Gainesville's Loblolly Woods

As I had written in this past Monday's blog article, Gainesville has many "green" spots within its borders where one can go to get away from it all. One of these places is the Loblolly Woods section of the Hogtown Creek Greenway, which runs along Hogtown Creek in west-central Gainesville.

Yesterday, I parked behind Westside Park on NW 31st Drive and ran to NW 16th Avenue. I then ran four blocks east on 16th until I found the north entrance to the Loblolly Woods trail. I ran down it to 8th Avenue (where the planetary statues are lined up), crossed that street, and entered the southern part of the trail. I didn't know of this part until my daughter explored it with some of her friends on Monday. The southern trail exits on NW 34 Street around NW 5th Avenue.

There was no spectacular scenery to describe along the trail, but I found it to be quite a refreshing departure from road and sidewalk running. I didn't actually go to Hogtown Creek itself, but there were some trails that looked as if they branched off in that direction. My chief concern while running was to take care to avoid tripping over the many tree roots that jutted out into the trail.

Here are some pictures I took of my run/walk through the Loblolly Woods trail.

Health Care Reform Revisited

Now that the Obama administration is pushing health care reform through Congress, it’s time again to look at where I stand on this issue. (Here is an article I wrote on the subject last year.)

I believe in our capitalist system and the spirit of entrepreneurship that fuels it with innovation, energy, and boldness. Unfortunately, the way our health care system is structured in the United States works against this. Businesses are burdened with the great expense of providing health insurance to its employees. Many are moving to other countries where health care is government-run and funded through taxation. Small businesses here also find themselves at a competitive disadvantage with larger corporations, who can afford to lure more talented employees by offering more and better health care benefits. Small business owners often have difficulty in insuring themselves and their families, and often have to pay high rates for coverage. As employees grow older, they often find themselves trapped in their jobs for fear of losing health insurance coverage due to preexisting health problems pertaining to them or their dependents. And the elderly often find themselves financially devastated when having to pay out-of-pockets costs of medical care not covered by their insurance when their inevitable health problems associated with the aging progress.

Any plan of the President and Congress must effectively address these concerns if it is to win my support. So far, I have my doubts that they are succeeding. I am particularly concerned with the idea of imposing additional burdens on businesses. Even the idea of making every business pay for their employee’s health insurance, argued by its supporters as leveling the competitive playing field (which it doesn’t), still puts American businesses at a marked disadvantage when competing with foreign-based businesses.

As for individuals with preexisting conditions or those who want to change careers or start their own businesses, I’m lacking information as to whether their needs will be met by the proposed legislation. Having a public option available to all and which doesn’t penalize those with preexisting conditions is an absolute requirement, but it is uncertain at this time how much of a public option is going to be passed by the Senate, which seems to be dragging its feet on health care reform.

I am glad, though, that Al Franken, an advocate of meaningful health care reform, has finally been seated as a senator and can serve as a possible crucial vote in this very complex and crucial matter.

Unauthorized Stephen King Biography

I was reading through Haunted Heart: The Life and Times of Stephen King, Lisa Rogak’s unauthorized biography of longtime bestselling fiction writer Stephen King. The book contained a lot of interesting information, but I became stuck in my reading when I came across a disturbing statement.

Rogak was discussing how, when writing under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, King’s fiction tended to be darker, with usually bad endings. She then pointed out, though, that the Bachman novel Thinner did have an upbeat ending. What??!!

Either Lisa Rogak didn’t read Thinner or she did and completely misread it. This novel, which I personally consider to be one of Stephen King’s greatest, had a very, very dark ending! And this ending was what made this novel a masterpiece examination of how a person’s feeling of guilt over a past incident can be transformed into scapegoating of others, and ultimately, hatred. And how this hatred can consume one if left unchecked.

Thinner is literally a “thinner” book than most of Stephen King’s works, and is a quick and easy read. If his unauthorized biographer either can’t take the time to read it or can’t remember or understand what she read, then how can I trust any of the other information she’s doling out in her book? I have read almost everything that King has published, and doubtless many of his fans have done the same. I should think that someone who wants to make money out of writing a biography of Stephen King would have at least made the effort to thoroughly examine his works. Especially when a great part of that biography purports to examine how King’s personal life was reflected in his writings! Still, I don’t feel that I wasted my money on this book: I checked it out from the library!

Gainesville's Aggressive Flora

[In the spirit of Pottermania surrounding the release of the sixth Harry Potter movie The Half-Blood Prince, I'm making a reference to the series.]

Have you seen the fourth Harry Potter movie The Goblet of Fire? Toward the movie's end, Potter, competing in a contest with three others, finds himself in an elaborate maze of hedges. From time to time the hedges suddenly close in on him, forcing him to run to avoid becoming engulfed in green. I don't recall this aggressive trait of the maze hedges in the book, but seeing this in the movie reminds me of Gainesville. In the summer.

I grew up in south Florida and was accustomed to wide-open outdoor spaces with relatively few trees. In Gainesville, however, the environment is quite different. This is definitely a "forest" town, dominated by trees and bushes. And in the summer, it sometimes appears that they are trying to close in on everything with their accelerated growth. This probably isn't too beneficial to me, as I tend to suffer from respiratory allergies. But it does serve give a more three-dimensional sense to the outdoors, in contrast to south Florida's flatness (despite their asinine naming of places like "Hollywood Hills" and "Boulevard Heights").

Gainesville may be a city of more than 100,000 residents, but it is nevertheless immersed in nature. There are patches of wilderness all over the place, even in the heart of the city. Gainesville is crisscrossed by little creeks, many of which flow hidden underneath roads, but which elsewhere provide a more primeval environment around them.

Actually, it's possible to get more of a flavor of the wilderness experience by exploring Gainesville's particular little nature spots than by traveling into the surrounding countryside (which is often dominated by farms and ranches). There are several nature trails to follow, many of which border areas of heavy development. Perhaps I will explore some of these in future articles.

Robert McNamara Dies at 93

Robert McNamara has died at the advanced age of 93. He was the former “whiz kid” who transformed Ford Motor Company in the late 1950s into a viable, modern corporation. McNamara introduced systems analysis into business and government, revolutionizing how these institutions are run. Later in his career he served several years a president of the World Bank. But it is his tenure as U.S. Secretary of Defense under Kennedy and Johnson from 1961 to 1968 that Robert McNamara is most known for.

It is always interesting for me to see how differently Presidents Kennedy and Johnson treated American involvement in Vietnam, even though they both had essentially the same Departments of State and Defense (with the same Cabinet Secretaries). Kennedy, although very anti-communist, approached the area in a more clandestine manner, using the CIA and advisers. Johnson, on the other hand, decided to make a major stand in Vietnam, sending hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops there. For years after the tragic Vietnam War, criticisms against Johnson were basically that he just misjudged the situation in Indochina. But tapes released of his discussions with his advisers and cabinet indicate that not only did he know early on of the futility of the conflict, but also that the Gulf of Tonkin incident that he used to politically rally the nation behind him and the coming war was completely fabricated. And Secretary of Defense McNamara was with Johnson every step of the way, both with the Gulf of Tonkin deception and the early judgment about the war’s infeasibility. And yet both went on with it, sentencing millions of Vietnamese and almost sixty thousand Americans (many of them conscripts, not volunteers) to their deaths. Not to mention the horrible physical and psychological injuries to so many of the surviving soldiers.

I was watching an interview that Brian Lamb of C-Span had taped with him a few years ago. McNamara was very talkative, lucid and charming with just about any subject about his life. Except for Vietnam. Then he just wanted to talk about something else. Yes, I can understand that.

Robert McNamara did some pretty incredible things for this country, his systems analysis contributions being one of them. Had there been no Vietnam War, who knows; his image might even have been on a postage stamp some day. But the fact that HE KNEW, very early on, that launching a full-scale war in Vietnam would not work, and then having the gall to have Americans sent over there to their deaths anyway, is one of the most despicable things that anyone in government has ever done. It is very convenient to try to lay the blame for everything at the feet of the later Nixon administration, which to be sure committed some very bad mistakes regarding Indochina (especially with the invasion and bombing of Cambodia). But Nixon inherited the full-blown, escalated conflict that Johnson and McNamara so cynically and hopelessly began.

Burning Down a Village to Save It

There is a common theme, especially in religion, which is that in order for true transformation to come about, it is first necessary to destroy the existing order before the new, improved system can be implemented. This is definitely true with Christianity, which expresses the doctrine that one must first “die to sin” in order to be “reborn” through Christ. And the fact that Christianity is the predominant faith in America may partially explain a disturbing tendency that has been embedded within popular opinion about American foreign policy.

Recently, our national policy has been to bomb, occupy, and generally make war against Afghanistan and Iraq. But our government’s rationale is that we are not fighting their people. No, we are actually liberating them from previous oppressive governments by going over there, bombing their cities and countryside, occupying their streets, supplanting their civil authority, operating under a different set of laws than their people have to live under, treating their people like suspects instead of citizens, and overruling their “properly-elected” governments whenever it suits U.S. policy. Because we’re helping them, right?

I am convinced that there is a lot of xenophobia present in American society, and that this has been the case since possibly the inception of our nation. And wily, demagogic politicians seize upon this to enhance their prospects with the voters. But you can’t just come out and say that we should wreak havoc on our enemies abroad. No, instead we are destroying the old orders there in order to build a better society for their peoples.

But still, that old xenophobia comes out from time to time, often with a subtle wink of an eye or a chuckle. Take presidential candidate John McCain’s appeal in last year’s campaign to the xenophobic element in the electorate with his takeoff of the 1965 Beach Boys’ hit Barbara Ann: “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran” (while he was dancing across the stage). This was (as I see it) McCain’s way of saying “Yes, I’m saying all of this high-sounding stuff about helping democracy and freedom for other people, but behind it all I’m just a regular, foreigner-hating dude like all of you (so vote for me)”.

In the Vietnam War, the U.S. often burned down Vietnamese villages that were suspected of harboring or supporting the enemy Viet-Cong. The fact that the Viet-Cong may have actually been the most popular political movement among the people there was brushed aside by the argument that the people had no choice in the matter. And for true democracy to exist, the influence of the Viet-Cong had to be eradicated. Hence destroying the people’s homes, a naked act of aggression, was clothed in high-sounding, benign rhetoric.

And now here we are in Afghanistan. Why did we go there anyway? Wasn’t it twofold: (1) To root out and destroy Al-Qaeda and those responsible for the 9/11 attacks and (2) to punish the Taliban in Afghanistan for giving sanctuary and support for Al-Qaeda within their borders? But now, oh-no, here we are again, “helping” the Afghanis build a “democracy” against the “bad guys” the Taliban. But the Taliban, as unpalatable their politics may be to Western sensibilities (especially their attitudes about women’s rights, education, intolerance of other beliefs, and capital punishment), is an indigenous and popular political force in that part of the world. To eliminate the Taliban there would necessitate either destroying the people there or destroying their way of life to the point where they would have to move somewhere else. In former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, this was called “ethnic cleansing” and was almost universally condemned.

We will not win a land war against a popular indigenous movement like the Taliban (just as we couldn’t against the Viet Cong). They need to be separated from their ally Al-Qaeda and then recognized and left alone. Otherwise we are going to be “burning a lot a villages” to supposedly save democracy!

We also need to get over our evangelistic-redemptive ideology of “helping” others abroad with whom we have a bone to pick by turning their societies upside-down with military force. We may think that we’re doing good, but others in the world see it as simple, naked aggression and imperialism. And simply saying that we don’t care what others think about us won’t wash in a world where we are up to our necks in debt to other countries.

Krispy Kreme Doug

Yes, ma'am, I'm ready with my order...I'll take two dozen of the General MacArthurs, three of the Hennings......and yes, a couple of Fairbanks Juniors from the dollar menu!

Handling Third Party Disputes

Have you ever had an ongoing quarrel with someone else in the workplace, school, or any place that you attended regularly? Most honest people would say yes (unless they just told me to mind my own business). And most of us, from time to time, will complain about said troublesome person to another. Now when I do this (I try to avoid it as much as possible), I am not seeking an ally against the individual with whom I have the disagreement. Rather I am doing two things: venting my feelings out while also getting a third party’s perspective on the situation. That party doesn’t have to agree with my stand, but I do expect a bit of empathy (or even sympathy).

However, I do try to get along with everyone as much as humanly possible without becoming undignified about it. And that includes those whom others openly dislike. Often others will come to me expressing a criticism about a third party. And the object of the criticism is often someone whom I like and work well with. But I don’t feel the need to take sides in others’ disputes, and this is a good thing in general.

If every time people fell out with each other all of the surrounding people had to choose sides, we’d quickly find ourselves in very polarized situations with groups of people clinging together, bound by their mutual dislike of others outside their group. This is neither healthy on the scale of individual people or on the scale of nations.

And speaking of the scale of nations, our current president seems to believe as I do that (1) our friends’ foes don’t automatically have to be our foes and (2) we shouldn’t expect other countries to automatically fall in line with us and shun nations that we disapprove of. How refreshing and different from the previous administration’s overbearing international attitude! And how much better for our world as well!

Creative Environments: The Beatles

I have always marveled at how much the quality of the individual Beatles members’ musical output suffered after they broke up and went solo. The most striking cases were those of Paul McCartney and George Harrison.

George Harrison was, of the three members who wrote songs, the one consigned to obscurity with usually only one or two tracks per album attributed to him. But as the band grew in fame, Harrison also grew in his songwriting ability, producing an ever-increasing quantity and quality of music. Most of it remained unheard during the Beatles’ span as an intact band. But in late 1970, many of Harrison’s works came together on his blockbuster solo triple-album release All Things Must Pass. Beatles fans marveled at how talented Harrison was, and looked forward to his future releases. But afterward, nothing of his came close to the level of music from that first album. His fall was so complete that some of his subsequent albums actually went “out of print”. And my favorite George Harrison solo song, You, from his 1976 Extra Texture album, was actually originally a 1970 piece rejected from All Things Must Pass (there was just only so much space, even on three discs). What happened?

Paul McCartney underwent a similar change. His music with the Beatles was incredible with its beauty and simple appeal. But once he went solo and became comfortable with that lifestyle, his music (at least to me) went south.

Part of the explanation for these changes in creative output may be the change in personal environments that these two artists experienced. When they were together as the Beatles, there was much more creative tension, with more opportunities for collaboration, competition, and immediate critical feedback regarding compositions. Once alone, though, surrounded by adoring family members and “yes” people, McCartney and Harrison lost those elements that had refined their music into such great works during the Beatles era (and with Harrison, his first solo work following their breakup). When McCartney collaborated with Elvis Costello on an album, the latter chided McCartney on not having been willing in the past to accept criticisms in a constructive, collaborative spirit on his previous solo albums (I tend to regard McCartney’s Wings albums as solo works).

Now you may note that I didn’t mention John Lennon in this. And there’s a good reason: Lennon never (well, at least for the first few years after the Beatles breakup) got away from that state of creative tension by living in a creatively-insulated bubble. Both his personal and creative life were in a more or less constant state of turmoil from the Beatles time until 1976, when he decided to retire from music to raise his son Sean full-time. Ironically, once Lennon did return to music in 1980, many were critical of his album Double Fantasy as having lost that earlier edge to his sound.

The point to all of this is that a good, working creative environment may be just the opposite of what the artist envisions as being ideal. Often it is very uncomfortable, cramped conditions with often disagreeable, hypercritical people that can be an incubator of great works. And when these artists finally get some control of their creative environment, their output also may suffer.

All-Star Break Standings

We’ve reached the midpoint in the Major League Baseball season, traditionally marked by (today's) all-star game. I couldn’t care less about the all-star game, but I do like to stop and take a look at the standings to see how well (or badly) the teams I am following are doing.

The American League Central Division, which I’m focusing on, continues to surprise me with the Detroit Tigers, a flop last year, holding on to their division lead at 48-39. But the Chicago White Sox, last year’s winner, are close behind at 45-43 and the Minnesota Twins just behind them at 45-44. Bringing up the rear are usually-bad Kansas City at 37-51 and the very disappointing Cleveland Indians at 35-54.

I’m also following three other teams closely because of their television coverage in my area: the Chicago Cubs, the Florida Marlins, and the Tampa Bay Rays. All three teams are thick in the hunt for a playoff spot, but none are “in the lead”. The Cubs are tied for third in their division at 43-43, Florida is in second in theirs at 46-44, and defending American League Champion Tampa Bay is in third in their division at 48-41. Any of these teams are capable of surging to get to the playoffs, but I’m realistic enough to know that not all of them are going to accomplish this.

Right now, it looks as if the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers are the best teams in each league. But the season is long, and who knows how it will end.

Moral Hypocrisy in Politics

Recently, following the revelations about South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford’s extramarital affair with an Argentine woman, many have charged this politician with hypocrisy. After all, wasn’t it Sanford who, as a congressman in the late 1990s, voted for then-President Clinton’s impeachment on moral grounds? And furthermore, after rejecting stimulus plan funds allocated for the state that he is charged with taking care of, he used taxpayer money for transportation to and from his illicit trysts. Such hypocrisy!

But wait, according to Rush Limbaugh recently, hypocrisy is good! He stated that hypocritical behavior, when exposed, reveals that a society does have moral standards and that they matter. Limbaugh then went further to state that, since Democrats unfortunately tend not to have moral standards, this leads to Republicans being the only party whose politicians suffer from being exposed as hypocrites.

Oh yeah? Then how is it that in New York, arguably one of the most liberal and Democratic states in the country, the elected governor Eliot Spitzer had to resign his post after revelations that he had solicited a prostitute? Folks there were then mighty peeved at Spitzer’s hypocrisy, since he attained the governorship largely on his reputation as a moral, ethical State Attorney. Or what about John Edwards, whose political ambitions disintegrated after it was revealed that he was having an affair while his wife was undergoing treatment for cancer?

But Limbaugh has a convenient (for his profession) capacity to remember what he wants and to forget what he wants. And how many times over the years has he passionately employed the “h” word in reference to those (always politically moderate or liberal) with whom he had ideological differences? But, no, whenever a conservative get into the news and screws up, then it’s a different line: we’re all human, let’s forgive and move on!

I couldn’t care less whether Sanford or Spitzer had affairs or not. It is the question of whether or not they used public money to fund their “outings”. And it’s here that I feel that the charge of hypocrisy is proper, regardless of which party is in power.

My Running, Of Late

Lately I have been continuing at my running, but not at the longer distances that I had been hoping for. One reason for this is that the weather here has been heating up terribly as it usually does during the summertime. And when it is not overbearingly hot, then it is either raining with wet, slippery surfaces or is at nighttime, with poor visibility. I had been leaning toward running at night, even running at times back and forth in my own back yard after midnight. But running down a street at night? Even beyond the paranoid notion that anyone may think a man running down the street at night could only be up to no good, it is truly very difficult then for me to see the surface that I’m running on. And it would take just one trip-up or a step into a hole to cause a serious injury.

When I do run, I almost always run around my neighborhood. I have a 2.87 mile (exactly the same distance as my old Davie “block”) course I’ve laid out over my neighborhood. I’ve found this extremely convenient as I can just step out of my house, run, and then come back in. Also, the course is designed so that, should I need to cut short my running for any reason, I can just walk a relatively short distance back to my house. And so far, I’ve experienced no problems at all with dogs running around loose (as I had feared). When the weather finally does cool down, I can extend my distance by running down other streets. I have extensively used the website MapMyRun to help me design my running courses.

This past Fourth of July, Gainesville had a three mile running race at Westside Park. I didn’t run it, but I was gratified to see the Gainesville Sun newspaper actually feature an article about it the next day, complete with results for all the finishers. If they can just keep up that local sports coverage!

Sarah Palin Resigns as Governor

So Sarah Palin is resigning from being governor of Alaska. Had John McCain not mistakenly picked her as his running mate in the 2008 presidential campaign, she would probably be gearing up for reelection in 2010 instead of quitting her post. But it appears that she has become starstruck; the lure of national media exposure, along with the existence of a hardcore right-wing ideological following (like Ann Coulter), has changed this formerly pragmatic and unifying regional politician to a divisive and polarizing presence on the national level.

If Sarah Palin is leaving office because she wants to focus her undivided attention on campaigning for president in 2012, then I understand this. Being governor is much more of a demanding day-to-day job than is being a senator. A governor, like the president on a national level, is the chief executive of an entire state, with many decisions and responsibilities affecting its people. Part of being a chief executive, whether it be of a state or of a nation, is also just being there, making sure that everything is going O.K. and that the government that the governor or president has been elected to lead is functioning effectively in the interests of the people. So Palin’s resignation can be seen as a realization of this and a responsible act from someone who does care about her own state’s interests. The new governor, now-Lt-Governor Parnell, will be able to devote his full attention to taking care of Alaska’s interests.

On the other hand, it may be argued that Palin didn’t even come close to completing one term as governor. And her political résumé is very short to begin with. Plus, the only reason she was picked as McCain’s running mate was to attract disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters from the Democrats in the general presidential election. On top of all this, many conservatives are scratching their heads wondering why she couldn’t have just served the remainder of her one term, which would have ended in January 2011.

Apparently, nowadays it is necessary to begin campaigning for president the minute that the previous election has just ended (although it could be argued that Mitt Romney began campaigning for 2012 the minute he conceded the Republican nomination to McCain in the spring of ’08). I think that Sarah Palin wants to do much as Ronald Reagan successfully did in the mid-to-late seventies.

Ronald Reagan left office as governor of California in January 1975 after his second term expired. He immediately set his sights on taking the 1976 Republican presidential nomination from sitting President Gerald Ford, coming very close to pulling this off. For the next four years, Reagan became a columnist and a media commentator, which kept him in the spotlight without labeling him as a perpetual campaigner. And this is the mold in which Palin is trying to fit.

But it won’t work, in my opinion. Reagan was a very genial soul who laughed off criticisms and befriended ideological opponents. Palin, on the other hand, takes all criticisms very personally and uses what she regards as humor to personally attack others. She may want to emulate Reagan, but I see her in reality as emulating one of Reagan’s contemporaries: Richard Nixon, the master of the “enemies list”.

Not Rooting For the Superstar

Lance Armstrong is back in business, pursuing the lead in his comeback bid during the Tour de France bicycle race. And now the media is putting out long articles and news segments on this race. The French Tour has been largely ignored since Armstrong’s past “retirement” from the sport after he achieved his seventh Tour title.

I have seen Armstrong training, and he uses a lot of expensive technology that employs computers analyzing his bicycling movements to give him feedback as to the most efficient way to pedal. Other bicyclists possessing less wealth or who don’t have the connections that Armstrong has are not able to compete at this level. So what we see on the race course, where hundreds of bicyclists are apparently on the same course and also apparently are on an equal “footing”, is just an illusion: those with the advantages of advanced, expensive training will succeed while the others will drop back into the field.

I will not be rooting for Lance Armstrong in this year’s Tour de France. Nor will I be following it on television (there is a channel that has continuous coverage). Why? Because when Armstrong isn’t in the race, there is more spread out coverage of the race. But when Armstrong is in it, the attention focuses on him and his supporting team. The unspoken presumption is that he is the only bicyclist that anyone cares about!

Bicycling is a sport of margins. There isn’t very much difference between a champion and an also-ran. Getting the edge over other competitors not only requires special training; apparently a team of self-sacrificial bicyclists needs to be there to help the “champ” pace himself and strategically place himself in relation to his opponents. So when I’m watching the race, I see that many of the participants aren’t in it to win; they’re just sycophants of the team leader! And I have a problem with that. I’m not judging Armstrong, either. He is simply taking advantage of the considerably better resources available to him to optimize his performance.

The whole idea of bicycle riding, as I see it, is based on the notion that, in the midst of our technology-crazed society, a person can still get on a relatively simple vehicle and get around pretty doggone fast! I like to at least pretend that this is also true when applied to high-level athletic competition. But it seems that athletics, which I would have thought championed human performance as being separate from technology, has instead embraced that technology, even to the point of merging with it.

At this writing, it looks as if Lance Armstrong has a good chance to win the Tour de France again. So why should I root for this already extremely-wealthy glory seeker? Or even for any fellow American? Why not just pick out someone from another country and root for him instead?

Home in the Savanna

[In the morning]
My lawn is turning into a savanna of high grass. Why? I had let it grow for about a week after the previous mowing and was going to mow it again. But for the past few days, we've been getting rain. And rain. And more rain. And I'm really not keen on mowing sopping wet grass! And since the rain just speeds up its growth, the grass just keeps getting higher and higher.

I know people who get up in the morning just to work in their yards all day, gardening and maintaining their lawns with tender, loving care. And I respect them for that, as it is their passion in life to do this. But it's not mine. Yes, I live in a house with a lawn and some bushes and trees, but I'm definitely a minimalist when it comes to lawn maintenance. I have quite a healthy mix of different varieties of grass comprising my lawn. Others may call them "weeds"; I refer to them as "indigenous flora". When I see a fire ant hill, I calmly put some fire ant killer on it and then ignore it. When I see evidence of a mole's activity just under the surface, it matters not to me. And use treatments or fertilizers on my lawn? Forget it!

I really don't like the grass getting this high, though. Although I don't like my lawn mower blades getting wet, I may just have to go ahead and mow some, thoroughly wiping the blades dry afterward.

Although I'm not a lawn and garden enthusiast, I actually usually do enjoy mowing the lawn (with my gasoline-powered push mower). I either put on my radio headset or my MP3 and I'm good to go! This time around, though, I'd better be on guard for wild animals lurking in the savanna!
***************************
[Later in the afternoon]
Hooray, I just mowed my front lawn! The rain actually stopped for a little while. The ground under the surface was so saturated with water that my lightweight lawn mower's wheels cut deep grooves into the ground. There, that should keep the codes enforcement people at bay for a while. Next, the back yard (which is twice the size of the front).

WUFT Drops Classical Music

Now that my local Public Radio station, 89.1/WUFT, has decided to cave in to a few loud voices and stop broadcasting classical music in favor of talk and news, The Gainesville Sun, which was responsible for creating this phony controversy in the first place through its editorial pages, is now printing letter after letter decrying the change (which takes effect August 3).

In Monday’s editorial section, they printed a long letter by Mickie Edwardson (a retired UF professor) opposing the programming change. She notes that the biggest contributions to WUFT during fund drives always come during the times that they play classical music. And that the proposed added news/talk shows are very, very expensive. Edwardson, like me in a previous blog article, also points out that WUFT was already providing a great diversity of programming, not just classical music. And finally, she gives as an example the case of the Jacksonville Public Radio station, which (according to her) had done what WUFT is planning to do and then found out that it needed to restore some classical music in its programming.

Regarding the Jacksonville station (its call letters are WJCT), it is definitely airing talk/news programming most of the day and evening. But late at night, it does play classical music. WUFT, on the other hand, has always played jazz in the late night hours. I often listen to WJCT on my car radio when driving home from work, but its signal is generally not strong enough for other radios of mine.

It is true that Gainesville is a cultural center in north central Florida, and that many of its residents are patrons of the arts, especially classical music. But Gainesville is also an academic center as well as a more politically liberal “island” in a vast sea of conservative political sentiments. And all of the available commercial talk radio stations are either sports talk or extreme right-wing conservative talk. It would be nice to tune in to a station that at least displayed a sense of objectivity in its political outlook.

Once again, here is my lament: everybody picks on the one Public Radio station to criticize and ignores the many commercial stations that are dropping the ball with their programming, apparently because the public has now bought the line that the marketplace alone should determine what their programming is. But there are still laws on the books that mandate programming that serves the public interests on these stations as well, even with the Fairness Doctrine having been revoked.

In the middle of her article, Mickie Edwardson asks, “If Classic 89 doesn’t provide this music, where will people get it?” I have to presume that she meant “from off the radio dial”, because I can still gain access to classical music through other means. My local public library has an enormous number and variety of classical music CDs that I can check out for listening. My desktop computer has access to the Internet, which has many free classical music web stations to listen to. And my television service has some music channels on it as well, two of which are solely devoted to playing classical music.

I think that the question Mickie Edwardson was asking was posed in the sense of introducing and exposing the general public to classical music in the most accessible manner possible. And this would have been through the radio. But I have already pretty much written off radio anyway, getting more and more of what it used to provide from the Internet.

Michael Jackson’s Death

I have tended to downplay the recent death of Michael Jackson. I am sorry that he died, but I am generally sorry when people die anyway. He was a very successful entertainer who surrounded himself with “yes” people and came to regard himself as a messiah figure and his fans as “his children”. That I just couldn’t take. I don’t care one way or another about his repeated surgeries and skin treatments that drastically altered his physical appearance. If he wanted to look a certain way, then that was his own business. And I’m not at all convinced that he ever had any designs on children that exceeded the most purely innocent of intentions. But since he was accused in the past of such nefarious designs, in the eyes of many in our society, he stands convicted solely on account of those accusations. Not from me, though.

I never cared too much for Michael Jackson’s stage performance, which even with my limited knowledge of dancing seemed to me to be overly repetitive. And I didn’t care at all for most of his over-produced and over-hyped videos. No, I was interested in his well-crafted studio music. And his best works by far were his Off the Wall and Thriller albums. But although I liked them, they still don’t figure as personal favorites of mine. I can pretty much count on one hand the Michael Jackson songs that really “grabbed” me: I Want to Be Where You Are (from 1972), Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough and Rock With You (from Off the Wall), P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing, from Thriller), and Man in the Mirror (from Bad). True, Off the Wall and Thriller had a continuity of good music in them, but most of the tracks were good, not super-great, listening.

Hopefully, all of the legal wrangling falling out from Michael Jackson’s death won’t wreck too many lives. Like many, the only party that I really care about is his children and that they are properly cared for. But this excessive public outpouring I’m seeing over him borders on the creepy (to me).

Happy Fourth of July

I'm taking a little time off from this blog, starting today. In a few days I should be back. Happy Independence Day!

Climbing Radio Towers

Although my instincts for self-preservation are very strong and probably would prevent me from doing this, I have a very strong desire, whenever I pass a tall radio tower (or any tower with those little built-in ladders extending to its summit), to scale the usually barbed-wire fence surrounding it and climb the tower to the top. And I also wonder how long (assuming I made it over the fence, that is) I could climb the ladder on one of these towers before people on the outside would notice. Also, do they all have someone there guarding the place, or is it assumed that (1) the barbed wire is enough of a deterrent and (2) no one would be foolhardy enough to try to scale the tower, anyway?

I think that my main reason for this attraction to high towers is the complete lack of thrill rides and theme parks in the Gainesville area in which I live. The closest thing to a thrill ride is the swivel chair that I sit on at my computer, (if you discount the little water slide at my municipal pool, that is).

Still, even when I’m actually at a theme park looking up at the imposing roller coasters, I sometimes feel that it would be more of a thrill were I a maintenance worker there with the duty of climbing up the flimsy-looking ladders on these rides to inspect them.

Wanting to climb things goes way back in my life to my childhood, when I would habitually climb the furniture around the house. Once, when I was very little, I was climbing a large chest of drawers when I pulled it down on top of me. I just quietly lay there with the chest of drawers sitting on top of me until my mother came back to see what caused the crash. I also used to, as a kid (and without my parents ever finding out) climb the hallway walls up to the ceiling by pushing my feet against either side. I also became an avid tree-climber, taking chances at times up there in the high branches that now make me shake my head at my own youthful foolishness.

Maybe I need to investigate rock-climbing as a hobby, starting with those plastic rocks. There are a couple of places in town with them. Or…wait, Williston, a few miles southwest of Gainesville, does have a skydiving club!

Cops and Gator Football Jocks Team Up

I read in the local newspaper a few days ago that the Gainesville Police Department and the University of Florida football team were going to “team up”, with Gator players riding with the police on their patrols. This is apparently a public relations stunt designed to repair the reputations of the two sides, both of which have received some bad press recently. The police have been implicated in an egg-throwing vandalism incident and several UF players have been arrested for various crimes recently.

Which brings me to the following potential scenario: Tim Tebow is riding next to Officer Smith, and Officer Smith gets a call that leads to…you guessed it…a physically unruly teammate of Tebow’s caught breaking the law. And the policeman calls out for Tebow to help in subduing the suspect. Now I ask, “WWTD” in this type of situation?

Or take another scenario. An irate motorist has been pulled over speeding a little over the limit or for some other minor infraction. How is seeing a University of Florida football player sitting next to the ticketing officer going to improve the police’s standing with that motorist? Wouldn’t that just serve to diminish UF’s standing instead?

It also sets up a dilemma at coffee shops. Do the employees offer free coffees to both the police and the football players, or do the jocks alone have to pay for their drinks? And if they’re given free drinks, isn’t this a violation of the NCAA’s asinine rules about material compensation for their supposedly “amateur” athletes? Wait until that new obnoxious, tattletale Tennessee coach hears about this!

Well, I read about this teaming up of Gator pigskin jocks with cops a while back and I haven’t seen any such pairings. But then again, other than with Tebow, how would I recognize an individual as being a Gator football player anyway unless he was in his uniform, complete with helmet and shoulder pads? Now seeing them like that in police cars would definitely change the public’s attitude toward both parties. Toward extreme laughter.

Senator Franken, Finally

The Minnesota Supreme Court has finally gotten around to voting, at their unreasonably (to me) leisurely pace, 5-0 to affirm Democrat Al Franken as Minnesota's junior U.S. Senator yesterday. GOP loser Norm Coleman, soon after the ruling, conceded the election to Franken, averting an even longer drawn-out appeal process to the U.S. Supreme Court. And the Gopher State's Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty has said that he will promptly sign the necessary certificate to allow the winner into the Senate.

Well, it's about time! A lot of the blame can be pinned on Coleman for being a sore loser. Certainly those Republicans (and others) who thought this about Al Gore in 2000 (who caused George W. Bush to miss not even one minute in office) can see this. Al Franken has missed six crucial months in office when he could have been an important factor in a new president's legislative agenda. How would Coleman have liked it if the shoe were on the other foot and it was Franken holding HIM up from taking his Senate seat?

But I think there is more to this delay than Norm Coleman. The Republican Party has embarked on an obstructionist strategy ever since the new Congress and President have taken office this year. In Congress, especially the Senate, they have used every trick in the rules book to hold up bills and presidential nominations. This even includes bills and nominees that the GOP had no particular objection to. The idea, apparently, is to slow down everything in order to keep as much legislation they disagree with from becoming law. Well, once again I say them, "You guys lost the election! The American people chose the Democrats and their agenda this time around. Better luck next time!"

I think Al Franken will be an excellent senator. I've read a couple of his books and, if they are any indication as to which issues matter the most to him and how he will vote, then his tenure in office will be a pleasure for me to follow.

I can't wait for the moment when I tune in to C-Span2 and see Senator Al Franken sitting up there, presiding over the United States Senate with a gavel in his hand and his trademark infectious grin stretching from ear to ear!

Starting to Read Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn

A couple of years ago, I finished reading Otherland, a four-part science fiction series by primarily-fantasy writer Tad Williams which explored the world of virtual reality, set one hundred years in the future. The author's writing impressed me enough to look into his fantasy works, although I have been distracted by other books in the meantime. However, this past weekend I bought a secondhand copy of the first volume in Williams's Memory, Sorrow and Thorn fantasy trilogy titled The Dragonbone Chair. And I'm starting it today! Blog feedback later!

Slim Pickings on TV Tonight

Sinking into my customary, comfortable role on Monday evening as television-junkie-couch-potato, I had trouble finding anything good to watch after the Spike channel's presentation of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Even Rachel Maddow was missing from The Rachel Maddow Show. So I've been alternating between baseball and cartoons. Oh well, some nights are better than others. Let me go pop up some popcorn and then see what's on computer-TV!

Bonus Tracks on Extended Audio CDs

Since the advent of the audio compact disc with its approximately eighty minutes of space, record companies reissuing old vinyl albums on CDs have often used the extra available space to issue "extended" albums with bonus tracks. Usually these are primarily other versions of the original album's tracks, sometimes including concert recordings. And sometimes these alternatives are better than the original. For example, in the Monkees' Head CD, the song Daddy's Song was originally released as a track with Davy Jones as the lead singer. And it was difficult to listen to, putting it mildly. But with the CD release, a bonus track featuring Mike Nesmith on lead vocals poignantly captured the sad message in this song. Besides repeated material, a CD may contain new songs heretofore unreleased, and that is always a treat (especially with the older recordings).

Having said that, I obtained one of those "extended" CDs, this one of the great album Morrison Hotel by the Doors. The signature, opening track is the classic Roadhouse Blues. Well, the record company apparently liked Roadhouse Blues so much that they included four other versions of it as extra tracks! Why couldn't they have put some different material on instead (they did include some "new" extra stuff on it, to be fair)?

But bonus tracks aren't really a selling point of these CDs for me. Actually, it can be quite a nuisance if I'm driving and I want to hear the main, original tracks in random fashion. Then I keep getting the extra material, most of which I really don't want to hear. But that isn't really too much of a problem, either. I just advance to the next track. Still, I don't understand why concentrating on putting different songs on as bonus tracks wouldn't be a more lucrative sales strategy than piling on different versions of already-heard songs.

Three Celebrity Deaths

Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson have all just died. I'm sorry they died and all, just as most other people are sorry as well. But it's not exactly as if any of us, as Jim Morrison once sang, are getting out of here alive either!

Death is naturally something we fear, since it is a great mystery (from the point of view of the survivors, that is). But it is inevitable, so we shouldn't mourn too much at the inevitable loss of those we know, either personally or through the media. Still, the pain of knowing that these people will no longer be around is understandable. And since we only know for sure of this one chance at life, we should take care to value it, both for ourselves and others.

Anyway, if we were to define death as the state of not being alive in our bodies, then all of us had already been dead for, at last count, some 15 billion years before we were conceived and born! So regarding death, one may say, "Been there, done that!"

Naturally, all of this excludes supernatural interpretations of death, which the reader is certainly free to indulge in or reject.

Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials

I just finished reading Philip Pullman's fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials, comprised of The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass. As is the case with other reviews, I'm left with the dilemma of trying to express my impressions without revealing too much to anyone who hasn't yet read it. So here goes (don't say I didn't warn you).

His Dark Materials, to me, bears a disturbingly uncanny resemblance to Stephen King's much longer The Dark Tower series, above and beyond the titles. Besides the convenient literary ploy of having windows opening into alternate universes (with The Dark Tower it's doors), Pullman's fantasy resembles King's with its unlikely protagonists being responsible for not just saving the world, or even the universe, but ultimately for saving ALL of the universes (I miss the good old days when just saving the world was enough). And both series have a lot to say about the nature of good and evil, as well as the nature of God. Hey wait a minute, all this also sounds a lot like C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia!

The similarities to other works having been duly noted, Pullman does succeed quite well with his compelling characters and story. With a series like this, what I'm looking for the most are protagonists that I can either like or identify with, accompanied by an interesting, suspenseful sequence of events that they have to experience in their quest, whatever that may be. And the two protagonists, Lyra (introduced in The Golden Compass) and Will (introduced in The Subtle Knife) are truly compelling characters worth following. There are some really "bad" antagonists as well. And (what I like the most) a few characters who are so complex that they play an unpredictable, "wild card" role in the story's outcome. The plot also succeeds by carrying the reader from one dire situation to the next in an almost seamless manner.

What distinguishes Pullman in His Dark Materials from other similar works are his iconoclastic revelations concerning the true nature of God, angels, the Church, and other sensitive religious topics. Most of this comes out in the third book The Amber Spyglass, and (to me) almost sounds like the author is standing on a bully pulpit shouting out his views (much like Michael Crichton's distasteful excesses in his novel State of Fear). I suppose much of this is unavoidable since, having laid down so many mysteries in the first two books, it was necessary, to a degree, to explain them in the third.

Overall, I heartily recommend Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series, especially to those readers who enjoyed other series like The Chronicles of Narnia, The Dark Tower, Harry Potter, or Lord of the Rings. And, speaking of Lord of the Rings, I discovered that the movie The Golden Compass ended in its story before the book did. I found this out after, having just finished reading that book, I gave away part of its ending to my children, who had only seen the movie (the Lord of the Rings movie played around like this with the book's story line, too). One caveat to my recommendation: those who are firmly entrenched in their religious beliefs may be (quite) a bit put off by what comes out at the end!

Oh, one other thing. At the end of The Amber Spyglass, I noticed that the author planted a couple of seeds for future stories. It will be interesting to see whether anything comes of this.

The Group Metric and the Military

The Canadian alternative band Metric, fronted by singer Emily Haines (also of Broken Social Scene), runs through many different themes in their music. One of them is their strong opposition to anything military, not just war. This distinguishes them from what many in the United States do when they "oppose the war but support the troops". Metric makes no such distinction, as the two videos below show.





Metric has put out four studio albums so far, and each of them is great. Right now, I think I'd have to put them at #2, right behind Sufjan Stevens, in my list of current favorite musical acts. They are quite passionately negative about the military and war, though a bit too "anti-troops" for me (yeh, I'm one of those wacky "anti-war troop-supporters")! Here's a link to another anti-war hit of theirs, Monster Hospital.

No Fun Following Gators

Maybe this year I'll take a pass on the college football season. The University of Florida Gators, with their coach Urban Meyer and superstar quarterback Tim Tebow want a repeat of last year's national championship run and will most likely regard anything less than that as a failure.

Well, that's no fun! I like for the team I'm following to be good, but perfect? I would much rather have some very suspenseful games to watch, where the outcome is uncertain, than a blow-out season where game after game is a rout.

Not that I'm planning to root against UF this year. I'll still be a fan, but I think I may just decide to focus my attention on some other conference. The current favorite: the Pac-Ten. Why? I may find myself in a better position to watch some of their games, seeing that I get off from work at midnight. If following another conference doesn't work out, I may just skip this year until things get more competitive for the Gators.

Iranian Presidential Election

Anyone who has been watching the news is keenly aware of the unrest in Iran following the recent controversial presidential election over there. Incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner over supposedly reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, and in a landslide. No doubt exists in my mind that this was a fraudulant election. Boxes containing Mousavi votes were disposed of, the winner was declared before the voting was even finished, and Ahmadinejad won demographic categories that were believed to heavily favor his opponent. And people have been taking to the streets in protest, being met with intimidation and violence by the Iranian authorities (and responding with violence as well).

But I contend that this election was a complete fraud to begin with. Both candidates for "president" were handpicked by the so-called "supreme leader", who is nothing more than a ruthless dictator swathed in religion. And it is he, not the president, who controls this longtime UNDEMOCRATIC nation.

In order to have a truly functioning democracy, there needs to be freedom for candidates to openly campaign without press restrictions, something completely lacking in Iran. Also, there was no independent polling there to scientifically gauge the public opinion (this would have served as a rough guideline to the validity of the election results).

But I'm seeing all of this from the West, not from inside Iran. I get my information from the western journalists in Iran. And they get much of their information from those Iranians who tend to oppose Ahmadinejad, giving the built-in impression that he was very unpopular among the people at-large and should have lost his reelection bid. But, for all I know, Ahmadinejad would have won the election anyway, since there really wasn't any truly objective opinion polling there to indicate otherwise. The fact that there wasn't, though, shows the futility of even pretending that there was any democracy involved in this "election" to begin with. And does anyone seriously believe that getting opinions and reports from Twitter in Iran is a dependable way to get a pulse on how the Iranians as a whole feel?

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme dictator of Iran, is in some kind of power struggle with another dictator wanna-be by the name of Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani. Apparently, Ahmadinejad represents Khamenei's power while Mousavi is in some way on the side of Rafsanjani. And people are dying in Iranian streets thinking that they are pushing freedom, when in reality they are considered to be expendable pawns in a power struggle between two cruel autocrats.

President Obama recognizes this and is being careful with his comments about the situation in Iran. Meanwhile, the same old motley crew of hotheads on the right are beating the war drums again, led by John McCain. McCain, if you will recall, tried to make political hay during last year's presidential campaign by making vague threats against Russia during that country's brief armed conflict with neighboring Georgia. And naturally, these blabbermouths are trying to make the tragedies unfolding in Iran a referendum on Obama's leadership. Someone needs to remind McCain that the campaign's over ... and he lost!

The whole way in which this is being reported in the media gives me the feeling of being severely manipulated. It's the "good guys" versus the "bad guys" all over again. From where I stand, though, I don't see much difference between the two camps. I have a feeling, though, that many of the protesting Iranians don't like either side and are desperately trying to topple the "supreme" dictatorship and actually have a president whose election makes a difference.

Beach Trip to Daytona

This past weekend, I spent some time with my family in Daytona Beach (technically Daytona Beach Shores). We all had a good time, but toward the end of the stay the temperatures skyrocketed to nearly 100 degrees (Fahrenheit), with the heat index reaching 110. And about 200 rescues of swimmers caught in strong rip currents were made on Friday and Saturday. So what did I do in the midst of this extreme heat and oceanic peril? Run on the beach and go out into the waves, of course!

Here are some photos of the beach:

Robbins Giant Steps: Decisions

Self-improvement guru Anthony Robbins, in his book Giant Steps, lays out many constructive ideas that may help one to achieve success. Many of these may seem to be self-evident, but many of us (me included) nevertheless tend not to follow them in our daily lives.

One of the most profound is the idea that “those who succeed tend to make decisions rapidly and are slow to reverse a well-thought-out position.” (Day 10)

I tend to do the opposite: hem and haw about an issue that is gnawing on me, avoiding any decision about it until the last minute (or even later) and then backtracking from it once the decision has supposedly been made. Seems obvious that this is a process doomed to repeated failure, doesn’t it?

Going hand-in-hand with Robbins’ “Day 10” advice is the one from “Day 7”: “The more decisions you make, the better you’ll become at making them.”

The key to any good decision, though, is something that Robbins included in his advice: Think out your decision and consider its consequences, as well as what types of decisions you may be making as a result.

Following Three More Baseball Teams

I decided to add three other teams to the list of baseball teams I’m trying to follow in greater detail this season: the Florida Marlins, the Tampa Bay Rays, and the Chicago Cubs. Why? Because I can regularly see them play on TV, that’s all.

Added to the five teams of the American League Central Division (a great choice, I might say), I think “eight is enough”!

So far this year, all eight teams are hovering around the .500 mark, with Detroit currently enjoying the best record and Cleveland (whose pitcher Cliff Lee recently almost pitched a no-hitter) and Kansas City vying for worst. But they are all very close to each other in the standings. Who knows who will prevail at season’s end!

Wooden Roller Coaster Chatter

While looking at YouTube to see if I could find that long wooden roller coaster I had described before on this blog as being “legendary” (it is Shivering Timbers at Michigan’s Adventure park in Muskegon County, Michigan), I discovered a few others worth that high billing. The most interesting of the bunch is much closer than Muskegon, Michigan: it is The Voyage at Holiday World in Santa Claus, (southern) Indiana (on Christmas Boulevard). Here is the link to a video of that ride. The above picture of The Voyage is from Wikipedia.

I have an annual-pass to Busch Gardens in Tampa, which is much, much closer than is Holiday World. And still it seems like a major ordeal to drive down there (about 130 miles distance from Gainesville). But that’s not all.

I have yet to visit a theme park where the simple act of walking through it isn’t thoroughly exhausting in itself. And in the hot summertime? Forget it! It makes me appreciate even more the single big coaster that Boomer’s of Dania, Florida had (well, I guess Boomer's is kind of like a theme park). If I lived down there I probably would have ridden it more than 100 times by now!

The Movie Star Trek and Its Trick

With the new Star Trek movie, which I recently saw, comes a new departure from reality. We find out over the course of events in the movie that we are experiencing an “alternate” universe of Star Trek, put into play by using the device of time travel through a black hole. Nice ploy. Now, in subsequent Star Trek movies, the writers are free to mess around with this alternate universe, changing ITS course of (fictional/speculative) history with impunity and without any concern as to how it would affect future Star Trek scenarios (especially that of Star Trek: The Next Generation). Any character can now be killed off and any planet destroyed. After all, this is a different universe! As “cheap” as this strategy may seem, it does add a much-needed element of suspense to the series. Now, when Kirk (or Spock or Uhura or McCoy or Scotty or anyone else) is hanging by one hand on the edge of a cliff with his adversary trying to pry it off, we can never be too sure that (s)he’s going to get out of it alive. The writers are also free to write new scenarios regarding the Klingons and Romulans. And they are also free to introduce the Borg and Q, staples of Star Trek: the Next Generation (occurring later on the original Star Trek timescale), earlier in time to allow interaction with Kirk, Spock, and company.

Yes, I generally feel that time travel can often be used as a “cop-out” science fiction trick in that it is all-too-easy to present mind-boggling paradoxes to the viewer. Although this does happen with the 2009 movie Star Trek, it also works to liberate this series from any constraints regarding its adherence to the fictional “Star Trek history”. I say bravo!

Gandhi Statue at UNF

Here is a photo I took today of an interesting statue in the middle of the University of North Florida campus in Jacksonville, Florida. It is of the great twentieth-century Indian non-violent activist Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, commonly known as Mahatma Gandhi.

His example is sorely needed in the midst of today's pervasively bellicose political climate, both domestically and abroad.

Poppy the Jumper and His Sons

One of the recent “light” news events adorning the national news channels was former President George H.W. Bush’s annual birthday sky-diving jump. This year, HLN’s Robin Meade was invited to jump as well, and was then granted an exclusive interview with the former President. I thought it was funny how the other networks covered this event, trying to crop out and marginalize Robin’s presence there.

After the event, “Poppy” Bush, still dressed in his flight gear, stood before the cameras and microphones, flanked on each side by sons George W. Bush and Jeb (I guess Neil didn’t quite count as a son on this occasion). I felt that our last President really looked small and insignificant standing next to his father. But he did seem very comfortable and happy in his retirement! Although I recognize that as President and Commander-in-Chief, George W. Bush is ultimately responsible for the failures of his presidency (there were some successes as well), I can see from contrasting how he and other former members of his administration (like Dick Cheney and Karl Rove) behave nowadays that he would have been more successful had he been surrounded by a more decent, public-spirited circle in the Oval Office during his tenure.

And then there was Jeb standing there quietly on the other side. While his brother George was making his trademark offhand comedic remarks, Jeb was careful and polite with his comments. No doubt in my mind exists on his future in national politics, like him or not.

Lakers Win NBA Championship

Congratulations to the Los Angeles Lakers for defeating the Orlando Magic four games to one and winning this year's National Basketball Association championship. The Magic did blow two golden opportunities during the series to win games but played poor defense and missed easy shots. Oh well, they're unhappy now. But they exceeded everyone's expectations of how far they would go this year and had a wonderful season. As for Los Angeles, they played the Magic as a complete team (unlike Cleveland with Lebron James and his "cast of extras") in spite of the superstar presence of Kobe Bryant. They deserve all of the accolades they are receiving!

Starting Twitter Anyway

Having just written an article warning about the dangers of Twitter for short-tempered people (like Senator Grassley), and having also identified myself in said article as such a short-tempered person, I naturally decided to screw everything up by signing up on it myself.

For those already thriving on Facebook, Twitter may seem a bit redundant, as Facebook junkies already have a pretty good means of communicating every dinky little trivial thing going on in their lives (and with dinky little trivial pictures). The present (and future) value of Twitter for me depends on how much certain parties use it to dispense information about themselves. So, at least at the beginning, I have confined my "following" to various musical artists I enjoy listening to with the aim of finding out when their next CDs are coming out. I had quick success with this when I read that the Canadian band Broken Social Scene, one of my favorites, is back in the studio recording their next album!

As far as more personal "following" is concerned, I still don't get Facebook, much less Twitter. The way I see it, I say pretty much everything I want to say on this blog. Anyone with Internet access can read it if they want to. And many people who know me know of it, but don't read it. So why should I invest MORE time on other sites trying to reach them, already knowing how apathetic they are??!!

I never was much of a "show and tell" kid in early elementary school. But I do remember some classmates who would regularly get up in front of the class and relate everything that happened to them the previous day, from the moment they got out of bed in the morning to the moment they fell asleep at night. Right or wrong, I instinctively feel uncomfortable with this type of behavior. Which may go a long way toward explaining my current attitude about Facebook and Twitter.

Anyway, with sites like Twitter, I am certain that caution is the best policy!

Weather "Blown"-Casts

Last weekend, I turned on my television and tuned in to the weather station. The forecast was for generally clear-to-partly-cloudy skies, but for Monday there was nothing but rain and storms predicted. So I braced myself for a dark and damp Monday. Come Monday morning, though, I looked at the same channel and saw a forecast of clear skies and sun! But lo, ahead, on Wednesday, it did look quite stormy (to the prognosticators). On Tuesday, that prediction for Wednesday held up. But once again, come Wednesday morning, the outlook was once again for clear sunny skies. But wait, a very rainy Thursday was forecast! Then Thursday morning came around (are you sensing a pattern here?) and the forecast once again was severely changed. And not a drop of rain fell the entire day (leading to my previously reported excursion to Devil's Millhopper).

So this past week, there have been three days (Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday) for which the meteorologists predicted much rain and stormy weather. And each time the forecasts were drastically altered when the actual days arrived.

Which brings me to the question: Since weather forecasts are continually changing as the forecast day approaches, when (if ever) can one come out and they that they "blew it"? I've heard a lot over the past several years about how accurate forecasters are regarding the severity of the upcoming hurricane season. Almost always, these "predictions" are modified as the hurricane season progresses. But isn't that kind of like "cheating"? I mean, if I were watching a football game and one team unexpectedly scored five touchdowns against the other in the first quarter, wouldn't it be a little too late for me to change my bets (if I gambled, that is)? With the weather, shouldn't the term "forecast" be altered to "mid-cast" or "blown-cast" when the target day (or hurricane season, if that's the subject of the forecast) is already upon us and the prediction is being changed?

Devil's Millhopper Visit

This past Thursday, I drove over the two miles from my home to where Devil's Millhopper, a Geological State Park, is located. It is a huge, ancient sinkhole sporting its own special variety of plant life (as opposed to the surrounding land's flora). This is a rather modest, small park, with a $2 parking fee, a small picnic area, and visitor's office in the front. A 0.6 mile nature trail loop (which I naturally had to run) encircles the sinkhole. The bottom of the Devil's Millhopper sinkhole (117 feet deep) can be gradually reached by descending a long, twisting wooden path/stairway. Actually, the descent was quite easy; the walk back up was a killer!

Anyway, here are some pictures I took of my experience.

Baseball Geniuses, Please Explain

I'm sitting in my recliner late in the evening, surfing channels on my television. There are a few baseball games on, although none of them have any of the American League Central Division teams that I'm following. But there was a close National League game involving the St. Louis Cardinals and the Houston Astros. It was the bottom of the ninth, the score was tied 1-1, and the home team Astros were up at bat to try and win the game. The Cardinals pitcher was throwing a lot of balls, even walking a batter. The inning progressed to the point where Houston had runners on first and third with only one out. And then the St. Louis manager did something that leaves me scratching my head (I'm glad I'm not a Cardinals fan).

Remember me telling you that the St. Louis pitcher was having trouble pitching the ball into the strike zone? Well, their manager decided to intentionally walk the next Astro batter, loading the bases with one out. Yeh, I understand that only the runner at third counted at this stage of the game and that this tactic would give more opportunities for putouts and double plays. But it also had the harmful effect of putting the Cardinal pitcher's back up against the wall. He could no longer afford to walk another Houston batter (or else walk in the winning run for them), and worse, they knew it. So naturally, the next Houston batter came out swinging, since he knew that he would be getting good pitches in the strike zone to hit. And surprise, surprise, he looped a single into shallow centerfield, allowing the winning run to easily cross the plate.

Sometimes I think that these managers simply think too much and end up outwitting themselves. This sort of nonsense usually happens at the end of close games. Deliberately loading up the bases by intentionally walking a batter is only useful if both (1) first base is the open base (thereby creating a very viable double play scenario) and (2) the pitcher is confidently throwing strikes and is having no control problems. Or, if a particularly dangerous, clutch hitter like Derek Jeter (of the Yankees) is up at bat (better having him as a base runner instead of a batter in this situation). None of these conditions existed for this game, so I'm really not sure what the St. Louis manager was thinking.

Hotheads: Avoid Twitter!

It may be time to consider the potential for harm with Twitter, the booming Internet short-message site. Republican Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa recently "tweeted" a couple of nasty comments about President Obama's "sightseeing" tour of Paris. The President was on an official trip to commemorate the June 6, 1944 D-Day landing of the Allies on the coast of Normandy, France during World War II. One might have thought that Grassley, a major-league flag waver and approver of just about anything promoting war, would have been on the President's side in this matter. Instead, he angrily (and almost incoherently) commented on Twitter that Obama thought he was a "hammer" and that Grassley and other senators were "nails". You see, Grassley is angry, angry, angry, because this very active president is prodding the Senate to act on health care. Had Senator Grassley not had this "instant" medium to spew out his wrath, he might have let matters cool down by waiting a while. But now, the already short-tempered senator has made the news with his ridiculous, anger-inspired remarks on Twitter. Also, Grassley needs to become reconciled to the fact that Obama is now the President (something many Republicans seem to have a problem respecting) and no longer a junior senator that Grassley can feel (and act) superior to.

The Twitter phenomenon is just a high-tech manifestation of what can happen to any of us in our daily walk through life. For during the course of a day, many things can happen to anger us and cause us to speak or act out of anger. The results could last much longer than the few seconds that brought on the reaction. And even ruin a career, destroy relationships, and bring on personal peril.

I brought this up because I myself have a tendency to speak impulsively out of anger. Almost always, when this happens, I come away from whatever incident provoked my angry reaction much more upset with my own reaction to it than with the cause. I've seen Senator Grassley before display his short temper, be it on the Senate floor, on a committee, or talking to the press. Twitter really isn't a very positive mode of communication for such a "hothead". If he opposes genuine, meaningful health care reform in this country, he needs to come up with a more effective political strategy than pitching fits on Twitter!

Sick? Stay Home!

Recently, in my local newspaper, was an article about a girl who had just graduated from high school. Her great accomplishment? She had gone all the way from kindergarten through her senior year in high school with a perfect attendance record, including never missing school due to illness. Sure, the article pointed out, she was sick from time to time, but went to school anyway on those occasions.

I've read this sort of article before, where a student pulls off this supposedly heroic attendance feat. And each time, I groan, wondering how many other students were infected by one of these "great attenders" over the course of their years in school. For myself, I had numerous illnesses, especially during elementary school. Some of them, like chicken pox, measles, mumps, and flu, were highly infectious. I don't count it as a mark of personal shame that I missed out on school during those times.

Even though I often didn't like school, I still wanted even less to miss it because of sickness. I came down with the flu at the end of the sixth grade, totally missing out on the last few days I would have had at my old elementary school (I'm 52; there wasn't a "middle school" yet). And I missed two weeks at the close of my senior year in high school, also due to flu. I also was hospitalized due to surgery earlier that year and missed school for a few days.

I don't see any virtue in compiling a perfect attendance record at school. But this sort of mania about attendance can also transfer to workplaces, many of which give out annual awards to employees who never call in sick. And as is the case with school, I know from personal experience that many of these employees come to work sick and make others sick! In this age of pandemics, can we still afford to carry on with this counterproductive mindset about attendance?!!

AL Central Hard to Follow

In an earlier article, I wrote about my decision to change how I follow Major League Baseball this year. Instead of following the home state teams (along with the Braves and Yankees), I instead chose to concentrate my attention on the five teams of the American League Central Division. As it happens, I probably chose the division with the least exposure in the national media.

After the first game I saw this year, which introduced me to the Chicago White Sox and their players, I haven't been able to watch a full game with any of the other teams. I was able to catch small segments of games involving the Cleveland Indians and Minnesota Twins, but not complete games.

The other day, I was watching the disappointing MLB Channel (too many highlights and analysis, not enough actual games). And lo and behold, they were showing a game involving the Detroit Tigers, which I hadn't been able to see play so far this year. It was an exciting game (tied in extra innings), and the Tigers pulled out a victory. But I later discovered that this was an old American League Championship Series game rebroadcast from many years earlier.

The MLB Channel keeps putting on old "classic" games like that. The problem I have with this is that I want to watch games that are happening NOW, please. Like, how are THIS YEAR'S Tigers doing (I heard they were leading the division)?

It's been harder for me to find baseball games, both on TV and radio, than I had expected. It seemed to be, at least in the past, that I was always unintentionally stumbling across a game when surfing TV or tuning the radio dial. Now it seems that the sources for that programming have dried up somewhat. Well, maybe that's not so bad; after all, I don't really want to spend my entire existence watching or listening to baseball games!

Beck and Scientology

During this current "retro" period of my lifelong odyssey through popular music listening, my interests have fallen upon certain musical artists, one of them being Beck (Beck Hansen). He first achieved nationwide fame in 1993 with his quirky single Loser and followed that with several critically-acclaimed albums, most famous of which were Odelay and Sea Changes. Through the years, though, my only exposure to his works came via radio play. So I've missed out on the great body of work that this talented artist has produced. Recently, besides obtaining CDs of his, I have watched some of his videos on YouTube.

In the comments section under one of the Beck videos, someone had written of being a big Beck fan until hearing that he followed Scientology. Now that person won't listen to his music anymore (I suppose that (s)he accessed that particular video not to watch it, but to deliver the negative comment).

I have heard of several celebrities involved with Scientology, most famous of which are Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Isaac Hayes, and (now) Beck. As a collective group, I have found these people to be much more professional in their work and poised and gracious in their behavior toward others than are others in their fields. These are not the sort of people who get arrested for drugs, DUI's, or violent crimes. But be that may, the media nevertheless seems to have stigmatized them just because of their membership in this offbeat religion.

It's one thing to criticize some aspects of a religion; it's another to stigmatize people because they follow that religion. But I suppose that if that individual wants to reject Beck because he has followed Scientology, then so be it. I suppose I could get mired into a discussion on the relative pros and cons of this religion, but then I would be digressing from the main point of this article, which is to defend Beck.

I will say this, though: a lot of what followers of more mainstream faiths have against Scientology are present in their own religions, but they are blind to this. And those whose religions preach exclusivity (only through THEIR doctrine can an individual attain salvation, and all others are condemned) will naturally frown upon ANY outside faith. Although I personally have no interest in Scientology, I respect the rights of others in society to come to their own conclusions about it and won't ostracize anyone who subscribes to its beliefs.

I think Beck is a great artist and am coming to more fully appreciate the depth and beauty of his music. To make his Scientology connections a litmus test for whether or not I listen to him makes no sense to me. I have no problem with various religions coming under scrutiny and being criticized. I do have a (very big) problem with followers of various religions being stigmatized for their beliefs.

Beirut's Song: In the Mausoleum

Above is a video of one of my favorite bands: Beirut, led by singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Zach Condon. Beirut is greatly influenced by French, East European and Mediterranean music. This track is from the recent The Flying Club Cup CD. Following the recording of the CD, each track thereof was performed again by Beirut and filmed by the group La Blogothèque at different locations in Brooklyn, New York. You can access the other videos from the website Flying Club Cup.