Chinatown and Little Italy

Part of our plan in touring Manhattan was to visit Chinatown and the neighboring Little Italy neighborhoods. So on Thursday (4/8) we climbed up on top of our Grayline bus and headed on to Lower Manhattan.

On the way, we passed the Flatiron Building, to me the most outstanding building in all of New York. Apparently destined to become condominiums, this structure currently houses offices. Its strange, triangular shape is due to the narrow wedge of block space created by a diagonally running Broadway intersecting the Manhattan street grid.

As we went further south, we encountered buildings and neighborhoods that seemed more comfortable and less contrived than the Theatre District/Times Square. Around Greenwich Village, I felt that there was more to Manhattan than just attracting tourists: people lived and thrived here.

We got off in Chinatown, which is a little embedded city with its own distinct identity. And dominated by small shops and restaurants. My wife and daughter loved to browse around the shops, buying several items. Finally, we decided to go to one of the many restaurants for lunch. We decided on a place called the Sun Sai Gai Restaurant on 220 Canal Street (they call themselves Xin Shijie Cha Canting or "New World Tea House" in Chinese). Melissa had a salad while Rebecca had a soup with wontons and duck. Duck, by the way, is very available and relatively cheap in Chinatown (as opposed to Gainesville, where it is always pretty pricey and often hard to find on menus). I continued on my quest to find the best hot and sour soup ever made, ordering a bowl from their menu. Their hot and sour soup was O.K., but I've tasted better in Gainesville. As a matter of fact, the two best makers of hot and sour soup I know are First Wok, located a couple of hundred yards from my workplace, and the Hot Wok restaurant, located on North US 441 in Gainesville (I had the most scrumptious hot and sour soup there this past Friday night).

But my New York soup was pretty good, too. I will say one thing: there is a great amount of variety to hot and sour soups. Perhaps, as with the case with cheesecake, there are certain New York Chinese restaurants renown for their hot and sour soup. I'll have to check that out before I return.

The restaurant was small but crowded. The waiter later sat another couple at our table, something we hadn't expected but is probably relatively commonplace in parts of New York, where space is often very scarce.

After lunch, we strolled more around Chinatown (I loved their newsstands with Chinese newspapers and magazines) northward to Mulberry Street, which is for all practical purposes is all that is left of Little Italy. Both sides of the street are lined with Italian restaurants, providing both indoor and outdoor seating. The outdoor tables jut out to the sidewalk, and as we passed by each restaurant, elegantly-attired employees would beseech us to sit at a table and order their food. That was something that I liked a lot about New York: businesses really competed for your patronage by reaching out and engaging with potential customers.

I liked both Chinatown and Little Italy, although the latter seems to be dwindling away into history. I wish I had kept up with my Chinese, although it seemed that most of those residing and working there spoke a different "dialect" (actually a different language, for all practical purposes), most likely Cantonese (which generally seems to be the case with the Chinese running the Gainesville restaurants). Chinatown is definitely a return-visit "thumbs-up", and I do want to take a stroll around Greenwich Village and explore ol' Flatiron (reputed to be the haunt of vampires) as well.

Happy With NBA West Semifinals

The National Basketball Association playoffs have unfolded in a very favorable way me this year. For my three favorite players are still in the playoffs, two of them currently squaring off against each other.

For quite a while my three favorite NBA players, all point guards playing for Western Conference teams, have been Steve Nash (Phoenix Suns), Deron Williams (Utah Jazz), and Tony Parker (San Antonio Spurs). Nash and Parker showcased their incredible talent last night in the opening game of the conference semifinal series between Phoenix and San Antonio (won by the Suns 111-102). Williams and his Utah team began their series against defending NBA champion Los Angeles Sunday, losing the close, hard-fought game 104-99.

One reason, I suppose, that I like to watch point guards is that they tend to have the ball more, so following the game means following them. They are usually the ones who set up offensive plays, are the best ball-handlers, make the best passes, and shoot the ball the most accurately. All qualities are very much in evidence with the aforementioned athletes. Plus, I tend to feel, correctly or not, that guards, being generally shorter than forwards or centers, rose in their profession more through hard work and skill than by mere physical stature.

So this will be a lot of fun during the next few days. Usually, there is a game still going on by the time I get home from work around 11:30. Tonight the Jazz and the Lakers will be on TV with their game #2. Hooray!

Gulf Oil Spill Disaster: My Take

As anyone who has been paying any attention to the news for the past several days already knows, the Gulf of Mexico and the surrounding states are in the midst of an severe environmental crisis due to uncapped oil spurting through an ocean-bottom opening caused by an oil rig explosion off the Louisiana coast. The accident and all of its ramifications should put to death the lie being spread for the past few years that Florida was somehow being "selfish" by not allowing off-shore drilling near its own coastline. The irony is that Florida beaches, heavily dependent on tourism, along with its seafood industry, will still drastically suffer economically from another state's decision in this regard.

I understand, I think, the apparent paradox that high energy demand presents for the public. On one hand, we want energy for transportation, heating, electricity, and a variety of other reasons. And that requires an enormous amount of energy that has to come from somewhere. On the other hand, the very nature of high energy production is dangerous and messy. It matters not where it comes from or how it is converted into a usable form: there are hazards with all kinds of mass-produced energy. Some may argue that this is not the case with wind or solar energy, but I would counter-argue that this is because those forms are not yet being used on a large enough scale to make but a tiny dent in satisfying energy demands. I predict that, once means to greatly enhance energy production from those "clean" sources are developed and implemented, we will discover some nasty side effects from them as well.

Barack Obama, sensing the high demand for energy in America, launched on a policy of encouraging energy from a variety of sources, including nuclear, "clean" coal, and yes, more offshore drilling. It is inevitable that, from time to time, accidents will happen, some of them being disastrous. This Louisiana spill looks to be the worst oil disaster in this country's history. And who will ever forget the consequences of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown in USSR in 1986? Energy is volatile, pure and simple. If you want to use it, sometimes it will bite back. Sometimes very, very hard.

Since I don't see energy demand dwindling at any point in the foreseeable future, I can only see us continuing along our president's vision about exploring and developing all feasible possibilities for producing and supplying energy for America's needs, while learning from accidents and instituting safeguards to help prevent others in the future. Only now I wonder whether that same president has the political will left to continue on this ambitious quest. Only time will tell, I suppose. In any event, maybe the rest of the country will finally get off Florida's back (although by now this may be a moot point anyway).

Attempted Bomb Attack Near Times Square

The news is a little unclear at this point, but apparently late Saturday night someone tried to set off a bomb in a parked van full of inflammable material in Manhattan near Times Square, on 45th Street between 7th and 8th Avenue. In other words, right next to the Marriott Marquis hotel we stayed at last month and very close to Junior's Restaurant and two Broadway theatres (currently running The Lion King and Billy Elliot). This hits way too close to home for me.

According to NY Senator Chuck Schumer in a CNN interview speaking from Times Square, two pedestrians happened to notice some smoke emanating from the van and the police and bomb squads were quickly summoned and arrived, completely evacuating the area for several hours. Thankfully, no explosion occurred. Of course the feds were brought in and a full-scale investigation is under way. I am earnestly looking forward to seeing the culprit(s) caught and brought to full justice under the law.

Two observations: One, this is a sign of our current times that public opinion is divided on whether the botched attack was by Al-Qaeda and/or its sympathizers, or by a domestic party more in line with militias and hate groups here in the good old USA. Schumer thinks the perpetrator was a "lone wolf", although he has no way of knowing that for sure. But in pre-Obama days, before paranoid anti-government sentiments were whipped up by demagogic Republican politicians and irresponsible media talking heads, almost everyone would have immediately pointed their accusing fingers at Al-Qaeda. Unfortunately, almost no one thinks this will be the last of this kind of incident. And sooner or later, we'll see a truly tragic outcome.

Observation number two: I was looking forward, following my stay in Manhattan, to seeing many visual references to its many different and interesting locales on TV and in movies (and saying to myself, "Yes, I was there"). But I could very easily have done without this brand of reference, thank you.

Lest those responsible for this act think they have intimidated anyone, I say in response, "Screw the bastards!"; I'm not going to change any of MY plans one iota because of this: I plan to return and have plenty more good times in NYC!

**********
(later revision)
Well, now that I've heard more about this incident, I should correct myself on a couple of items. It was a tee shirt vendor, not a pedestrian, who discovered the SUV (not a van) and notified a policeman. It also occurred early in the evening, not late at night as I first reported. As for who is responsible for the attempted bombing, although the Taliban has claimed responsibility, nothing of substance has yet been released to the press by the authorities to confirm this or establish a different agency. So right now, there is just a lot of speculation going on. ---WM Irwin, May 3

Immigration Reform and Arizona's Law

President Obama has decided to avoid tackling the sticky immigration reform issue this year before the 2010 midterm elections. While this may not sit very well with many within the Latino community, it is nevertheless probably a savvy political move. As I have stated before, it will be the issues being debated just before the election that will most intensely galvanize various interests into disproportionately going to vote on Election Day. The calculation is that the Democrats would lose more by appearing to be opening up the borders for a mass influx of Mexicans, even though the proposals circulating around so far seem more in line with the previous Republican Bush administration, supported then by (never really was a maverick) senator John McCain. Having already seen how the GOP is so willing to blame the Democrats for their own proposals (in health care reform, Republican Senator Johnny Isaakson's living will amendment was the source of the "death panels" and "killing grandma" hysteria last summer), it is no surprise that the elected majority party may not want to confront another legislative behemoth reminiscent of the recent struggle to get health care reform passed through Congress.

Regarding the newly passed law in Arizona giving that state's police officers much greater personal latitude in selecting individuals out of the general population to demand "papers" documenting their legal status in the U.S., it should be noted that Rachel Maddow showed the connection with racist white supremacist groups and this new law. And why not? If I'm walking the streets of Mesa or Flagstaff, the cops aren't going to bother me because, to them, it's clear that I obviously look like an "American" (i.e. I'm white). It doesn't matter that those who support the new law say the police won't be profiling people "waiting outside for the bus". If they are ignoring people who don't "look" like they might be illegal immigrants, than that constitutes an unacceptable racial profiling in itself. So that's why I oppose this law, although I do understand the concerns of legal residents in the region about the recent rise in violent crimes. There has to be another way.

I have a suggestion: you don't need another bill to more aggressively enforce the immigration laws we already have on the books. Our president should quickly act to assert as much federal authority into this matter as legally possible, both to protect legal residents from crime and to ensure that people won't be persecuted by the state and its police force because of their appearance. Arizona, as far as I know, is not an independent country. Its border with Mexico is not only its state border: it's our NATIONAL border. And thus this a national issue on which our federal government, under our president's executive power, has the legal right and responsibility to assert itself for the NATIONAL interest. So Arizona can take its precious new state law and stuff it, as far as I'm concerned.

My Circle Lines Harbor Lights Experience

At the end of our rushed day in NYC on April 9, we finally had an opportunity to relax. After walking the short distance down 42nd Street to Pier 83 on the Hudson River, we exchanged our vouchers for tickets and then stopped off at the adjacent P.D. O'Hurley's restaurant to enjoy a light supper. Then we got in line at Circle Lines, boarded the boat, and waited for our Harbor Lights cruise around Manhattan.

Our tour guide told us that the January '09 incredibly soft crash landing on the Hudson River of US Airways Flight 1549, with Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger at the controls, occurred very close to our starting point. As a matter of fact, no one there, including the guide, had heard any sound indicating the landing (which was out of sight around the corner) until they heard approaching sirens. The firefighters and related disaster teams boarded the Circle Lines boats (including the one we were riding), went to the plane and rescued its passengers. So that injected an interesting bit of recent history into our tour.

We first went south on the Hudson River, with New Jersey to our right and the Manhattan skyline to our left. The guide pointed to the World Trade Center construction site, where a new, much taller building than the original WTCs is currently being erected where the North Tower stood. On the original South Tower site, a memorial will be built to all of those who perished in the abominable terrorist attack on September 11, 2001.

The Statue of Liberty came up on our right, and naturally many of the passengers got up to take pictures. We took a few, but the boat didn't really get close enough to do the Statue justice. Circle Lines does provide a separate tour specifically designed for those who want to visit the Statue of Liberty, but we opted instead for the Harbor Lights tour with our City Pass.

Going around the southern tip of Manhattan, we saw Battery Park again on the left (we rode by it the previous afternoon on top of a Grayline bus) and Governor's Island on the right. The guide pointed to a ferry boat, informing us that it was the Staten Island Ferry and, believe it or not, it was still FREE to ride it!

Around the east side of Manhattan up the East River, our guide pointed out that no one is known to have ever successfully swum across the swift, strong currents of the East River all the way between Manhattan and Brooklyn. He identified the Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Williamsburg bridges connecting the two boroughs. We passed an extremely long section of large apartment dwellings, built around 70 years ago on a tract that Peter Stuyvesant once had his farm on. And as the boat turned around to make its return in the opposite direction, we noted the United Nations buildings.

For most of the tour, I stayed seated indoors, where it was warm and there were big windows everywhere to look out at the sights. But going back, I decided to step outside onto the deck, where it was pretty chilly and windy. Whoa! What a different experience! I thoroughly enjoyed standing there as the lit up Manhattan skyline (or Brooklyn's, depending on where I was facing) dazzled me. Quite an unforgettable experience, something I would recommend to anyone interested in visiting this area.

Crist to Run as Independent for Senate

Today Florida's Governor Charlie Crist announced that he would leave the Republican Party to run for the U.S. Senate as an Independent. Crist, trailing badly in polls of statewide Republicans to right wing tea party darling Marco Rubio, realized that his own political appeal was to the political center, not among the ideologues. By running nonaligned with either party, he has put himself in the only position he could to win the Senate race. Recent polls put him essentially even in a three candidate race against Rubio and Democratic candidate Kendrick Meek.

A few days ago, I had expressed my intention to switch my party affiliation to Republican in order to vote for Crist (and against Rubio), but now this won't be necessary. Who will finally receive my vote in November? It depends on the public opinion polls. If, in late October, they show Meek ahead or in a close race with a chance to win, I'll support him. But if those polls show Meek hopelessly behind but have Crist with a reasonable chance of victory, I'm pulling for our governor instead.

Hopefully, should Charlie Crist manage to win that Senate seat, he would be a truly independent voice representing his state's best interests, as well as those of the country as a whole. The last thing we need is another stonewalling, just-say-no party hack. Which Rubio would be.

Gainesville's Public Radio: Talk or Classical Music?

A year after the Gainesville Sun newspaper featured a letters-to-the-editor drive to change local Public Radio station (and University of Florida-owned) WUFT-FM from classical music programming to all-talk, which succeeded when the UF College of Journalism dean made the switch, the push is now on to reverse that decision and bring back classical music. And the vehicle for that drive is none other than the Gainesville Sun, again demonstrating its capacity and willingness to manipulate public opinion and events through its selection and publishing of editorial letters to fit its agenda.

I was initially opposed to the switch from classical music to talk, but realized that some of the programs (especially the morning Diane Rehm Show and Fresh Air) were quite informative and interesting. So l have now come around to the "talk" faction. Besides, as I have said before, classical music is readily available through my fine public library, the Internet, and even my cable TV. And, hey, I can still go to concerts and buy CDs.

I used to enjoy the music on WUFT, but I think that broadcast radio needs to have some kind of talk radio programming illustrative of a truly balanced discussion of issues, something woefully lacking in our age of right wing extremist commercial talk radio. I still would like for something like Air America to get on the air to provide at least one venue for partisan liberal talk. Of course, the right wing talk wackos claim that Public Radio is slanted to the left. Which shows how skewed their viewpoint really is.

In a manner of speaking, though, WUFT technically didn't drop classical music from their programming: they just switched it over to an HD channel that requires the purchase of a special (and relatively expensive) radio. And these radios are not portable. And certainly not available in headsets or MP3 players. So I foresee HD only declining, eventually joining quadraphonic sound as an extinct technological dinosaur.

One writer in the Gainesville Sun mentioned that UF already owns another station: the commercial giant WRUF-FM, which plays generally lousy rock selections as well as the grossly offensive Lex and Terry talk show. I agreed with this writer as he suggested that UF should replace that garbage (my depiction) with classical music. But it'll never fly, and everyone knows it. Besides, haven't listeners been conditioned over the years to expect commercial radio to be full of unpalatable trash? But Public Radio is a different matter, still subject to high scrutiny. Well, I guess I should be glad that at least something is.

NYC Museum Rush

On the last full day of our tour through Manhattan (April 9), we had a crowded itinerary, although it contained only three planned destinations: the Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Circle Line's Harbor Lights evening cruise. That's a shame, in retrospect, because I found both museums to be extraordinarily interesting. You don't really want to walk through either of them without giving yourself plenty of time to take in the enormous quantity and quality of exhibits. But we did, nevertheless, rush through them, at least providing us with some ideas about how better to spend our time in NYC the next time we're there. Not only didn't we have adequate time to explore the places we visited, but we also missed out completely on a plethora of other museums, most notably the Museum of Modern Art.

Here are some photos from the Museum of Natural History (the first four) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the remainder):

Friends of the Library Book Sale

Yesterday I went with Melissa to the semiannual Alachua County Friends of the Library book sale, held each April and October at its warehouse on North Main Street. This sale is a major event in Gainesville, to the point where it is a featured front page story in my local newspaper and police officers are stationed in strategic points around the site to redirect traffic and allow customers to cross Main Street.

Saturday and Sunday were the opening days, and naturally the busiest. It was very crowded in the place, which had the smell of a old, dusty library. Old books: yuck! Still, as I looked around at some of the people there, I noticed a few with an almost manic look about them, as if they were beside themselves with excitement at the prospect of buying boxloads of ultra-cheap books. And cheap they mostly were, with sticker prices ranging from 25 cents to a dollar per book (there were some sections where the books were higher-priced). They also sold old CDs, cassettes, records, VHS videos, DVDs, and jigsaw puzzles. For my part, I picked up a 1992 Manhattan guidebook that showed the buildings on its maps for 25 cents. And I bought some old VHS movie favorites (The Maltese Falcon, Doctor No, and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan) for a buck apiece. Although I had been to the Friends of the Library sale a number of times in the past, this was the first time that Melissa had ever been there. She enjoyed the experience and purchased a few items as well.

One significant thing that I noticed from this experience in a very crowded, noisy, and jostling public place was that, unlike in previous years, I was not bothered by the crowds and noise. This is something that I began to notice in myself during my recent New York trip and will be the topic of a forthcoming article.

Running Amuck With the Duck

Yesterday morning I decided I had better run in whatever race was still available for April if I really wanted to stick with my goal of running at least one race per month. I had already copped out of the midnight run at UF last Wednesday night, so I was running out of time. But there were a couple of races being held in Gainesville this weekend and I decided on the Saturday event.

I ran the 5K Run Amuck With the Duck race to benefit research into lung cancer. This illness has hit home in my family, as it was a contributing factor in my mother's death in 2002. A lot of emphasis is being (correctly) made on its prevention, as the chief cause of lung cancer is smoking. Stop the smoking and you cut way down on this usually fatal disease's occurrence. Still, the pre-race speaker pointed out that, compared to other cancers, lung cancer research is not very well funded by the federal government. Hopefully, this will change in the future.

The race was held around North Florida Regional Hospital, the neighboring medical offices, and a stretch of an old and isolated semi-country road with old, big houses (along with old people outside walking their old dogs). The terrain was relatively hilly, which to me was a plus as I needed a break from my flat neighborhood running course.

This event was more focused on the cause than the race itself. Most of the participants were walkers and many of them were in teams, much like last October's Heart Walk that Melissa and I participated in. Those of us who were runners had to time ourselves, as only the top three finishers would be timed and receive prizes. But they did provide a funny tee shirt (featuring "Crackers the Duck, MD") and plenty of water, apples, bananas, and other treats. Since my overriding interest was just to run in my monthly public race and enjoy the experience, the race's few drawbacks meant little to me.

I discovered during the race that the hills were almost enjoyable to run up, since with each climb I passed a few more tiring runners. I pushed myself harder than usual throughout the race and finished with a personal 5K record time of 23:05. I was very satisfied with this event and plan to run in it next year (this was its first year).

Also, since I had decided that I wasn't ready to run in Cincinnati's Flying Pig Marathon on May 2, running in Gainesville's Run Amuck With the Duck event gave me another chance to run in a race with an especially goofy name!

Tebow Drafted by Denver, Situation Promising

Now that the first round of the NFL draft is over, we know that star University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow is headed for the Denver Broncos. Since the Broncos already have an established, successful first-string quarterback in Kyle Orton, this should give Tebow some needed time for development. Also, he may resume his freshman role at UF of a short-yardage quarterback in third and fourth-down situations. When a team possesses that kind of offensive weapon, they can go far. Just ask those on the 1972 "perfect season" Miami Dolphin team, which featured Hall of Fame running back Larry Csonka as the epitome of a third-and-short success story. By consistently being able to sustain long drives by converting on third down, Miami was not only more likely to score; they kept the other side's offense off the field and controlled the tempo of the game this way. Since Denver just traded their franchise wide receiver Brendan Marshall to the Miami Dolphins ("my" team), Tebow's presence in their offensive lineup may be much more significant in the long run than anyone had imagined.

I haven't been much of a Denver Broncos fan, instead having supported their divisional rival San Diego for the last couple of seasons. Which is good for me, since Denver has choked as a team each year, finishing out of the playoffs both times after earlier leading their division by wide margins. Tim Tebow is only one player, but his positive, tough pro-team attitude and work ethic can help to sustain them through that trying period in the late season. We'll see; I'll be pulling for them this year (when they're not playing against Miami, that is).

Drinking Starbucks on the Hudson, Going to Work in Brooklyn

Anyone who visits Manhattan comes away with the impression that it is a very, very compressed urban area. But how compressed it really was I was unaware until I actually went there in person. So after I got back home I tried a simple little project.

I set two Google Maps to the same scale, with my home neighborhood in one (my house being at its center) and Midtown Manhattan in the other (and the Marriott Marquis hotel I stayed at in its center). I then superimposed one map onto the other, the two maps' centers aligned as well as the cardinal directions. The results were revealing to me, to say the least.

--Rockefeller Center would be at the entrance to my humble little subdivision onto NW 34th Street (Gainesville grid).

--The NE corner of my neighborhood running course would be precisely at that traffic circle (containing the beautiful giant globe) at the SW corner of Central Park.

--I'm sitting in the Magnolia Parke Starbucks writing this. But were I in the corresponding point in Manhattan, I wouldn't actually be in Manhattan: I would be "sitting" in the middle of the Hudson River halfway between 14th Avenue on the east side and Hoboken, New Jersey on the west. And this Starbucks is within walking distance of my house.

--The Empire State Building and Macy's would lie in the subdivision just south of my extremely close YMCA.

--The Williamsburg Bridge to Brooklyn would begin right at the Solar Walk, an outdoors planetarium running along Gainesville's 8th Avenue. It would then head toward the UF campus as it approached the Brooklyn side.

--New York's Chinatown roughly corresponds to Gainesville's Westside Park, which is located near the Solar Walk.

--Gainesville's Oaks Mall (our big shopping mall) would be in Paulus Hook, New Jersey.

--My workplace, situated on the southern end of Gainesville, corresponds to an area in western Brooklyn, near 2nd Avenue and 9th Street ( a few blocks from the end of the Brooklyn Bridge).

Superimposing maps is a cool idea that can also be used to compare the relative sizes of political entities from various distant parts of the world . I'll be using it from time to time in the future.

My Running Update

Since my vacation began earlier this month, my total running mileage output has diminished, although I have consistently maintained my workout routine. Part of the reason was that I traveled to New York and was distracted by the itinerary of the trip as well as by the fact that it was hard to pile up miles will all of the people in the streets mulling around. But the main reason I have not been running the longer distances I had since January is simply that the weather here in north central Florida has warmed. I think it's getting close to night-running time!

Last night, the University of Florida sponsored, for purely recreational purposes, not charity (how refreshing), a midnight 5K run around campus. I intended to work my shift, get off at 11, and head on down to UF to sign up and run it. But I was too tired and my right calf felt a little stiff (I had run 5.58 miles earlier in the day). So I passed up on this opportunity. I'm not sure that races this short are really what I want to be involving myself with, anyway. The only problem is, at this time of the year in Florida, they tend to be the only available races.

Still, I'm happy with my simple running routine. But since the temperatures are certain to skyrocket in the next few weeks, I need to get some night gear like reflective tape and a headband flashlight. Running around my own familiar neighborhood regularly at night, I suppose, is the next step. But running through the more hilly UF campus late at night also carries its own appeal. Ultimately, with whatever course I choose, my goal is to run my longer distances again, this time at night. At least until the cooler temperatures come back in late fall.

After all, I want to be in good shape to tackle my primary running goal for the remainder of this year: enter, run, and finish a full-length (26.2 miles) marathon race somewhere.

I'm thinking, though, that running after sunset or around midnight may not be suited for me. I work evenings and am usually tired late at night. Better to rise early in the morning around 4 or 5 and try my night running then. The temperatures are almost always the coolest at that time, anyway.

Where Have All the Alleys Gone?

Over the course of my lifetime, I have unconsciously developed a sense of what being in the great city of New York must be like. I constructed much of this from watching television shows and movies set there. And one of the recurring features that I looked forward to investigating (from a safe distance) on my recent trip was the back alley.

In shows and movies, characters are always stepping in and out of alleys. Alleys are where many great fights and chase scenes take place. I’m thinking about that great original Star Trek episode The City on the Edge of Forever, where Kirk and Spock chase down McCoy through the streets and alleys of thirties New York. And about The Matrix, where alleyways abound and are integral to the plot. So as I walked down Manhattan streets throughout my four-day visit, I kept asking myself, “Where are the alleys?”

The rule there (without exception) seems to be that you cross a street, come to the corner of the first building you walk up to, and that building runs right into the next without any gaps. And then that building is right next to the following one, all the way to the next street. No gaps, no alleys, just seemingly fused buildings.

Not that the others in my visiting party were objecting. After all, aren’t alleys where all the criminals hang out? Well, if there aren’t any alleys, then maybe we’re somehow safer. Right?

Truth be told, I felt very safe no matter where I walked in the city. One reason for this was that I always seemed to be around other people, often in large numbers. Another was the large presence of police and security.

I really don’t think I would have ducked into a back alley had I seen one. Maybe the parts of the city I walked through just didn’t have them, while others did. I bet Brooklyn is loaded with them!

Pedestrians Rule in Manhattan

Manhattan is definitely a special place regarding its system of traffic. Because of its cramped nature with so many buildings and destinations per square mile along with its population density and focus on tourism and business travel, it is unfeasible for motorists to drive their own cars down its streets. For one, parking is very short in supply, and two, I challenge anyone to find me a public-use gas station anywhere in town. So instead, people either walk, take the subway, ride buses, or use one of the 13,000-plus taxis in town. On our stay, we either walked or rode a bus (we chose Grayline, which also provided tours of the city).

There is a knack to walking Manhattan streets that is easy to pick up on, making the prospect of crossing busy intersections no big deal. You walk up to a crosswalk. If the signal says “walk” or a blinking “don’t walk”, you cross. If it is a solid “don’t walk”, look where the traffic is coming from (most streets are one-way) and cross against the light if it looks clear. And if you misjudged a vehicle and it's coming right at you, don't worry; you're sure to get a nice, big warning blast from its horn as it bears down on you.

Regarding the reputation of NY taxis for aggressive and rude driving, it is important to note that, at least as I experienced it, they are UNIFORMLY aggressive and rude. So they are hence predictable, and I (and all of the other pedestrians) can handle that. Now, back in Gainesville, I sometimes experience overly-aggressive drivers around me and wonder to myself whether they had some roots in New York. Still, I had the distinct impression that those aggressive professional New York drivers knew what they were doing, while here in Gainesville I’m not sure that some of my fellow drivers are even aware of what planet they’re on!

I miss the streets of Manhattan, although I was disappointed with my early discovery that it was impracticable for me to try to jog on them. The big barrier is not the motorized traffic; it is the crowds of people everywhere!

Strategic Party Affiliation Switch

In a commentary appearing in last Saturday’s Gainesville Sun, St. Petersburg Times columnist Sue Carlton suggested that those 170,000 Florida teachers whose careers may have been saved by Republican Governor Charlie Crist’s recent veto of a sweeping anti-teacher bill passed by his own party’s state legislature may want to return the favor by voting for him in his senatorial campaign against current GOP front-runner Marco Rubio. And why not? Rubio supported the bill, which would have ended teacher tenure in Florida, a state already greatly suffering in its public education system largely because its citizens don’t want to foot the necessary bill to have an effective system. The only problem is that, for those many already-underpaid teachers who happen to be Democrats, they can’t vote in the August 24 Republican primary pitting Crist against ultra-conservative tea party hero Rubio. So Ms. Carlton suggests…

Since voters can switch their party affiliation up to 29 days before a primary, why can’t those Democratic teachers grateful to Crist simply become temporary Republicans in order to vote for him? They can all still support whomever they want in November and can switch back later to the Democratic Party later if they wish. Frankly, the thought appeals to me as well, since I can handle a reasonable human being like Charlie Crist being my senator while Marco Rubio makes me cringe. So I’m considering switching my party affiliation to Republican in order to vote for Crist in the primary. Only I think I’ll just wait a while (but not TOO long) to make the switch.

I remember Rush Limbaugh in 2008 urging conservative Republicans to vote for Hillary Clinton in those presidential primaries that allowed party crossover voting. His goal was to prolong the race between Clinton and Barack Obama, hopefully resulting in an irreconcilable division between the two and their supporters. Well, Rush, ol' buddy ol’ pal, the other side can play at this game too!

Manhattan’s Transformation

Now that I have visited Manhattan, I feel a twinge of regret at not having seen how it was twenty to thirty years ago. I know that crime was much more rampant there and that there was an almost omnipresent adult industry, especially in the Times Square area. But, if I am to believe the story about how Rudy Giuliani rode into town and as mayor cleaned it all up in the late 1990s, this area has undergone a very dramatically quick and sweeping transformation.

In all of the miles of walking down street after street, I saw nothing remotely resembling a porn shop or an adult cinema; neither did I see anyone resembling a prostitute. Not that I was personally interested in doing business with them; I just knew of the reputation for these places that the area had built up over the years. Still, I wonder which of the many “wholesome” businesses I passed by (or entered) had earlier been the sites of adult-oriented establishments. Because, you see, I am a big stickler for historical comparisons.

And now I wonder: what will the area be like twenty years from now? My gut instincts tell me that it will be pretty similar to the way it currently is. What happened in the late sixties and the seventies may end up being viewed in history not as a cyclic period, but rather as a kind of disruptive discontinuity. And that includes the promotion of explicit sexuality that was part of that era. I don’t see it making a comeback anytime soon.

But then again, a big transformation could take place along lines that no one can as yet fathom. Will such a transformation affect how visitors can travel through Manhattan? Probably. After all, the World Trade Center attack on 9/11/2001 caused a drastic stepping up of security. And we may not have seen the end of such terrible things.

But things being what they are, I was quite content with my Manhattan experience in 2010. After all, it might have been a bit embarrassing to walk past adult business after adult business alongside my wife and teenage daughter!

Obama Misses Wide on Moon

President Obama Thursday visited the Florida Space Coast to deliver a speech that would supposedly alleviate widespread concerns that he was acting to diminish our manned space program after he decided to end the Constellation mission to return to the moon, begun by the previous Bush administration.

In his speech, the president delineated several areas that made sense. He wanted NASA to concentrate on developing the science and technology that would allow us to more effectively explore deep space, which he said should be its mission. The Constellation program was running over budget, another concern. He wanted NASA to set its vision on going to Mars. All valid points. But...

In expressing his desire for us to go to Mars, Obama derided the Constellation goal of returning to the moon because "We've been there before." This is a thoroughly asinine, ignorant statement of the type I would have expected someone like Sarah Palin to make. "We've been there before." Hmm...is that what we should do after we do (if ever) land on Mars? Just declare it "conquered" and never go back? The moon is a very strategically located satellite to us. It is full of natural resources, has no atmosphere, and one fifth of our gravity. Pardon the relevant cliche here, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that setting up permanent bases with research facilities on the moon would greatly enhance the ability for us to develop the very science and technology for deep space travel that our deluded (in my opinion) president thinks we can more feasibly accomplish earthbound or in low earth orbit.

And speaking of low earth orbit, we won't even have a rocket capable of delivering astronauts into space, not even low earth orbit, for several years without depending on other nations for the service. Goodbye American leadership in space! And another thing...

Moon pioneer Neil Armstrong, in his objections to the president's decision about the space program, expressed grave concern about the impending loss of our specialized scientific and engineering talent without a discernible project to employ them here. They, in all probability, will either divert their careers away from space to other areas or will leave the U.S. to work for other countries and their space programs (which their political leaders truly support). And that will only accelerate America's fall from the worldwide leadership it has enjoyed in space since the mid-1960s.

When Barack Obama took office as president, he made the decision to keep as much continuity as reasonable regarding our military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, choosing to honor the previous Republican administration's timetable for "stepping down" in Iraq and even keeping General Robert Gates on as his Secretary of Defense. When pushing for the recently signed health care reform legislation, he welcomed GOP input with open arms, with scores of their amendments incorporated into the bill with his approval. He also did not insist on the public option feature that his political adversaries were so opposed to. And he assured pro-life Democrats that he would personally see to it that abortions would continue not to be funded by federal dollars. But our space program?

Since NASA is simply a federal agency, each president can do pretty much what he (or she) wants to do with it. Sure, there is the general NASA funding that Congress has to approve. But it is ultimately the president who decides what the emphasis will be in this agency. So here, Obama did not really need to work with others, be they Democrat or Republican, to exert his will. And he was brutal with his power.

So does Barack Obama, after simply trashing the previous president's carefully weighed out plans for manned space exploration, really expect those following him into this office to keep HIS plans in effect? Really? Rather I see our space efforts being chronically hindered when each new president comes up with a "great new idea" while canceling whatever the ongoing projects are because they are running over budget. And be assured, our current president's vision of the future WILL experience budget overruns as this is simply the result of normal technological design, testing, and improvement.

Finally, the "capper" to President Obama's recent drastic change to our manned space efforts has been to leave us without any sort of tangible vision in the near future. He speaks of adapting the Orion rocket that was going to send us to the moon for low earth orbit missions in the ensuing years. He speaks about the distant future of landing on an asteroid and orbiting Mars, even landing there sometime in the next few decades. And that he plans to live to see a landing on Mars.

Mr. President, that is not the kind of vision that people need. They need tangible, specific goals with names, a vivid presentation, and real timetables. All Obama has done is to put NASA in the murky background of relevant events in our world. We are all supposed to just sit back and assume that they are "taking care of business", doing their science stuff, and almost magically, we'll see these great events happen (if we're still alive by then). But let me tell you, it ain't gonna happen that way!

Junior’s Restaurant near Times Square

After we checked into our Manhattan hotel Tuesday evening April 6, we decided to go down to the street level and see where we could get a bite to eat. My daughter had seen a place right across the street called Junior’s, so we experienced our first Manhattan pedestrian street-crossing (comments coming in a future article) and went inside. Junior’s is a large casual restaurant of American-style food that touts its cheesecake desserts, and it was packed with customers. As we entered it, I went through my own customary “inner groan”, expecting a long wait to be seated. But no, they sat us right down, not to mention in a seat where I could follow the Yankees’ season opener against the Red Sox on TV. I had one of their half-pound hot dogs with sauerkraut and fries. And topped it off with one of their plain cheesecake slices, as did my wife and daughter.

Now I enjoyed the cheesecake, to be sure. But the others in my party thought it was easily the best cheesecake they ever eaten. For me, I remembered the cheesecake being just as good in several other places, even the product that my local Publix grocery store makes (after the trip I ate some Publix cheesecake and reaffirmed my opinion). But I will say that I have never received such a HUGE portion of cheesecake as that which Junior’s provided.

Since Junior’s was so convenient to our hotel, we ended up closing out two of the following three evenings of touring by stopping off there before heading up to our room. With all three of us indulging in different varieties of cheesecake each time (my favorite was their pineapple cheesecake). The last time I was there, I also had a bowl of their baked onion soup. Now that WAS special, something I would definitely recommend to anyone who visits Junior’s (I dug that earlier half-pound hot dog, too).

Junior’s has its own historical narrative that it promotes on its menu. Apparently, in 1981 at its original location in Brooklyn, the restaurant caught fire. In the panic, shouts could be heard, “Save the cheesecake!” Junior’s was rebuilt and the following year, NY Mayor [I mean Governor, thanks Barry for the correction] Mario Cuomo (whose greatest political mistake was in not running for president in 1988, giving us "Poppy" Bush by default) declared May 27 as Junior’s Restaurant Day in New York. So this establishment does carry some weight with cheesecake enthusiasts.

I liked all of the food I had at Junior’s, but I was the most impressed with the bustling, quick, efficient, and friendly service its employees provided us. Each time we went there, the restaurant was packed solid with customers, but we never had a long wait to be seated. They also provided a choice of indoor or outdoor seating and piped in oldies music as a pleasant background ambiance.

I wouldn’t necessarily recommend Junior’s over the other Manhattan eateries, as my experience with them was rather limited. And I don’t want to give the impression that we just ate at Junior’s and nowhere else. But if you happen to be in the area around Broadway and 45th Street (y’know, Times Square country), why not give it a try?

Lowe Wins Nail-Biter for Gainesville Mayor

Yesterday the runoff election for Gainesville's mayor was held. The contenders were sitting city commissioner Craig Lowe on the liberal side and repeat contender Dan Marsh on the conservative side. Usually, city-wide elections in Gainesville tend to favor the liberals by about a 57-43 percent margin, but last night's results were telling: Lowe beat Marsh with only a 35 vote margin, 6098 to 6063, automatically setting in motion a required recount this Friday. Why so close?

Dan Marsh has been an unapologetic panderer to the tea party movement that has infected this country as self-righteous, holier-than-thou people angry at our democracy for electing "foreign, Muslim, socialist, terrorist, grandma killer (and black)" Barack Obama as president try to shout down the 2008 results. I find this movement personally repulsive, very reactionary, and rooted in prejudice and irrational fear. Now combine this with the revelation that Commissioner Lowe is gay (not that he ever made an issue out of that fact) and we suddenly see certain people becoming energized with an opportunity to make their homophobia and paranoia count for something besides hot air. And voila...we end up with this nail-biter of an election result. These things can happen when you have only a 16% voter turnout: a mobilized section of the electorate can rise up and drastically affect the results.

I don't particularly like Craig Lowe myself. He comes across to me as a self-important, condescending elitist, something I don't dig in my elected public servants. On the other hand, I couldn't care less about his sexual orientation one way or another. His opponent essentially campaigned on it, though, making this the dirtiest mayoral campaign yet in our sometimes not-so-fair city. Hopefully, the recount results will confirm Lowe as the winner.

I Don't Get Florida Voters

How could one of the most extreme right-wing politicians, ex-Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, become the prohibitive favorite to win this year's U.S. Senate race just two years after Barack Obama carried Florida and four years after Democratic senator Bill Nelson easily won reelection? And why is our legislature here so skewed toward right-wing Republicans? What happened to the era of Reuben Askew and Bob Graham, who both had very successful and popular tenures as two-term Democratic governors in the seventies and eighties? Perhaps the problem with this year's Senate race is that one of the candidates, current Governor Charlie Crist, became very unpopular with the wingnut teabagger faction of his party when he last year expressed a friendly attitude toward Obama and his economic stimulus plan. And perhaps the problem is that the Democrats seem to be solidifying their ranks behind south Floridian U.S. Representative Kendrick Meek. I like Meek and plan to vote for him this fall, but he does have a liberal reputation. And, oh, by the way, he's (throat-clearing sound) African-American. Which sadly probably figures into the fact that, whether the public opinion polls pit him against either Crist or Rubio, Meek is woefully behind and very unlikely to win. I understand why the Democrats would be reluctant to try to put forward a stronger candidate; it might make them appear to be implicitly racist. Unfortunately, that "racist" label may be more appropriately applied to many of Florida's voters, Obama's 2008 success in the state notwithstanding.

People in Florida tend to vote for image and personality over politics, anyway. Marco Rubio is a very handsome and charismatic young man, while Charlie Crist is (ugh) grey-haired (like me). And did I say that Kendrick Meek is black? Oh yes, I think I did. He's black. Oh well, better luck next time, Kendrick. At least I like you!

My Running Experience in NYC

When I arrived at my hotel in New York City (Manhattan, Theatre District) last Tuesday evening, I already knew that said hotel (the Marriott Marquis) had an excellent 24-hour workout room, complete with lots of treadmills and cross-trainers. I knew I would be able to keep up with my running, although treadmill running just isn't the same as running outdoors on the road or ground. But being who I am, I thought it would be fun to try out running on densely-traveled city streets anyway. So, the next morning I donned my running outfit, went down the elevator, and lighted out on the sidewalk amid the many pedestrians.

At first, I got a nice break as I hit a stretch of the sidewalk with just a few walkers. But that space soon evaporated as I was boxed in behind a crowd of pedestrians. And so developed a pattern for the next few minutes: walking among the crowd and then, seeing an opening, running a little. And then slowing to a walk. Naturally, I would often come up to street crossings. At first I waited to cross, but later decided that unless I could cross just then, I would just veer right and go down the perpendicular road. This led to the effect of my spontaneously-developing course looking something like a coil in a spring.

On top of everything else, I had inadvertently begun to run in the opposite direction from where I had originally intended. I was running down a street when I finally looked at the street sign. Avenue of the Americas?! Where the hell is that? Further turns revealed to me that I was southeast of my hotel, so I gradually navigated my way back. Crossing right at Times Square (although I didn't know it at the time).

After that episode, I confined my running to the excellent treadmills at the hotel. Besides, I got plenty of exercise over my stay by walking long distances and climbing stairs. I was heartened to see such an active, positive culture of fitness later at Central Park, with all of the runners, walkers, cyclists, skaters, and the like. Yes, if I lived in Manhattan (presuming I could afford it) I think I would emulate John and Yoko and live at a place like the Dakota, which is very conveniently located just across the street from this wonderful park.

After getting back home in Gainesville, I finally ran a respectable distance on the road, back in my home neighborhood as usual. But I would have loved to have tried out a good, long run through Central Park had time permitted. I also later discovered on the Internet that running is very popular in Manhattan, with running clubs regularly holding races in Central Park. There are also long stretches on both the eastern and western sides of the island that runners can train on with a minimum of interrupting traffic. Still, I'm glad I had that initial, albeit frustrating morning running experience in the vicinity of Times Square.

My Old Blog Template and the iPad

While awaiting the afternoon performance of South Pacific at the Lincoln Center in New York this past Wednesday, we came across an Apple products store nearby and entered to browse. They had several of their new iPads lined up on tables for potential customers, ready for demonstration. I tried out one of them and, naturally, accessed this blog. I discovered, to my horror, that I could barely read it, as the template I had picked out (black background, white text) did not show up well on the iPad screen. I then inferred that people with other small devices having access to my blog might have similar limitations with their displays. Not being one to prevent anyone from being able to read my blog, I quickly switched my template to a white background with black print. There, I hope that's better...

Have you tried out the iPad? I can see how some may like it, but for me I think that I would rather invest in an good Internet-accessing cellphone and a notebook with its connection ports than deal with the iPad slab. Anyway, as I have mentioned before, I am waiting for more of an "immersion" experience with computers, something like virtual reality. That really isn't that far off, either. Although it's still relatively expensive, there are glasses one can wear to view movies, covering the eyes well to prevent any outside distractions. Why not take this one step further and integrate the computer/Internet experience with actual glasses, embedding the screen within the glass? And controls could be on the side of the glasses, or even possibly based on head movements projected on a virtual screen. Or maybe they've already figured this out and are waiting to introduce more advanced products in progressive "stages". Who knows. I just know that, with the development of more portable and smaller web-accessible technology, those who design websites need to take care in ensuring that their sites are presented in a more clear and legible manner. Even if it means compromising a little with aesthetics and personal style preferences.

Visited NYC, Back Today

Today I just got back into Gainesville from a four-day visit to Manhattan with my family. We stayed at a hotel next to Times Square and partook of much of the standard tourist fare of the area. From time to time during the ensuing days I will be offering some reflections of my personal experiences there. It was a very interesting time, indeed!

Here are a few photos from our visit.

The Void: Everywhere and Nowhere

A terrible incident occurred in Gainesville a few weeks ago. A Ghanan doctoral student enrolled at the University of Florida, alone in his apartment, one evening began to create a great commotion, causing much anguished noise that concerned his neighbors. One of them called the University Police (the same department of Andrew Meyer “don’t Tase me bro” infamy), who then proceeded in careful, methodical fashion to break down his door, Taser him, attack him in stepped up fashion and finally, when the visibly very upset man wouldn’t lie down and say “uncle”, instead waving around a crude metal stick at them in self-defense, carefully aimed and shot him in the head. In his own apartment. A man hurting no one, but in great emotional distress. The brutes.

The student, it turns out, was panic-stricken over fears that his visa would not be renewed and he would soon be forced to leave the country. But to me, it mattered not what his reasons were for causing the disturbance; the police were completely unjustified in using deadly force on him. Which brings me to a feeling I sometimes get when out in the lonesome public environment too long: the Void.

The Void is an inner state of mind, one of alienation, hopelessness, and stress. It envelops me sometimes when I am out in public too long and I begin to feel that everyone around me regards me as a suspicious stranger. I tend to think that the police are all eyeballing me to see whether or not I fit their criteria for becoming a potential victim of theirs, i.e. a potential arrest. I don’t always feel this way, but when a wave of the Void sweeps over me, I imagine it is something like how the hideous dementor monsters in the Harry Potter series would make people feel if they really existed. The best remedy for this feeling, I have discovered, is simply to go home and revel in my seclusion and rightful, “safe” privacy.

But now apparently the cops can bust down anyone’s door and, if they employ the “correct” procedure, can bully, arrest, Taser, or even shoot a private resident just on the merits of that individual’s expressed response to their uninvited, unwelcome, and often quite frightening intrusion.

So now I wonder: is the Void everywhere? Can I really get away from it from sealing myself within my home, drawing the curtains, and locking the doors? And if I can never safely get away from it, perhaps I need to reconsider the legitimacy of my panic in public places.

Gainesville, as far as I know, has no curfew. I can walk or run down any publicly owned street I want anytime I want. And I owe nobody any explanation for my presence. As long as I am civil to others in public, they have no cause to act in any way against me. I am no longer a stranger; I belong here and anywhere I decide to go. Those who I earlier feared may have cast me in such a category have diminished themselves through their fears, if it turns out that they really regarded me this way. For the most part, though, I believe that most people around me actually regard me with the utmost indifference, completely immersed in their own vanity and personal narratives.

So if the Void is everywhere, then it is really nowhere, either. I belong here, and so do you. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. By the way, the student in question survived the shooting, but his life hung in the balance for several days. And he is now being subject to criminal prosecution for his entire horrible ordeal!

This Blog Now Three Years Old

In a moment of supremely shameless self-indulgence, let me heartily congratulate myself on my third anniversary of this blog. I must confess to more than a little vanity after I went back into my archives and read some of my earlier material. Pretty good stuff, for the most part. Maybe some of my opinions ring true with readers and maybe some don’t. But recognize this: everything I have written here is heartfelt and true to what I believe. So at the very least, it provides the reader with a look into the mind and feelings of a fellow traveler through life. And that’s how I want you to see it as well.

By the way, you are welcome to examine all of my archived articles, going even all of the way back to the beginning April, 2007. And then make comments appropriate to any of the articles that interest you. I will read all comments and, if they actually pertain to what I wrote and are not spam or profanity-laced, then I will publish them and probably make my own comments in reply.

Facebook and Twitter still seem to be the rage for people to communicate and network on the Internet. I have accounts with both but rarely use them. I have found this blog to suffice for me to express whatever I want to express. I let people know about its existence, but it’s up to them to read it. There is one possible, crucial drawback to following this blog: it makes the possibly unreasonable requirement that the reader possess something resembling an attention span! But you’re not like them: you made it all the way to the end. Congratulations! You should pat yourself on the back for your outstanding attention-endurance! Now all you have left to do is drop a comment! C’mon, you know you want to!

Asking Pointed Questions to Strangers

Suppose I were to walk up to a stranger and begin to ask that person about their interests, skills, and personal history. In the first place they may feel put out by me imposing on THEIR time and space. Secondly, they may be suspicious because I am a stranger to them, one individual whose motives for approaching them is unclear. And if the person I approach in this manner happens to be a woman, she may then possibly jump straight to the conclusion that I am trying to pick her up!

Which takes me in two different directions: making friends and the U.S. Census. Starting with the latter, there seems to be confusion among some elements of the population about the propriety of the Census in the first place. As if it were some dastardly, sinister plot of the big, bad government designed to mark different people for later persecution. Actually, though, the Census is embedded within the U.S. Constitution and is necessary to determine how much representation different areas get in Congress, according to their populations. Those living in areas like arch-conservative Michelle Bachmann’s Minnesota district who heed her advice to shun the Census are only helping to disenfranchise their voice in Congress by doing this. But most folks have no qualms about answering the few, simple questions on the form and returning it, postage paid. After all, we’re pretty much already trained in the ritual of form-filling through applications and medical forms. Compared to them, the Census questions are hardly intrusive.

As to asking pointed, personal questions to strangers in order to see if some of them could be potential friends, I wonder if it wouldn’t be a fun experiment for me to try out. I would need to go to a public place that I usually don’t frequent, preferably in a different town if possible. And then begin conversations with people where I ask their names, what they do for a living, what their interests, are, their marital status, children, religion, politics, hobbies, and so on. Of course, I need to do this in a friendly manner while being prepared to diplomatically “retreat” from hostile people.

Why bring this up? Because people deliberately set out to present themselves in public settings, and then once they are there they erect all kinds of walls around themselves. How about “being” public while you’re “in” the public? Exactly what kind of privacy are people trying to protect anyway? I am not the State; I am an individual as they are. I can ask people anything I want, and they are free to either answer me or refuse. After all, how can people stop being strangers unless they get to know each other?

Coffee Shop Musings

I feel invigorated after I drop off my daughter at school on weekday mornings and then head out to the nearby Starbucks for my coffee (and some writing). That’s good, because I usually spend most of the time at home before my habitual daily sojourn struggling to wake up!

The Starbucks I go to tends to give me a positive feeling about people in general. The workers here are friendly, informal, and efficient at their jobs. The customers are all early-risers and well-dressed, usually heading out to their jobs or school. The overwhelming majority of them are in good spirits like me and see this “pit stop” to the coffee shop as a welcome, happy treat. However…

If I go across the street to Donut Connection, they have a completely different kind of clientele. The folks going there tend to be more blue collar or retired, and those regular sitting customers tend to have a decidedly more political and conservative streak to their conversation. In other words, that place tends to be a conservative social hangout, kind of like a bar without the booze.

And I like that setup. People there don’t feel quite as stuffy about their private space (well, some do). In Starbucks, on the other hand, every table is like a private little world for each set of customers. We chat amicably but tend to keep to ourselves, else we “offend” by crossing lines. This doesn’t always have to be this way (although I like my own space, too).

Back in 2000, when this Starbucks first opened, they had a manager who was charming, professional, and engaging. He got to know the regular customers by name as well as finding out a little about each one. And if he felt that you may have had to wait a little too long in line that day, he often simply gave you your drink without charging you. But sadly, this manager tends to be the exception to the rule of more detached managers who keep their distance from the customers. That first manager played a very important social role, what I would term as a “facilitator”: someone who creates a sense of community in a place by emphasizing each individual’s personal interests and then bringing them together through respectful, friendly conversation. This guy so impressed me that I try to model my own often misanthropic behavior after his example. It never fails: simple, engaging friendliness rocks!

Obama’s Presidency Centrist, Pragmatic

I have observed Barack Obama’s presidential tenure so far and can reach only one conclusion. While he may have been a more ideological politician while in the Illinois state legislature and the U.S. Senate, his experience as a chief executive has forced him to make difficult decisions, some of them drawing him more to the center of the political spectrum. And that’s my conclusion: all of the crowing and paranoia from the political right notwithstanding, Barack Obama has marked his presidency as one of centrist pragmatism.

He didn’t immediately withdraw from Iraq, but instead followed the previous administration in favor of a phased, gradual exit. He has increased our military involvement in Afghanistan, not something one might expect from one rooted in leftist ideology. He was quite flexible in the recently enacted health care reform bill, accepting the absence of a public option as well as other weakened parts of the bill (as well as an assurance to pro-life Democrats in the House of Representatives that he would order the bill not to change the application of the earlier restrictive Hyde Amendment). He has also changed his stance about the treatment of detainees from our “war on terrorism” to be more closely aligned with how the Bush administration conducted the issue. He is very strongly in favor of enforceable sanctions against Iran to prevent them from developing nuclear bombs. He has strongly supported legislation that gives tax credits for small businesses. And although I personally disagree with him, he acted to drastically privatize our national space program. And his pick for the U.S. Supreme Court seat vacated by retiring Justice David Souter, Sonia Sotomayor, is a strong “law-and-order” judge.

So all of the ranting by the Beck/Limbaugh/Hannity wingnuts and the teabaggers aside, Barack Obama is turning out to be a president of all, with his motto apparently being “gather all of the facts and then make the best possible decision” from them. I can handle that, how about you?

Planets in Alignment

The planets were in perfect alignment tonight, creating the scenario for what I consider to be a personal milestone. In order for me to have known what to do, I needed to know exactly what positions two of those planets would be in. Once I knew, it was just a matter of having the opportunity to strike. Tonight, just after sunset, came that chance.

No, I am not talking about astrology, but astronomy. I had earlier consulted an astronomy website, not a horoscope, to find out that Venus would be high in the western sky just after sunset. And down a little, to its right in the sky would appear the elusive little planet of Mercury, shining with first magnitude brightness. I was walking to my car when I just happened to glance westward, seeing Venus. And then I remembered about Mercury. And saw it clearly as well. Then, as I was driving westward, the two were there, high in the sky (I was surprised a little about Mercury being that far up). So what, you might say.

I began star-gazing when I was seven, back in the spring of 1964. Yet I have never seen Mercury directly. Until now in 2010! And then it hit me: how many people can actually claim to have seen (and identified) Mercury in their lifetimes? Probably very few. So I wonder…

Have you ever seen AND identified the following by direct observation:

Mercury
Venus
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
The Milky Way
Betelgeuse
Sirius
Canopus
Rigel
Vega
Arcturus
Leo
Orion
Orion’s Belt
The Big Dipper (part of Ursa Major)
Scorpius
The Little Dipper (Ursa Minor)
Polaris (the North Star)
The Pleiades

I’ll bet, with the possible exceptions of Venus and the Big Dipper, the overwhelming majority of the population has identified NONE of the above through simple observation. Sure, people look up into the night sky and see bright stars, some of which to them may seem so bright that they know that they are (probably) planets. But which planets?

So although it has taken me 46 years to observe and identify Mercury, I think I’m still way ahead of the game in comparison to everyone else. But then again, general disinterest in astronomy is one of reasons why we are sadly earthbound in our space program, this after landing successfully on the moon on and safely returning on six different occasions four decades ago!

NCAA Basketball Final Four Play Tonight

Today the NCAA men's basketball tournament begins its final phase with the Final Four teams playing off to see who will meet Monday for the championship game. Pre-tournament favorites Kansas, Kentucky, and Syracuse have all been upset victims, with only Duke surviving as a regional #1 seed. The other teams are West Virginia, which will play Duke today, along with Butler and Michigan State, which are slated for the first game starting at about six tonight.

I traditionally use the following criteria in rooting for teams in the NCAA tournament:

1--University of Florida
2--Other Florida schools
3-University of North Carolina
4--Non-Florida Southeastern Conference schools
5--The rest of the Atlantic Coast Conference schools

UF and Florida State were eliminated in the first round, UNC (the defending champions) didn't even make the tournament this year, the other SEC teams (Kentucky, Tennessee, and Vanderbilt) have all been eliminated, leaving criterion #5 to draw upon: at least Duke made it, so I'm rooting for them.

And I don't care who wins beyond that. I will note, though, that these four teams seem to be very talented and evenly matched. So it should be entertaining to watch them play tonight. I suppose that in the non-Duke games, I will need to arbitrarily choose one team to pull for. But then again, maybe not. Sometimes it's just fun to sit back and soak in the game!

MLB Season Close At Hand

As the Major League Baseball exhibition season draws to an end and the the regular season is about to start, I find myself reevaluating which teams I will be following this year. Last year, I concentrated on the American League Central along with the Chicago Cubs and the two Florida teams. But it didn't work out: I rarely had the opportunity to watch AL Central teams play and consequently didn't get to know them very well (except perhaps for the Chicago White Sox). So this year I'm trying something different.

I will follow these teams this year:

Tampa Bay Rays
Florida Marlins
Atlanta Braves
Chicago Cubs
Chicago White Sox
New York Yankees
New York Mets
Cincinnati Reds (maybe)

Tampa Bay, Florida, and the two Chicago teams were all regularly featured on TV last year; getting to know them through their many televised games should be no problem. Atlanta has traditionally been the team I followed in years gone by, not to mention the fact that I can get them play-by-play on the local radio (WRUF-AM 850). As for the two New York teams, well, that's partially due to the fact that they are commonly shown on TV due to their huge markets and partially a matter for another blog article in the not-so-distant future. The possibility for me following Cincinnati depends on circumstances developing a certain way.

Not that I plan to spend every free waking moment of my life following baseball this spring and summer. I don't even picture myself planning to watch a particular game and sitting through it from beginning to end. Most likely, I will find an ongoing game while channel-surfing and enjoy it for a little while before "moving on". I think that's the best way to enjoy baseball, a sport that can become mind-numbing if left on too long.

I'm Out of Touch With Public Opinion

A recent public opinion poll showed the nation divided down the middle about President Obama's performance regarding the recently signed health care reform legislation and the economy. But the respondents overwhelmingly approved of the President's actions entrenching us more deeply in Afghanistan.

Although I am myself ambivalent about the health care reform bill, I see Obama's actions to stimulate the economy not only as necessary, but also as a logical continuation of the previous Republican president's emergency actions during the final months of his administration. But George W. Bush's party, now in the clear minority and out of the presidency, has gone so far in opposition to anything that Obama wants that they even opposed en masse a bill providing tax credits for small businesses. Wait, that's nothing new. The GOP is the party that claims to back small business while their actions really tend to tow the line of major corporate interests.

And Afghanistan? Why are we vastly increasing the number of soldiers we're sending there when the rationale for being there in the first place was to fight the Al-Qaeda terrorists who hatched and carried out the plot to attack America on 9/11? The recent case of the Nigerian who unsuccessfully tried to blow up a plane as it was about to land in Detroit illustrates the amorphous, mobile nature of Al-Qaeda: the plot originated in Yemen, a country friendly to the U.S. in which Al-Qaeda is clandestinely operating. Apparently, the terrorist thugs running Al-Qaeda came to the correct strategic conclusion that, since the U.S. will attack a country whose government is friendly to Al-Qaeda, their best chance for survival and growth is then to tuck themselves away in hard-to-get-to locations deeply within countries supporting America. This has already been borne out in Pakistan. So if Al-Qaeda has the capacity to base itself worldwide inside friendly countries who nevertheless may not be interested in U.S. troops fighting on their soil, why then are we throwing so much into fighting the indigenous political/military/religious movement known as the Taliban in Afghanistan? I think they already got the message several years ago: don't be friendly to Al-Qaeda! Perhaps Obama thinks that a surge reminiscent of the Iraq surge in the Sunni regions of 2007-08 will succeed on the same level. I think, though, that the situations on the ground are completely different. As an American, I wish success for Obama, but I fear that his emphasis on fighting in Afghanistan is misguided and I disapprove of his conduct of the war.

Also affirming the conclusion I reached that I am out of touch with American public opinion is the fact that the pollster didn't even think that Obama's recent decision to flat-out abandon our NASA efforts at returning to the moon and plan a Mars trip merited a poll question. I strongly disapprove of Obama's handling of this issue, but I don't think most Americans could care less about it one way or another. And that is very disappointing. Then again, people in this country seemed bored with the Apollo moon program as early as 1970, after only a couple of resoundingly successful landings. Sad.

Sports Standings, Real and Imaginary

Ever since the late 1960s, from about the time I was eleven, I have been fascinated by sports standings. I became pretty fanatical with them as a boy, as a matter of fact, poring over the newspaper sports section daily to see how the various teams in the different leagues were doing. And it mattered not whether the featured team or even the sport was one that I was following: I took it all in, be it ABA and NBA basketball, NHL hockey, NFL and AFL football, or AL, NL, and Florida League baseball. Eventually, my impatience with waiting daily to see how various standings changed led me to research the history of the various leagues and how their teams fished in seasons gone by. But even that wasn't enough, and I actually made up imaginary "leagues", the sports they represented being irrelevant, and went gradually through complete "fantasy" seasons, observing the standings as they developed. The teams I would designate by picking out various towns from maps. One league was comprised of twelve Florida cities; another by some obscure Texas towns. For one league, during a particular personally boring period during the summer of 1970, I set up an eight-team league based on cities distributed nationally, the final standings and general course of the "season" I still remember to this day, more so than many "real" seasons. How would I determine who won or lost a game? Simply by shuffling a deck of cards and dealing a pair at a time to determine winners and losers. Although my parents at the time thought that I was slipping too far into the world of the unreal while I did this, I was very much aware that this was pure entertainment for me, nothing more. And even today, I don't see it as that much removed from following the standings of "real" leagues. Besides, look at how seriously engaged people are nowadays with "official" fantasy sports, not to mention the video game craze that seems to dominate so much of their enthusiasts' free time.

So why should I care that the NBA New Jersey Nets team this year, which will probably avoid finishing with the league's all-time worst regular season record because of a late-season "surge", is real or just a figment of my imagination? Of course, I wouldn't be able to actually watch an imagined Nets team play a game, but I'm not talking about that per se. I'm talking about the feeling derived from observing different teams rise and decline over the course of a season, and how far apart they are from other in the standings at any particular time. I bet some people get off in the same way by looking at the stock prices from day to day (or even hour to hour)!

No, I don't make up "pretend" leagues any more; that was more an element of my distant past. But instead of wondering to myself about the propriety of having engaged in such fantasy, perhaps I should be asking myself how far removed from reality I am nowadays when I so closely and passionately follow "real" sports vicariously!

Wearing One's Disorder Like a Badge

A few weeks ago, I heard an NPR show in which an adult woman discussed her own, personal voyage through life. She discovered, in her adulthood, that she had always had Asperger's Syndrome, which is considered to be a relatively high-functioning affliction in the autism spectrum of disorders. This guest regarded her diagnosis, albeit while living as a well-functioning adult in society, as a kind of self-discovery and... I have to say, a source of pride at having this label to attach to herself.

From what I know of Asperger's Syndrome, those with it tend to find human companionship irrelevant at best and highly stressful at worst. They also tend to be overly sensitive to crowds and the kind of very noisy situations commonly arising from them. This I myself understand and identify with. I have long understood that I am afflicted with a hypersensitivity to the kind of audio input provided in large, noisy crowd settings. And I generally tend to keep to myself and avoid involvement with others. But I refuse to label myself with any diagnosis name, nor would I ever deliberately set out to obtain one. But the woman on the NPR program relished and even flaunted her "title".

Which brings me to the main point of that show: the psychiatric authorities responsible for naming disorders of this sort have decided to stop using "Asperger's Syndrome" as a diagnosis, instead choosing to integrate their view of those originally so diagnosed as being a part of the general autism spectrum. The woman with Aspergers was almost distraught at the prospect of losing her "badge". And badge is a good analogy, for it reminds me of the soldier in Stephen Crane's book Red Badge of Courage who found in having a visible wound a way for him to find his place within the often incomprehensible setting of the U.S. Civil War. For many, life itself is a kind of war, and they must grab hold of anything that can help them withstand its perceived perils. And psychiatric self-labeling is a device some apparently use to this end.

I was always under the impression that many mental disorders are latently present within us, subject to counterbalancing forces we have. How many students of an abnormal psychology course will go through their textbooks and see themselves in disorder after disorder? It is when our ability to function effectively decreases (especially when leading to social conflict), that it is necessary to seek a "diagnosis" and receive "treatment". To already be high-functioning, albeit with some uncomfortable leanings, and then seek an "official" diagnosis strikes me as being just a little bit beyond the pale. After all, as the Rush song Vital Signs goes, "Everybody gotta deviate from the norm."

West Florida Marathon Blues

Are marathons declining, or is there something specific to the area of (peninsular, not panhandle) western Florida that discourages them? The Sarasota Marathon was cancelled this year, with the race being changed to a purely half-marathon event. This year's Tampa Bay Gasparilla Festival Marathon just held its final run and will be no more. And the Florida Sheriff Youth's Ranch moved its annual marathon from the Sarasota vicinity to far-northern Florida this year, a few miles from Live Oak at that ranch's location.

I know that these marathon/half-marathon events tend to draw many more half-marathon participants than those running the marathon, so the event organizers can see that their funding comes primarily from the shorter race. And the longer marathon, if it doesn't simply involve repeating the half-marathon course or retracing back, will take up an additional 13.1 miles of public roads that require temporary lane closures and police supervision. So from a cost-effective analysis perspective, some may be seeing marathons as something of a waste, while half-marathons are growing in popularity. At least that seems to be how Sarasota acted. I do know that I would be awfully disappointed if I lived in that area.

In other places, though, marathons still seem to be thriving. Jacksonville, as a matter of fact, holds two each year. My home town of Gainesville seems pretty happy with its LifeSouth Five Points of Life marathon in February, so perhaps what has been transpiring around Tampa and Sarasota is an anomaly. If so, it would be nice if some other organizations would step up to the plate and engineer new races for this area, where distance running is obviously very popular.

I would hate to see, just I am beginning to come into my own as a marathon runner, for this genre of race to begin to decline. But then again, I may find that, once I have passed the personal milestone of actually covering the 26.2 miles of a marathon, I may prefer to concentrate on half-marathons instead. For now, though, it's marathon time for me.

Gainesville Repels Storms

Perhaps, if I were a superstitious person, I would regard myself as tempting fate by revealing what I am about to reveal. But I'm not, so let fate deal its cruel hand for the following words I'm about to lay down on this blog.

I have repeatedly noticed for what seems like years a curious pattern regarding the weather in Gainesville and weather forecasts. It seems that time after time the weather service will predict a big storm system to either come in from the Gulf of Mexico or sweep down from the Florida panhandle. Gainesville and its surroundings would be engulfed in heavy rain, wind, and thunderstorms. And each time, here would come that system toward our fair city. And then, all too often, just as the nasty, naughty clouds were about to hit us, they would part around the city and then concentrate their wrath on surrounding communities, most notably Ocala to the south and Lake City to the north.

Such was the case again today. All afternoon and evening, we were going to be socked with a lot of rain, wind and a big chance of heavy thunderstorms. I scoffed at the forecast and told my wife that Gainesville would be spared the worst. And sure enough, just as the massive storm system on the televised radar picture neared my home town, it seemed to veer slightly southward, hitting Ocala (once again). Amazingly, just as the worst of the storm was striking Ocala, the radar showed the cloud cover in Gainesville to be clearing from the opposite direction! Eventually, we did get some light rain, but that was it. No torrent, no lightning, little wind. Ho-hum, I could have told them.

So you see how a more superstitious soul might conclude that I am tempting fate a bit by pointing out Gainesville's recent apparent ability to repel storms. Perhaps this summer we'll be the bulls-eye for one of the worst hurricanes ever to hit the U.S. mainland. But I'm not holding my breath, shaking in my boots, or acting out any other sorry cliches waiting for that to happen!