned the restaurant and made everything one big, dark room. I tried going there a few times, but the poor lighting finally made me choose other places to eat at instead. That was too bad, for I liked the Ashleys and their employees were great. And they had the best enchiladas, at a very affordable price!

I don’t quite get the “art” of feng shui, which seems to impart spiritual values to how rooms are arranged. But how a business, especially a restaurant or coffee shop, arranges its dining section, can be as crucial to its survival as the actual product it sells. A few months ago, a small coffee shop near my home opened for business. I checked it out, walking in there with my backpack containing books and my word processor. I bought a cup of their coffee and wheeled around to sit down, only to find that their “dining” area consisted of one small love seat and a couple of chairs without tables! I took my coffee to my car and never went back. And that business closed down after a few weeks.

Naturally, everyone has their own preferences regarding what constitutes a friendly dining area. Ashley’s Pub lasted for a good 27 years, so there apparently were quite a few happy customers over that span of time. And I can’t really be sure that the asinine seating arrangement of that fledgling coffee shop I once went to was what ultimately did it in. I can only speak from my own individual experience and preferences. But a good, common sense rule of thumb for a restaurant operator would be to give customers as much of a choice as practicable regarding their seating and lighting (which is one of the main reasons that I tend to dig Starbucks). That, I would have thought, should have been a “no-brainer”!

Postal Service Proposed Five-Day Service

I’ve heard that the United States Postal Service, my employer, is considering cutting back to a five day per week delivery. They have lost a considerable amount of money in recent years and are desperately searching for ways to cut their expenses. There is a federal law in the books since 1983, though, that mandates a six-day delivery week. The USPS will need to lobby congress to change that law before any cutback in service is enacted.

I don’t think that cutting back hours and service is usually a very far-sighted, wise thing to do. Sure, in the short run it may save some money. But depriving people of delivery on Tuesday (or some other designated day) will eventually reduce the overall mail flow (and subsequent postage revenue) as customers search for more dependable alternative ways that can substitute for sending things through the mail.

I used to live across a field from a small Krispy Kreme donut store/coffee shop. The man who had subleased this small shop did a thriving business in the morning hours, but in the afternoon, things dried up considerably. He told me that he had done an analysis of how much money he was raking in at various times of the day and concluded that, since he was losing money in the afternoon, he would close the shop then to cut his losses. Unfortunately, the result was that fewer and fewer customers came during the morning hours as well, since many were no longer confident about it being open. After all, who wants to drive out of their way to do business somewhere only to find that the business had cut their operating hours for the sake of their own expedience and convenience? Eventually, that Krispy Kreme store closed down for good.

In like manner, I fear something similar happening if the USPS begins to fine-tune their service hours and days. As far as my own employment is concerned, I naturally want my company to be financially viable. They have already attempted (not hard enough, in my opinion) to offer early retirement to more employees and are eliminating the daytime mail processing shift. If service is cut back to five days, I see this affecting carriers and window clerks the most directly, as many of them would have their jobs reassigned according to the new paradigm. But, at least immediately, I don’t see too much of a change in my immediate position, which involves processing mail. And mail processing takes place seven days a week. What would affect my position adversely would be if a reduction to five-day service caused the total mail volume to be drastically reduced. Which I see as a real danger.

It could be, though, that Postal Service leadership is simply floating this five-day mail service possibility as a way to get some federal funding (i.e. bailout) from congress. Well, mail delivery is definitely a crucial part of our national communications and transportation (of goods) infrastructure. If we’re going to be serious about economic recovery and make sure that our communications and transportation systems are functioning optimally, then the postal service should definitely be included as a full, active participant in this ambitious effort.

Walk In Their Shoes

As I was driving my daughter to school yesterday morning, the car radio was tuned in to the local “top forty hits” station. Only there was more talk than music, radio stations in general having adopted the ridiculous practice of continuous yakking over the air in the morning. Such was the case here as well. The basic format on this station was that the man-woman team of announcers would pick some story from the news flow and then make some comments on it, then going on to another. Eventually, if you listened long enough, you just might find yourself screaming for a commercial, much less a song.

On this morning, I knew that these DJs didn’t have it all together when they committed the worst infraction possible on the radio: no, I’m not talking about profanity; I’m talking about “dead air” with no one saying anything for a few seconds. After that, I was ready for anything. One of the announcers brought up a story from some city where the pastoral leadership in a church offered free pedicures to the homeless; both of them thought that this was a real hoot. The woman then indignantly asked why the church wasn’t doing something to meet their “real needs”. It was then that I realized that these “yakkers” not only were relatively incompetent for their jobs: they also were ignorant and foolish.

Most homeless people do everything on foot. They don’t drive, and most don’t even ride bicycles. And most of their lives are spent outdoors, under many different kinds of conditions. They have to walk and stand in various states of dryness and wetness, hot and cold, cleanliness and filth, and often on rough surfaces. Often without the opportunity to kick off their shoes and socks and attend to their own feet. Homeless people generally don’t carry around a full complement of footwear that they can change. They often sleep in their shoes. The fact that they are so dependent on their feet makes any cut or infection a vitally important factor in their lives.

Giving pedicures gives the involved church the opportunity not only to clean under the toenails of the homeless; that alone would help to reduce infections and would have been by itself a great public service. They can also see the entire foot and notice any outstanding problems that need immediate attention. Besides the benefits that they impart to the homeless people’s feet, the church further gave as a reason for their free pedicures the explanation that they are mimicking the foot washings that Jesus gave during his ministry on Earth. That really set off our announcers, who revealed themselves to be part of the population that believes that organizations founded on spiritual beliefs must necessarily censor themselves regarding the expression of those very beliefs when tending to the needs of anyone outside their group.

These two announcers apparently have lived very insulated, compartmentalized, easy lives in order to put down a religious organization that really is in touch with one of the major needs of homeless people. What is that saying? Something like, “You need to walk a mile in someone’s shoes to know what it’s like for them.” These radio jocks must not have ever had to do much walking!

Barack Obama, Tony Robbins, and Change

During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama made “change” the overriding theme in his successful quest for the office. Now that he has made it to “the top”, how will he be able to effect that change?

I’m a fan of self-improvement guru Anthony Robbins. As a matter of fact, I wish I had instilled within myself more of his suggestions about how to view my life and how to go about fulfilling my own dreams. In his book Giant Steps, Robbins distills the concept of “change” into three crucially important statements. First the change MUST happen. Making it anything less than an absolute requirement dilutes its importance and gives in to the inertia of stagnation that stands in the way of change. Second, I MYSELF must make the change. This means that the one who wants the change must assume the personal responsibility and exercise the personal authority to bring that change about, without just sitting back hoping that someone else will do it. Believe me, chances are that no one else will! Third, if I want to change something, then I must believe that I CAN change it. There has to be a sense of hope and optimism regarding the attainability of the desired change. Otherwise, it would be too easy, as soon as the going got tough, to stop and downsize one’s goals for change.

I wonder whether our new president will apply Tony Robbins’s suggestions for making change possible. Not that he would have necessarily read the passage from Giant Steps that I read, but Obama strikes me as one who may have been a student of his teachings at one time. It will be interesting to see how he tackles the inevitable obstacles in his path toward the change he desires for America.

Monday Newsbreak: 1/26

--By far the biggest story this week has been Tuesday's changing of the guard at the White House, with Barack Obama assuming presidential duties for the next four years. He has quickly moved to place a deadline for closing the Guantanamo Bay detention center and ordered interrogations of detainees to be performed according to the rules expressed within the Army Field Manual. And he has a very ambitious agenda planned for the economy. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton was confirmed as Secretary of State by the Senate in a 96-2 vote.

--Hillary Clinton's vacated Senate seat went to upstate New York Representative Kirsten Gillibrand after Caroline Kennedy (who might not have been selected anyway) withdraw her name from consideration. Gillibrand's sometimes conservative stand on issues (e.g. anti-gun control) may help her statewide in the 2010 special election to retain that seat. But first she may have difficulty winning her own party's nomination, as one of Gillibrand's House colleagues has already said that she would be challenging her then.

--Last week I omitted commenting on the passing on January 13 of one of television and film's great actors: Patrick McGoohan. He was best known for his role as "Number Six", the British spy imprisoned in a mysterious resort-like place called "The Village" in the seventeen-episode cult classic series The Prisoner (one of my all-time favorite series). But he excelled in whatever role he played, which was usually the "villain". My favorite McGoohan villain roles occurred in the movies Escape From Alcatraz and Silver Streak. He also excelled in a couple of Columbo episodes as the "heavy". His death saddens me.

--Just as suddenly as they invaded and occupied the Gaza Strip, Israel declared a unilateral cease-fire and left the territory. Leaving Hamas to make some hard decisions about what direction they need to go in: work for peace and the dignity and rights of the suffering Palestinians, or resume firing missiles into Israel and bring more destruction down upon Gaza and its people. Unfortunately, anyone who is brave enough to step out to make a case for peace is certain to be branded as a traitor and would then be a target for arrest (or worse).

--One of the relatively overlooked areas in University of Florida athletics has been the women's basketball team this year. Already nationally ranked at #15 in one poll, they improved their record to 18-2 yesterday with a solid 75-54 home Southeastern Conference win over Mississippi. I attended the game with my wife and daughter. UF's coach is Amanda Butler, her first year here on the job. Their leading players are seniors Sha Brooks and Marshae Dotson. During yesterday's game, Brooks was an excellent ball-handler and passer while Dotson was great under the boards, scoring Florida's first nine points of the game and giving them a clear lead that they never relinquished. The entire team saw plenty of action, as the game's outcome was pretty much decided early in the second half. I'm looking forward to more great things from this team this year!

The Momentum of Mobilization

Can a military mobilization take place on a hurried, grand scale without its own momentum carrying it into an attack? I have three examples that would indicate a “no” answer to that question.

I just finished reading Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, a novel set in the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War between the Republicans (supported by the story’s protagonists) and the Nationalists. One part of the story has someone rushing to deliver a note that recommended forestalling a planned grand-scale attack involving an entire division. As the messenger passes the mobilized forces to deliver the letter, it becomes increasingly apparent that the sheer force of the mobilization had reached a point where that attack would be launched anyway, regardless of any late-breaking information warning against it.

I read a while back a book about World War I (and stupidly forgot the title and author). During the days building up to this horrendous conflict, following the assassination of Austria/Hungary’s Archduke Francis Ferdinand in Sarajevo by Serb nationalists, nations lined up against nations, threatening and preparing for war against each other. In Germany, a war front on its western borders had long been anticipated and planned for, ever since the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. So Germany developed an intricate and comprehensive plan of mobilization that emphasized the use of its extensive railway system. The result was that, very quickly, German troops were amassed at its borders in very large numbers, ready for attack. There were serious “last-minute” diplomatic efforts made to prevent the war from breaking out. But by that time, the German military had become so strong within its government that it essentially called the shots. And shots it did call, resulting in the brutal invasion of neutral Belgium and drawing Great Britain into the conflict.

And now we jump ahead in time to early 2003, when U.S. forces were mobilized and poised to strike at Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. The expressed rationale for the buildup and threatened attack was that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction as well as a tenuous connection to Al-Qaeda. The United Nations, along with those who understood the gravity of war, tried to prevent the invasion. The UN had weapons inspectors on the ground in Iraq and were systematically searching for those supposed WMDs. But the U.S. decided to invade anyway, one reason being given that, if delayed too long, it would involve fighting during the excruciatingly hot months of summer there. Well, how many summers have we been there now? I count six, with another on the way.

The above examples make me wonder whether there are other instances when the momentum of mobilization pushed those forces over the edge into combat, even when conditions seemed to mitigate against it. For example, I wondered about the German invasion of Russia on June 22, 1941 and the Chinese counterattack in late 1950 against the UN forces in Korea. Both involved heavy mobilization and sudden attacks. But the difference I see in these is that they had strong (albeit not necessarily benevolent) leaders over them who could themselves have canceled the invasions had conditions so dictated. And for the examples I had earlier given, the leadership was either too disorganized or ignorant to match up against the military momentum. But even with the German invasion of Russia in 1941 and the Chinese invasion of Korea in 1950, there may have been a point in the military buildup beyond which calling off the attack would have been interpreted as a humiliating political setback in itself. That doubtless was an important factor in the U.S. going through with its invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Obama’s Inauguration and Image

Now that Barack Obama is sworn in (twice) as president and is in full swing with his duties, perhaps we can (most of us, that is) descend back to Earth and cautiously support him in his efforts to effectively and compassionately lead our nation.

I enjoyed watching the presidential inauguration events, but only up to a point. I’ve nothing against the crowds of people who went to Washington to personally witness and celebrate this historic event. But it seems to me that the hype surrounding it was way overblown. For one, funded privately or not, the extravagance lavished on it sent a bad message in the midst of our current troubled economy, with so many people losing their jobs recently. For another, it raises unreasonably high expectations for Obama, who for all of his promise and skills as a public servant, is not the country itself. But it could also be counter-argued that making such a big deal about Obama’s inauguration may politically help him during his “honeymoon” period in office get important legislation passed and signed into law (and potential vetoes averted).

It is interesting for me to see how Barack Obama has been portrayed in the media and regarded by the public. I remember watching him in the Senate (on C-Span 2) back in 2005 during his first year there. And he was the same person back then that he is now. But as he has traveled on this momentous journey to the White House, his public image has been repeatedly redefined according to whatever the prevailing political conditions were. Sooner or later, though, comparisons with Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy will abate and Barack Obama will enjoy the accurate image that uniquely belongs to him, one that I believe transcends all of the hoopla going on about him now. He is a decent, intelligent, pragmatic, and compassionate human being who genuinely cares about the welfare of his fellow Americans, loves his country, and is not above hearing and considering opposing viewpoints. And that’s enough for me.

Caroline Kennedy Withdraws From NY Senate Bid

Caroline Kennedy is withdrawing her name for consideration as Hillary Clinton’s replacement for the U.S. Senate seat from New York. New York Governor David Paterson was reportedly increasingly reluctant to appoint her, and she may have withdrawn in anticipation of someone else’s selection. I initially had supported her being a senator and didn’t go along with the assertions on the part of others that she was too inexperienced to assume the duties of the office.

Being a senator is quite different in nature from being a governor. A governor is the chief executive officer of a state, with the responsibility and authority to carry out that state’s laws and serve its people by signing bills into law, responding to emergencies, and delegating authority. A senator needs to be responsive to that state’s interests as well, but also needs to take into account the nation’s interests. A senator needs only to keep well informed about his/her constituency’s views on the issues, consistently attend the Senate when in session, be prepared to sponsor and debate various bills on the Senate floor, and faithfully vote in an informed manner in that body. So, as far as I can see, any reasonably educated and informed citizen should be qualified to serve in the Senate, assuming the age requirement is met.

The Kennedy name was naturally the big attraction leading a lot of people to support JFK’s famous daughter in her Senate bid. Caroline has always enjoyed a great deal of popularity and has a likable personality. That she seems a bit introverted only makes me identify with her more. She did step out publicly to endorse and campaign for Barack Obama last year, so I can see that she has the necessary constitution to get up in front of people and speak. It is true that, as is the case with others as well, that her speech suffers when chatting “off the cuff” with her far-too-numerous "you know"s (Obama’s extemporaneous speech problem is his omnipresent “uh-h-h”). But I see that she is intelligent, informed, and generally believes as I do on the important issues facing us. So what’s the problem with her?

New York is an enormous state with a very large complement of qualified Democratic public servants who could succeed Clinton quite well in the Senate. Chief among them is Andrew Cuomo. The idea that a Kennedy could bypass them all just for being a Kennedy (publicly supporting Obama didn’t hurt either) is the same kind of thinking, though, that gave us George W. Bush for the previous eight years. And may in turn bestow upon us Jeb Bush at some time in the future.

I don’t think that Caroline Kennedy would have done a bad job as senator. My chief objection to her was that it appeared over time, true or not, that she didn’t really have her heart in the job and that her decision to try for it was made impulsively. I believe that New York’s (and the country’s) interests would be better served by someone more committed to such an important position. Andrew Cuomo, of course, also fits the “hereditary politician” mold as well, being the beneficiary of his father’s (Mario Cuomo) political legacy in that state. But he may be in a better position to retain this seat as the 2010 election approaches.

Sub-Freezing Week in Gainesville

Well, my complaints about the relative mildness of this winter here in Gainesville must have reached the “appropriate department” in such matters, for temperatures this week have plummeted to the upper teens (Fahrenheit). Highs during the daytime have peaked in the forties. But a warming period is beginning today. Of course, as is usually the case with such low temperatures this far south, there has been no precipitation to complicate matters. I’d just like a more stable range of temperatures (lows in upper thirties and highs in upper fifties to low sixties) lasting over a longer period.

Here, let me see if I can reach that “appropriate department” again.

You Can’t Take It With You

About 25 years ago or so, my local PBS station showed PBS's own production of the play You Can’t Take It With You, which had already come out as a popular movie back in the 1940s. “My” version starred Jason Robards as an aging retiree who lived with his eccentric family. “Eccentric”, because this family’s philosophy was quite special: let each member live their lives the way they want to. Even to the extent of not working, if that is what they wish. Robards’s character had been working as a highly paid-but stressed out business executive who one day decided that he had experienced enough of the rat race and abruptly walked off his job, never to go back. Robards instead chose to spend his life completely with his family, as well as going around chatting with various people about this or that. The movie centered around his daughter’s struggle to overcome her own reluctance to introduce her fiancé to the rest of her family, especially to her father. And the laughs abound in this hilarious examination of what it really means to live well. The title expresses the family’s weltanschauung: when you die, you can’t take the personal wealth that you’ve struggled to obtain with you. Best to live each day the fullest as it comes.

It was refreshing to see this take on life, but I also recognize that there are two important things to consider:

--One, the world runs on money, and in order to obtain it, one must either consciously strive to get it or be in a position to receive it from another. If you belong to the latter group, then I suppose you can conveniently adopt the attitude of being “above” the money-grubbing rat racers and instead do whatever you want. But if you don’t have such an “effortless“ source of income, then that leaves you with the necessity to venture out and work to get the money you (along with your family) need to live on.

--Two, even someone with misanthropic tendencies as myself recognizes that being able to do “what I want” eventually requires someone else to clock in to work and perform the labor necessary to provide the goods or services that I “need” for my glorious self-fulfillment. A sense of social ethics within me rises up in objection to the idea of everyone in society just doing their own thing. That scenario would imply the existence of a submerged and neglected subclass in servitude to everyone else. Like the slaves over the course of history or the elves in Rowling’s Harry Potter series. Better that each does his/her own part in doing the necessary-but-not-necessarily-fulfilling tasks for the good of the whole society as free people.

Still, I can accept part of the movie’s premise by making sure that I set aside a portion of my daily life to my own projects that I enjoy doing and the people whom I love. And to not get carried away with the stressful moments of my job, either.

After seeing the PBS production of You Can’t Take It With You so long ago, I kept trying to find it on televised programming schedules or rent it out on DVD/VHS. But the best I could do was find and watch the original movie, which starred Jimmy Stewart. And I was disappointed in that movie, having been spoiled by the great performances in the later version. So I’m still looking for the PBS You Can’t Take It With You. I’m optimistic that I will eventually come across it; in this era of the Internet, you never know what old treasures will resurface!

Inauguration Congrats

Not a long entry today: just a note to congratulate Barack Obama and Joseph Biden for becoming our 44th president and 47th vice-president, respectively. May the inauguration go off flawlessly! I'm keeping the TV on this morning, with the news coverage constantly in the background. Although, like most people, I have other things to do. I guess Obama's finished with his painting detail, for a while.

Monday Newsbreak: 1/19

--The excitement is building for Barack Obama’s inauguration tomorrow, with the soon-to-be president (along with VP-Elect Joe Biden) retracing Abraham Lincoln’s rail journey to his inauguration in 1861. There is much good will and hope surrounding the “changing of the guard”. May the new president depart from the ways of his predecessor and take to heart George Washington’s warning not to get entangled in any pointless and costly adventures abroad.

--A U.S. Airways passenger jet, containing 155 living souls, successfully “crash” landed on the Hudson River after an encounter with flocks of geese knocked out both of its engines. Not one life was lost in this “miracle on the Hudson”, as New York Governor Paterson termed it (other than those of the geese, that is).

--Today is the national holiday commemorating Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. The civil rights leader would have been 80 had his life been so senselessly cut short by an assassin’s bullet.

--Israel has declared a unilateral cease fire in its conflict with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. It will keep its army there, though. Hamas has vowed not to respect the cease fire. I don’t understand Israel’s cease fire declaration when it’s obvious that the armed conflict is by no means over. Perhaps this is an attempt to acknowledge the efforts of its allies abroad to bring about peace in the area.

--So the stage is set for this year’s Super Bowl: Arizona Cardinals vs. Pittsburgh Steelers. The Cardinals, considered by many of the so-called media football experts as the worst team in the playoffs, won the National Conference championship with an exciting 32-25 win over Philadelphia. And the Steelers slugged it out in the frigid snow at home with Baltimore, earning a very hard-fought 23-14 victory. I’ll be pulling for the Cardinals at the Super Bowl, which will be held on February 8 in Tampa.

Not On This Blog

Aside from in-depth, highly technical articles of an academic, scholarly quality, this blog of mine lacks a few other things as well, some of them deliberately. Let me list some the deliberate omissions:

--Sometimes I will refer to someone I personally know by their name, but only either in passing when referring to something else or if I am praising or congratulating them for something. I do not use this blog as a forum to personally criticize or gossip. However, public figures are an entirely different matter! But even with those, you may have noticed that I hold back from the personal gossip about them as well.

--Everyone has gripes about this thing or that in their work and school lives. So do I. And I may write about these gripes to some extent, while couching them in general terms. But identifying specific people is not for this forum of mine, although I do feel justified in discussing some of my opinions about non-family people in positions of authority over me in my past (such as teachers), without naming them.

--Consider the extremes of emotions that pretty much all of us regularly experience. I experience the whole range, all the way from ecstasy to deep funks. Relating, from one day to the next, what emotional state I’m in and why I’m feeling this way or that doesn’t belong on this blog.

--The above also applies to the gamut of health issues I regularly confront over the course of a day and over a period of days. If others want to do this with their blogs, then that’s cool with me. I just don’t think that this sort of thing would be very interesting.

--This isn’t Facebook. I have a Facebook account, so if I want to do the social networking scene with the pictures and little blurbs, then that’s where I’m going. Not that I won’t occasionally stick a picture or two here as well.

--From time to time I will feature an embedded music video on this blog. But I am careful to only feature officially-sanctioned videos put on YouTube by the concerned artist/company and for which the embedding codes have been provided. Most of the material I see on YouTube, regrettably, is not authorized by the artist responsible for the work. Also, most of the official stuff has the embedding disabled by request. I don’t see how this helps them, because all I am doing by featuring their already released material (on YouTube) on my blog is to lavishly promote them! Oh well, go figure!

--A few months ago, I changed my blog’s title to my initials, hence “WMI Blog”. Later, I discovered that Windows has some kind of software application with the name “WMI” and even has a website with the same name (but whose URL is simply “.com”. Seeing how I was WMI since back in 1956, I feel I have a bit more legitimacy to the usage of this as my title. If confusion about this inadvertently brings computer geeks and customers over my way, then so be it. The “commercial” WMI can always change ITS name. I’m certainly not.

--I notice a lot of blogs freely using photographs they’ve found elsewhere to enhance their writing (e.g. show a picture of Obama next to the article about him). But it appears to me that practically every photo I run across is the intellectual property of someone else, even those I run across in the general news flow. So I avoid using them. But, of course, no such restriction applies to pictures I have taken myself.

--I am not above using sarcasm or some moderately strident language (such as “crappy”) when criticizing a public figure (or my local newspaper). But using profanity or extreme comparisons (e.g. to Hitler or Satan or “terrorist”) is not only inappropriate, it’s stupid!

So what does this leave me to write about on this blog? Pretty much everything else!