Tim Lincecum Pitches Another No-Hitter

I was in the process of e-mailing my home restoration contractor when, on my AOL site, they were reporting that San Francisco Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum had gone seven innings against the San Diego Padres without yet giving up a hit.  So I quickly ended the necessary e-mailing and turned my TV on to the MLB channel, which naturally was focusing on the ongoing event at San Francisco's ball park.  Lincecum was the epitome of coolness, in spite of the overwhelming cheering and standing ovation of the home crowd, as he confidently mixed up his pitches against the hapless Padres batters in the eighth and ninth innings and quickly got out of the game, on only 113 pitches, with his second no-hitter in two years...both against San Diego.  He also shone at the bat, scoring two of San Francisco's four runs and getting a hit in the seventh inning.

Lincecum is both a two-time World Series champion (2010 and 2012) and a two-time Cy Young Award winner for best pitcher (2008 and 2009).  Now he can add "two-time no-hitter" to that impressive list of accomplishments.  He is one of those pitchers, though, that can go out the next time he's due to pitch and give up several runs. So you never quite know what you're gonna get when Tim is out there! But although I'm not exactly a Giants fan, Tim Lincecum is one of my favorite players to watch.  He sure came through today...

Just Finished Reading Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games trilogy, by Suzanne Collins, is fun to read.  Not only is it well written, but it is also relatively short!  Catching Fire, the second book in this dystopian futuristic young adult series, showcases protagonist Katniss Everdeen as she becomes a target for persecution by the malevolent Capitol cental government, headed by possibly the most evil antagonist I've ever read in President Snow.  You see, in the previous book she defied the Capitol and Snow by forcing them to allow not one, but two final surviving "victors" in the annual Hunger Games that are designed to intimidate the resentful, oppressed districts by forcing each of them to send two young people from each of them to fight each other to the death.  In Catching Fire, although Katniss is supposed to be enjoying the benefits associated with winning those "Games" the previous year, in fact President Snow has stepped up the persecution of its residents and is threatening her with retaliation for her actions in the Games.  And then Snow announces that the Hunger Games this year will feature entrants who were previous winners...throwing both Katniss and her partner/friend Peeta back into another version of the deadly games.  Only this time around, she notices that rebellions are beginning to take place in various districts against the Capitol.  Within the games themselves, she also discovers alliances that have been arranged behind her back with some of her opponents, leading her to an inner conflict between having to trust others and going it alone with Peeta. The Hunger Games go on in spite of all the rebellions on the outside, although the outcome is quite a surprise...as well as the book's ending, which naturally should lead directly into the final volume in the trilogy, titled Mockingjay.  I'm looking forward to getting hold of it and finding out what happens to Katniss and her friends and family...as well as the bad guys...

Iraq and the U.S., Leading to the Present

I don't think it would be much of an understatement to say that America is a war-weary country.  We have been actively involved in warfare abroad ever since the horrific 9/11 Muslim extremist terrorist attacks in 2001.  Our efforts have been concentrated in two countries: Afghanistan, whose then-Taliban-run government had given sanctuary to the Al-Qaeda terrorists responsible for planning the attacks...and Iraq, a country that, albeit run by a brutal anti-American dictator, had nothing to do with 9/11.  Most of our casualties in these conflicts, however, have arisen from Iraq...and not the invasion and initial takeover, per se, but rather the prolonged occupation and "nation-building" phase lasting several years.  In early 2003, as an ordinary citizen with neither access to classified information and analysis nor the authority to act on it, I was in a position where I felt the need to give my elected president the benefit of the doubt as he exercised his constitutional mandate as Commander-in-Chief to defend our country.  But once dictator Saddam Hussein was dislodged and no mass destruction weapons found, to stay there as long as we did...especially considering the fractured and mutually hostile ethnic and religious groups in Iraq...made very little sense to me.  As a soldier, it is very important to believe in the success of whatever mission they are given to perform. Unfortunately, due to no fault of their own, they were given a mission that involved creating a type of democratic civil society in a form which had never existed in that society and was alien to its people...something beyond their scope to handle.  Our troops were valiant and brave and deserve the highest of accolades (and post-combat support) for their service.  But our civilian leaders should be subject to criticism for having allowed this costly (both in terms of money and human lives) and ill-conceived occupation.

Now a Sunni extremist army has swept down from the northwest in Iraq and taken over much of the Sunni lands.  The Kurds and Shiites are mobilizing to defend their lands from invasion.  These groups seem to be thoroughly incapable of reconciliation with each other .  The only way they were able to get along before was under harsh authoritarian, dictatorial rule with a pervasive network of secret police and informants.  It looks to me as if these folks just need to split up and look after their own affairs...without imposing on each other under the guise of national politics.  I'd like to think that people with different ethnic backgrounds and religious customs can co-exist, but sadly there are some places on this planet where this simply isn't going to happen anytime soon. So, like Yugoslavia after dictator Tito died and that multiethnic and multireligious nation broke up into several smaller countries, Iraq may well be on a similar road...and if bloodshed can be minimized in the process, it may be the best solution for a very difficult situation...

Home Restoration Ongoing

This month we have been preoccupied with problems regarding our house.  The interior was flooded in some areas, which have to be restored.  The process is very time and attention-consuming, and the main work is yet to come.  We are using a contractor to do the work, which will take a few weeks to finish.  During this time we are making some improvements as well, especially in the area of space efficiency.  I'm not looking forward to the contractor performing the noisy work during the day when I have to get my sleep (I work a late night/early morning shift at my job), but after it's all over the house should be in a lot better shape...

Just Finished Reading Paolini's Brisingr

A few years ago, after putting down a book I was reading in frustration and walking away from it , I decided to give it another try...and just finished reading to completion Christopher Paolini's Brisingr, the third of four volumes in his Inheritance series.  This fantasy undertaking borrows greatly from established epics like Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, but still manages to establish clearly definable characters, a workable fantasy world geography and history, and its own peculiar set of rules that govern the use of magic.  The hero, in this case a teenager named Eragon, is the typical fantasy-land reluctant savior figure: he just wants to live in peace, but circumstances and the enemy have set him up as the "one" on which rests the hopes of the rest of the world to live in freedom and justice.  I've read others who have criticized Paolini for sticking to this common formula in fantasy writing, but to me it's just standard fare, an accepted feature of the genre.  What does bother me with this Inheritance series of his is how it has become overbloated with excessive introspection and explanations among its characters to the detriment of the ongoing narrative.  This bogging down of the plot is why I abandoned Brisingr back then...but I came back to at least see the story through.  And now, there's only one more book left: Inheritance. 

The unusual name Brisingr, by the way, refers to a fire-starting magical utterance that Eragon learned from his mentor Brom in book # 1.  It gains a further usage in this book...toward its end.  Eragon is the last of the free dragon riders and has a close telepathic bond to his dragon Saphira.  Together they support a rebel group called the Varden, which is fighting to overthrow brutal King Galbatorix.  Eragon loves an elf woman named Arya who does not return his affections.  He also has a cousin named Roran, whose story stands as an interesting subplot.  Also, an enigmatic young man named Murtagh looks to be a "wild-card" character whose actions may ultimately determine the outcome of the struggle.  Is he on the enemy's side or is he with Eragon?  I'm sure the next book will tell all...I just wish it wouldn't beat around the bush in the process...

World Cup Getting More Interesting

A few days ago I remarked in an article that watching soccer on television wasn't very interesting.  But some of the recent games in the FIFA World Cup group stage have been exciting to behold.  That 2-1 American victory over Ghana on Monday was high drama, as well as the 0-0 defensive draw between Brazil and Mexico.  But I just finished watching what may have been the best match so far, as Uruguay scored a breakaway late goal to edge England 2-1.  Also interesting is that Luis Suarez, who scored both of Uruguay's goals,  has played on Liverpool in England's Barclay's Premier League.  Now it looks unlikely that England will advance and is destined, like Spain and Australia, to make an early exit from the World Cup. 

The United States will better learn whether or not it has a good chance to continue beyond the round-robin group stage when it plays Portugal this Sunday.  But although I naturally pull for the Americans, I am more interested in following the tournament and getting to know the sport better.  So even if the U.S. doesn't manage to advance, I'm still watching...

Sticking With Treadmill Running for Now

My running has remained indoors and probably will be for some time to come.  I have gotten myself into the routine of stopping by my local gym (Gainesville Health and Fitness) in the evening before going in to work my late night/early morning graveyard shift.  Perhaps the treadmill running isn't quite the same thing as pounding the pavement around my neighborhood, but at least for the time being, I have a couple of reasons of my own as to why sticking to the indoor treadmill is a better choice.  I am glad to have a place like this to go to, as it is usually open 24x7 (with some schedule adjustments for some major holidays), the treadmills are in great abundance with some available even during the busiest times, and unlike the previous gym I frequented, there is no time limit for use.  A bonus to this is that I can watch television while I run...usually a sporting event, like baseball, is on one of the channels.  Also, I have noticed that I generally tend to feel better reporting for work after a good treadmill run an hour or two beforehand...

Spurs Convincingly Beat Heat for NBA Title

The Miami Heat, in the just-finished National Basketball Association Championship Series against the San Antonio Spurs, were going for their third straight title and second straight series win against the Spurs.  But after the first two games, which the teams split and both of which were highly competitive, San Antonio shifted into a higher gear and routed Miami in the next three games, winning the series four games to one.  I was hoping that, in the last contest, the Heat would rise up to the occasion and would turn the series around.  It certainly started that way, with Miami, behind the efforts of their standout Lebron James, built up an impressive early 22-6 lead.  I watched that part of the game and then switched over to baseball on ESPN.  But at the bottom of the screen were game updates...which showed a strong Spurs comeback and, then, lead.  In the final three games, Miami seemed tired out by the speedy passing attack of San Antonio and too many times were just a step behind their opponents.  Dwyane Wade, one of Miami's "big three", seemed tired for much of the series.  Maybe he needs to examine where he's at after this season with his future.  I appreciate the three titles he helped bring to Miami, especially that exciting series in 2006 against Dallas in the pre-Lebron era.  There is a lot of speculation floating around as well as to whether James or Chris Bosh will remain on the team or try out their talents elsewhere.  But anyway I look at it, it's been a great run.  Speaking of great runs, the San Antonio Spurs have been incredible over the past several years, consistently winning at least 50 games every season and winning five titles.  Names like Duncan, Parker, and Ginobli now have a new addition: Kawhi Leonard, who sparked the Spurs series victory over the Heat...

Just Finished Reading Robert Jordan's The Shadow Rising

The other day I finally got around to completing my reading journey through Robert Jordan's long fantasy novel The Shadow Rising, which constitutes book four in his fourteen-volume The Wheel of Time series.  The Shadow Rising, as I had written a few days ago here, is a mix of interesting plot narrative and mired-down magical/historical/prophetic dogma, with different characters bringing out one emphasis over the other.  The main characters are divided into four different stories: the White Tower, where there is division about the Aes Sedai leadership (this is basically Min's story), the journey by Rand, Mat, Egwene, Moiraine, and company to the Aiel Wasteland to firmly establish Rand's status as the Dragon Reborn, the clandestine trip of Aes Sedai members Elayne and Nynaeve to a city where they suspect traitors within their sect to be active, and the attempt by Perrin and his love Faile to return to Perrin's original homeland of the Two Rivers to save the area from devastation by dark forces and a group calling itself Children of the Light.  For the most part, it was easy reading until I got to sections about Rand's adventures...I wonder how much more arcane information I'm going to be expected to ingest!  My favorite subplot was the one with Perrin and Faile, and how they relate to each other and eventually fall in love.

Originally pitting main hero Rand against main bad guy Ba'alzamon in the first couple of books, Jordan has introduced a layer of antagonists called the Forsaken, each of whom, although originally squarely on the Dark One's side, has his or her own individual agenda...and some even come to Rand's aid.  This naturally confuses the situation for Rand and his allies, for it's hard to discern where these people truly stand on things.  And it also, I'm beginning to suspect, conveniently enables Jordan to prolong his series by a few more books!

Not Quite Up to Speed Moving Around Facebook

Facebook is a very interesting application on my computer, without a doubt.  Different people have different uses for it, to be sure, but for most it is used as it was originally intended: a social network that allows friends from the present and past, as well as family, to keep in touch.  I haven't begun to explore all of the possible ways to use it, as others obviously have.  I know next to nothing about how others post videos or those "posters" with all the pithy sayings.  And all of the special little devices that Facebook provides its members to specialize in how they want to communicate...it's all beyond me.  Not that I won't eventually get around to knowing my way around Facebook, but for now I'm somewhat of a long-term novice.  And it doesn't get any better whenever I'm invited to play in one of the many games it features.

Maybe those games on Facebook are pretty fun to play, but I never got around to it.  The last time I tried to play one of them, which was yesterday, I must have pressed the wrong button and it went off my screen.  Oh well, better luck next time!  I'm curious, though...are these games of an interactive nature between the various participants or does each player just play independently and accumulate scores to later compare against other players?  I suppose that I can play one to find out, assuming I'm not so klutzy next time and wipe out the game again!

Right now, besides enjoying what others put out on Facebook, my main focus is to write daily blog articles and post links to them on Facebook.  You don't really need Facebook, though, to read it as it's published on Google's Blogger service.  But Facebook makes it much easier to access...

Soccer's World Cup Has Begun

The World Cup of soccer (for men), taking place every four years, started this past Thursday in Brazil, with matches in various stadiums across the country.  There are at this initial stage of the tournament 32 teams, distributed among eight four-team groups.  The United States made the field and shares a group with Germany, Portugal, and Ghana.  They will play their first game against Ghana on Monday.  Each team within the group will play the others, in round-robin fashion.  At the end of this, the top two in each group will advance in the Cup tournament to comprise the final 16.  Then, the winner of one group will be paired against the runner-up in another for the next round.  After that, the quarterfinals will narrow it down to four teams, the semi's down to two...and then the championship match will be held.

What I like about the World Cup's format...which distinguishes it, say, from our NCAA college basketball tournament, is that it doesn't have the "one-and-out" finality for teams suffering initial losses.  For example, the other day Spain suffered a very disappointing 5-1 defeat at the hands of the Netherlands.  But they're still in the running and can still advance if they play well in the remaining round-robin games.  I hear the U.S. is in a difficult group...but with this format they will at least get to play three games!

When I was a kid at school, we would have a time set aside each year in physical education class for playing soccer...although it was very loosely played.  It was my favorite sport in school, as I was pretty accurate with my kicking and could usually outrace the others to the goal.  I was a pretty decent goalie, too.  But then again, I never was involved in more organized soccer leagues that emphasized positions and enforced rules more strictly. 

As a spectator, though, I have to admit that I have trouble viewing soccer matches with anything resembling interest...and with more than a little confusion regarding some of the rules.  It looks to me as if the two teams just take turns kicking the ball back and forth down the field, with the very few goals that do occur looking almost accidental.  Of course, at the end of the day when they show the highlights of games, it looks like one endless stream of exciting goals, one after another...

About to Begin Reading Science Fiction Short Stories from 1961

I am about to start with another science fiction short story anthology, this one titled Isaac Asimov Presents: The Great SF Stories 23 (1961).  It is interesting that I drew this book at random out of my collection, for 1961 and the previous book's year, 1945, represent landmarks in recent history.  1961 was when President Eisenhower left office and John F. Kennedy began his term.  The very "hot" war, World War II, that was concluding in 1945 had transformed sixteen years later into an intense Cold War between the former allies, the US and USSR.  This competition extended into space, and the human presence out there began in 1961 with Alan B. Shepard and Yuri Gagarin from those respective countries.  President Kennedy then also proclaimed his famous goal of getting to the moon and back by the end of the decade.  It's too bad, but I can't see anything like this going on that could unite our country in these times.

With the different momentous news stories going on in 1961, it bears noting that I was thoroughly oblivious it all.  After all, I was only four years old when that year began...I didn't begin to become politically aware until JFK's assassination in November, 1963 (when I was at the ripe old age of seven).  At the start of 1961, my family (father, mother, my older sister Anita, and me) had just moved across the Dade/Broward county line from our former apartment in Opa-Locka (where my father worked as a letter carrier) to a modest little house in suburban West Hollywood, in a subdivision called Boulevard Heights.  Anita would attend Boulevard Heights Elementary School, which was only a couple of blocks from my house (both are still standing).  I had some friends around my block I would hang out with then, like Stevie and Jimmy and Danny (I was "Billy").  I didn't attend kindergarten and began the first grade in 1962, so in 1961 I stayed at home while Anita went to school.  I think during that time, if memory serves me correctly, my main fun activities were watching TV (especially game shows like Concentration), drawing on the walls with crayons, and leaving all of my toys lying around in disarray on the floor.  Good times, good times...

There are thirteen stories in The Great SF Stories 23 (1961); only one is written by an author from the 1945 edition: Isaac Asimov, who co-edited this series with Martin H. Greenberg.  However, I am familiar with some of the other authors, in particular Arthur C. Clarke of 2001: A Space Odyssey renown and Cordwainer Smith, who created what I regard as one of the most interesting and imaginative series of stories regarding future space exploration.  Also in the mix are familiar names like Poul Anderson, Anne McCaffrey, Frederick Pohl, and Cyril Kornbluth.  Kornbluth's, entry, a collaboration between him and Pohl, was published in 1961, three years after his death at the sadly young age of 35.  I have a collection of his short stories and may review it on this blog at a future date...

Baseball Bigger Than Rays Slump

This 2014 baseball season has reached the point when it is beginning to become a drag to follow my favorite team on its own radio or television network.  That team, the Tampa Bay Rays, is mired in a terrible slump and stands at 24-42 with the worst record in either league.  The main culprit in their slide has been a complete team collapse in hitting.  This is especially true when runners are in scoring position, with the Rays as a whole batting around .100 under those conditions during this time. This is essentially the same team that last year made a great late-season run to make the playoffs and then get to the American League Championship Series against eventual World Series winner Boston.  I commiserate with them about their troubles...but only up to a point.  In this game, you can't have winners without there being losers, and, well, it's well-nigh impossible to go on forever without having a dip every now and then.  I expect Tampa Bay to eventually get back on track, although probably the best they should be able to shoot for this season would be to get back to having a winning season...a formidable task at this point, to say the least.  But the main problem I have with their woes is the tendency of their play-by-play announcers and analysts to continually dwell on them instead of focusing on the game as it is being played.  I can handle the losses...what I don't want is this constant psychology of losing!

Lately I haven't had as much of an opportunity as earlier to just sit back and enjoy watching the games, half-inning by half-inning.  And that is more to how I like to approach baseball: up close, pitch-by-pitch.  It matters little whether it's a close game, a rout, the first inning, fifth, or in the twelfth, or whether the teams playing are winners or losers.  Sure, I recognize that those factors play a role in the strategy and "flavor" of the game as it is unwinding, but the main pleasure I get is observing the developing strategies employed by the pitching/fielding team and the batting team against each other within an inning as one tries to get the third out before the other can score...

Jordan's Wheel of Time Series Guilty of Information Overload

I am currently in the midst of a very long fantasy novel, which in itself is just one of fourteen novels in a series.  The author is Robert Jordan, the series is The Wheel of Time, and the novel is The Shadow Rising, the fourth installment.  Jordan has this tendency to inundate the reader with copious amounts of obscure and esoteric knowledge about his version of magic, prophecy, and fantasy world history.  It can get to be overwhelming at times, but I am learning to anticipate sections in the story that are most prone to this...and am relishing those other sections that just concentrate on the plot and character development. The main indicator to all of this is whichever character Jordan happens to be using at any given time to tell the story.  If it's Mat or Perrin, then I enjoy the narrative...mostly free from all the pretentious mumbo jumbo.  But if the characters are Rand (the Dragon Reborn) or any of the Aes Sedai women, then watch out...here comes a new flood of very crucial "facts".  I understand that, in all fantasy series, the author is committed to creating a separate, special world with its own history and dynamics...and there is a need to communicate its essence to the reader.  But dude, I'm drowning in this stuff!

It used to be that the character of Mat Cauthon irritated me to no end...that is, until I began to realize in the third book that the passages that featured him were relatively free of the cumbersome weight of new information.  Now, he is the character I like and identify with the most...while Rand, who is the series' chief protagonist, now seems distant and unapproachable.  The development of his character seems to come in leaps and bounds, often with little to explain his change.  I wonder, since this IS a very long series, with ten more books after this, whether the situation I've described with these characters will ever change and maybe, just maybe, Jordan will give us readers a break from the layer upon layer of background material...

Finally Finished Reading 1945 Science Fiction Anthology

It took a while, but I got around to finishing reading Isaac Asimov Presents: The Great SF Stories 7 (1945), an anthology of that year's best science fiction short stories, edited by Asimov  and Martin H. Greenberg.  The final two stories in it are De Profundis by Murray Leinster and Pi in the Sky by Frederic Brown.  These two writers had other entries in this book.  De Profundis presents the narrative from the point of view of a completely alien, waterbound life form that describes its encounter with humans.  Leinster did a masterful job of creating a sense of what intelligent life could be like elsewhere, and how that intelligence did not automatically mean that it would abide by the same moral codes that we have.  It packed a lot of message for such a short tale.  Pi in the Sky was more of a commentary on our capitalistic society with its heavy emphasis on advertising...put into a science fiction context.  For unfathomable reasons, the brightest stars in the night sky are suddenly drastically changing their positions...in apparent total disregard to the laws of physics and the barrier of the speed of light.  This story could not have been written nowadays in the science fiction genre, since authors now feel the need to convince and impress the reader with the scientific viability of their speculations.  Older writers like Frederic Brown and Ray Bradbury often produced science fiction without taking the "science" part of it into full account, not having been trained in the area like other writers.  But Pi in the Sky, like so many of Brown's other pieces, has one of those endings with a "kick" to it...and a message about how we look at things in "our" world.

Well, I suppose I can go back to my book chest and randomly draw out another year in science fiction to explore.  Wonder which one's gonna be next...

Yesterday's Disturbing Belmont Stakes

Yesterday, like so many others who were watching the Belmont Stakes on television, , I was rooting for California Chrome to pull out a victory and win the first Triple Crown in horse racing since 1978.  But alas, it was not to be, and Tonalist won a very close, exciting race.  California Chrome made a good run at it, but did not have the energy to overtake the leaders at the end and finished tied for fourth place.  I had watched the horses in the few minutes before the race and thought somehow that Tonalist needed watching...and that California Chrome was unusually relaxed, in contrast to its behavior before the Kentucky Derby and Preakness.  It was what happened immediately following the race, though, that bothered me...

First of all, I understand that the media was all focused on California Chrome since it was going for the big Triple Crown prize.  But once it had lost, the attention should have been directed at the actual winner, which was Tonalist.  Instead, the cameras almost completely ignored Tonalist, its jockey, trainer, owner...and went into a quick interview with the jockey for loser California Chrome.  They eventually interviewed Tonalist's jockey, who was very dignified and respectful.  Then they went over and interviewed California Chrome co-owner Steve Coburn, who went on an angry rant, crying foul and accusing those who had entered horses just for the Belmont and not for the other two races as being cowardly.  Besides the very unsportsmanlike tone of his comments, I think that Coburn was a bit of a hypocrite, too.  His horse California Chrome had been running with the advantage of a special strip placed above his nose that helped with breathing.  The Kentucky Derby and Preakness had allowed it in their rules, but the Belmont would have prohibited it had it not changed its own rule on the subject just to placate the California Chrome people.  Yet Coburn, with this special favored treatment given him, chose to play the victim and self-righteous accuser...

Out of the eleven horses running in the Belmont, eight had run in neither the Kentucky Derby nor the Preakness.  So I suppose if Coburn had gotten what he wanted, it would have been a three-horse race!  But think about what he was proposing, which was that only horses that had run in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness could enter the Belmont: it would mean that the winner would only be facing horses it had already beaten...skewing the odds in its favor.

There is a big reason why winning the Triple Crown is a big deal.  It is because such an accomplishment is a rare event due to the difficulty involved.  Winning it means your three-year old thoroughbred is the de-facto world champion, beating all comers.  But were things rearranged to the way Coburn wanted it, we would end up with probably at least three to four Triple Crown winners a decade, making the feat virtually insignificant...

NBA Title Series: Lebron's Cramps Detract from Game One

I got to watch most of the first half of  Thursday's opening game in the NBA Championship Series between the Miami Heat and San Antonio Spurs.  For the most part, the game was very exciting and evenly played...until with a little more than four minutes to go in the fourth quarter, that is.  For then, Heat MVP Lebron James went down with severe leg cramps and had to sit out the remainder of the game.  San Antonio was able to capitalize on James being out and go on a late-game run, winning going away by 15 points.

I like both the Spurs and the Heat, and have some trouble deciding whom to pull for in this series.  But regardless, I want for the star players on both teams to be healthy and playing at their peak level.  Before last night's game, there was concern that Spurs guard Tony Parker, although set to play in it, was recovering from a sprained ankle.  But as it turned out, if he was feeling any pain from that injury during the game, he did a good job of hiding it.  That's not taking anything away from Lebron James, though.  Once you're down with that kind of leg cramp (which I'm personally familiar with), you are incapacitated, period.  James has shown this problem in the past, though, and some are expressing concerns that he hasn't been attentive enough to keeping his body hydrated.  The air-conditioning in the San Antonio arena went out during the game and temperatures soared, becoming a possible factor in his cramps. 

Hopefully, this will be the last time in this series that we see an important player on either team being sidelined like that.  To me, it detracted from the hard-fought and well-deserved victory that San Antonio achieved Thursday night, giving some Heat fans the opportunity to use their superstar's physical woes as an excuse for Miami's loss.  For even had James not suffered leg cramps, the Spurs were still surging at the end of that game.  I just want to see the best playing the best and then see what happens...

Just Finished Reading Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment

First of all, it's important to emphasize that the edition I read of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel Crime and Punishment was a translation into English, not the original Russian version.  So what came out sounding a lot like Charles Dickens may not have originally been written that way.  Dostoyevsky was a contemporary of Dickens and Crime and Punishment came out in 1866.  It portrays a Russian society (the setting here is Saint Petersburg, the capital then) stratified along lines of class and education.  There is a lot of talk going around about radically transforming society according to whatever ideology one holds to.  The protagonist, Rodion Raskolnikov, who sees himself as an intellectual, has come to the conclusion that, for the truly great, historically significant people like Napoleon, laws that bind others in society don't apply to them.  In a very faulty twist of logic, he then concludes that, in order to be truly great (like a Napoleon), he needs to prove to himself that he isn't subject to law, either.  So he decides to commit murder, using as his target a an elderly miserly woman pawnbroker with whom he has done business.  How this all comes off, and how well Raskolnikov is able to escape the consequences of his deeds, is something that I will leave for you discover for yourself, should you be interested in reading it.  There is more to this story, though, and the subplots, while all centering around Raskolnikov, also deal with his loyal friend Razumikhin, Raskolnikov's mother and sister (who is in a difficult wedding engagement situation), a married man who once tried to seduce Raskolnikov's sister while she was employed at his estate as a nanny, and the family of an alcoholic clerk with whom Raskolnikov once had a chance meeting in a bar.  Their lives all intertwine as the novel progresses, and each character seems to come out of their experiences with Raskolnikov as a changed person.

For himself, Raskolnikov is vain, arrogant, and impulsive...not the most likeable protagonist I've read. Still, just when he seems to be utterly despicable, he then commits truly sacrificial acts of kindness toward others.  I can see how an actor might relish the prospect of portraying him in a screen or stage adaptation.  As a matter of fact, there is so much dialogue here that it almost reads as a Shakespearean-type play...

My favorite character, though, in Crime and Punishment is the wily investigator Porfiry Petrovich, who reminds me a lot of the old TV sleuth Columbo in how he alternately disarms Raskolnikov with friendly exuberance and then subtly communicates something incriminating him...making Raskolnikov more and more nervous and uneasy. It makes me wonder whether the premise of that Columbo series wasn't at least partially based on this unforgettable character...

I suppose that, were I in a high school English class and asked to produce what I saw as a theme to Crime and Punishment, I just might salvage a "C" on my report by saying something like...the novel delves into the moral question of how important are the means taken in order to accomplish ultimately benevolent ends. Raskolnikov was definitely an "ends justify the means" kind of guy!  But then again, you never could know exactly what those English teachers wanted to hear from their students...

Heat vs. Spurs in NBA Final Series

Well, another entire year has come and gone, and here we are in the National Basketball Association final championship series, after all the analysis, speculation, and controversy...with the same two teams facing off.  And that's how it should be, with little to be surprised about.  These are the two best teams in the league right now. The Miami Heat are looking for their third straight championship while the San Antonio Spurs are looking for some "redemption" for their very close loss in the series to the Heat in 2013.  Leading up to this, I had been looking forward to the exciting matchups between Miami and Indiana, and between San Antonio and Oklahoma.  But unfortunately, with only a couple of exceptions, the games were rather lop-sided with one team dominating the other.  I would have preferred game after game coming down to the final minute or two.  I'm especially disappointed with the Thunder, who had a bit of difficulty on defense containing the Spurs. 

The first game between the Heat and Spurs will take place on Thursday at San Antonio.  I probably won't get to see much or any of it, and I have no idea who'll win the game or the series...

Still More Great Science Fiction Short Stories from 1945

As I approach the end of my reading of The Great SF Stories 7 (1945), here are three more stories, two of which I've already discussed written by the same authors.  Murray Leinster, who also wrote First Contact, has his second (of three) entries in this anthology with Into Thy Hands.  It, to me, is an unsatisfactory account of how a very religiously dogmatic fifteenth-century people handle the concept of advanced extraterrestrial life and its advanced technology.  Of course, as predictable as it could be, they are close minded and call everything the works of the devil!  Ho-hum, once I saw the pattern developing here the story became pointless...it was a chore to read it through...but I did.  The next story, Giant Killer by A. Bertram Chandler, is more of a novella than a short story and relates the violent struggle for power of a very brutal society of "people" living in a very enclosed environment and how their leader finally comes to terms with their ultimate enemies, the "giants", who live out in the great open area.  In the introductory comments, co-editor Martin H. Greenberg refers to Giant Killer as an example of a "closed universe" story.  Ultimately, that "universe" is revealed, as well as the true nature of the protagonists.  Thumbs up from me, although it is a little long (but from no fault of the author).  The final tale is by Henry Kuttner and is titled What You Need.  If you're a fan of the old Twilight Zone television series, this title may ring a bell: this is actually the story that episode is based on...although the characters and plot are a bit different.  The same theme is present in both versions, though: a strange man has the knack for looking into the future and determining different people's needs for upcoming situations.  What he gives (on Twilight Zone) or sells (this short story) is often puzzling, like an egg or a pair of shears.  By the way, elsewhere in this anthology is Kuttner's story Camouflage and his collaboration with his wife Catherine L. Moore titled The Piper's Son (written under the pseudonym Lewis Padgett).

I have just two more stories to go before I finish 1945 and start on another year of great science fiction short stories...

What Really Bugs Me About Major League Baseball

It's getting to be the time of the year when some Major League Baseball teams are feeling the pressure of having their seasons start to slip away from them.  The Tampa Bay Rays, Cleveland Indians, Texas Rangers, Kansas City Royals, Cincinnati Reds, Pittsburgh Pirates, San Diego Padres, and Arizona Diamondbacks must all feel as if their backs are up against the wall.  Anything less than a solid winning trend over the course of the next few weeks will probably seal the season for them, with little hope for subsequently making the playoffs. I didn't put the Houston Astros or Chicago Cubs on that list because they most likely weren't expecting to be in the running anyway, and the defending World Series Champion Boston Red Sox have already begun to dig themselves out of the bottom and back into the hunt.  And in the National League East, only five games separate all of the teams in that bunched-up division, so the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Mets don't need to panic yet. But I'm especially concerned about the Rays, who seem to be in an overall team slump, neither hitting, fielding, nor pitching well.  You can't explain it by saying that they had some injuries: EVERYBODY'S had injuries...but the winners are getting around them.  Still, the stress of the Rays and some other teams doesn't really detract from my enjoyment of the game...but I'll tell you what does...

I am sick and tired of these asinine petty little feuds going on between players and teams. Earlier, in a game between Tampa Bay and Boston, Rays shortstop Yunel Escobar stole third base late in a game that they were leading by five runs.  This instantly infuriated the Red Sox players, "unpleasantries" were loudly exchanged, and before you knew it, the benches were emptying out.  Then, during the yesterday's game as Escobar was completing an easy force-out on Boston reserve player Mike Carp at second base, Carp deliberately tried to slide in, off the base and at Escobar's legs, well after the play was over.  Escobar just leaped over this provocative maneuver and walked away as if nothing had happened.  Earlier in that same game, Rays pitcher David Price, very obviously in deliberate fashion, hit Boston slugger David Ortiz on the hip, most likely in retaliation for Ortiz having stood too long at the plate admiring his home run off Price in last years League Championship Series.  As a fan, I don't get either of the so-called offenses that had been "committed" by Escobar or Ortiz.  Having only a five-run lead, even going into the final inning, is no sure thing, and as a fan I expect the winning team-at-bat to do whatever it takes to add to that lead...and that means scrapping for every base they can get. I mean, why should anyone even remain in the ball park as a paying fan in the latter innings if the players are all just supposed to be sweet and cuddly with each other?  Now THAT'S offensive!  And regarding sluggers standing there for a moment at the plate admiring their home runs, what's wrong with that?  Ortiz wasn't rubbing it in on Price...he was putting on a show for the fans, which they love.  These players need to get off their collective high horse and begin to recognize that they are just coming off of their behavior looking like a bunch of touchy prima donna multimillionaire crybabies... 

My May 2014 Running Report

A month ago, I had, as a goal for May, for me to cover more miles per run.  Although I haven't gotten the distance to between 5 and 10 miles, as I want, I did make an improvement, with me running a couple of times for 4 miles and amassing more than 3 on several occasions.  I ran on every day in May and had a total running mileage for the month at 103.3 miles.

Lately, my running has been more of an exercise routine than before, when I was striving for new personal records and participating in various races.  But I'll accept that, for it's still doing me some good.  Before March 2013, when my work schedule changed, I used to run late in the morning when the humidity had finally dropped to an acceptable level but the temperature had yet to heat up too badly.  And on weekdays, my neighborhood had very little traffic to contend with at that time of the day, so it made running more pleasant as well.  Nowadays, though, after I wake up and am the most prepared to go running, it is mid-to-late afternoon.  There is a lot of traffic then and it is usually the hottest time of the day, not to mention more likely to be raining than before, when I would run in late morning. 

So for June, my running goals are to continue to exceed my monthly target of 100 total miles.  I'm not, however, going to pressure myself to run every day.  Instead, I want to have more of a pattern of alternating days in which I run longer distances with days in which I run little or not at all.  Should be interesting...

The Government Knows It All and Won't Tell Us...Sure

I was listening again on the radio to George Noory's Coast-to-Coast AM late, late night show...which probably isn't the healthiest thing in the world to do...when he had as his guest Linda Moulton Howe.  Howe is a regular on the program and presents herself as an investigative reporter about topics in line with the show's themes: the paranormal, UFO's, conspiracies, etc.  I'd characterize her approach as distinctively sensationalist and encourage anyone hearing her reports to take them with a grain of salt.  The other night she was going on strong with a report about a hybrid breeding program that supposedly had been going on for decades between the U.S. government and reptilian aliens from Zeta Reticuli (somewhere out there in the great beyond).  She interviewed a woman who claimed to see one of these human/alien hybrids, but apparently the government was covering up everything about the program because there was no record of the people she claimed to be involved in it.  I've heard this sort of dumping on the U.S. government on this show before, whether the discussion was about UFO/alien contact disclosure, chem-trails, remote viewing, assassination conspiracy theories, secret societies, reverse engineering, strange disappearances, or whatever the guest of the night happened to be pushing as a topic (often with a book that he or she was touting).  It seems to me that anyone can claim anything, no matter how ridiculous it is, insist that the government is involved in it, make up any details they want to, and then accuse the government of engaging in a cover-up when, surprise, there doesn't seem to be any record substantiating the claims or of the people supposedly involved.  What would folks like George Noory and many of his guests (but not all of them, thankfully) do without our good ol' federal government to scapegoat?  They'd maybe have to go into something more (shudder) honest ...

The truth, I'm sure, is that our government does keep secrets, some of which may be necessary for our national security and some of which are possibly just self-serving.  I don't have a problem with legitimate journalists going out to gather specific information on improper government cover-ups.  But what I often hear on Noory's show sounds like a lot of nonsense that is also self-serving for those who perpetuate it...

The End Times, As I See It

I usually don't listen very much to George Noory's late night radio show Coast-to-Coast AM, but last night he had as a guest someone who was discussing a broad range of topics, which included the "end times".  Although it wasn't his main point of the interview, he brought up the same point of view that I have long held...

Many people... too many, in my opinion... cling to the desperate hope that we in this present world of ours are in something they call the "end times" or "final days".  Usually, this involves a Christian eschatological perspective and the books of Revelation and Daniel figure heavily in their analysis of current events and trends that they interpret to be biblically relevant. Things are going to keep getting worse and worse...until Jesus comes back on Earth to set things right, overthrowing the bad guys and keeping his people with him for a glorious thousand-year reign...after which the Final Judgment will take place.  I would personally be more interested in all of this were I, like the elves in much of fantasy fiction, essentially immortal.  But I have my own individual "end times" and "final days".  Besides, doesn't being a saved Christian mean that Jesus has already become my savior and that the Holy Spirit dwells within?  Whether I die today, next year...or I live to be 120, my end times on Earth are quite probably independent of most of what goes on elsewhere.  Which may be the key to why at least some are so concerned about apocalyptic prophecy...

During our brief span of life here on Earth, we come to share our time with others and have family, friendships, and associations.  We're all contemporaries...but each of us entered life one-by-one (unless we're twins, triplets, etc.) and each of us will leave it the same way.  I believe that a lot of people are fearful of dying anyway, but the idea of dying while life continues as usual for the rest of the world is unbearable for them.  So it is a comfort to feel that when they go, so will pretty much the rest of the known universe.  That's why it is almost unheard of for people to discuss "end times" as being far off in the distant future, beyond their own individual life spans.  They are in essence projecting their impending personal "end times" to everything else...

I'm not saying don't read the Bible and try to understand and live out its meanings.  What I am saying is that I don't think that it is a productive exercise to obsess about world events and the return of Jesus...especially if you have already invited him into your life as your lord and savior.  If you are already there, you don't need to be elsewhere!

Gainesville Needs a Bus Route Spanning West 34th Street

Florida's State Route 121 is a pretty interesting stretch of road.  For one, its name transcends state lines: as you go north on it into Georgia, you find yourself driving down Georgia State Route 121.  Then, as you keep going on, across the Georgia/South Carolina state line, you're then on South Carolina State Route 121.  It finally ends just a few miles south of the North Carolina border, not far from Charlotte.  Usually, the numbers of state routes change from state to state, but SR 121 goes through three of them.  It also goes straight through my home town of Gainesville, Florida, with the more commonly used name of West 34th Street. 

I live just a couple of blocks from Northwest 34th Street, in far northern Gainesville.  My workplace is on the far southern fringe of Gainesville, but on the same street: Southwest 34th Street (SR 121).  This is a very important, heavily traveled road that connects the northern to the southern part of the city.  Yet in the 37 years I have lived here, my city bus service has deliberately avoided servicing a giant area surrounding the middle part of this crucial traffic artery.  Instead of there being a route that goes straight up and down West 34th Street, one has to plot a very circuitous route to get from the north to the south (or the reverse) on it.  For example, were I to take the city bus from near my home to where I work, both of which lie on the same street, I would end up taking an hour and a half to cover the 7.5 miles on the bus.  Simply driving my car, though, is about a 20-minute proposition.  Guess which choice I make?  Even when I ride my bicycle, it only takes about 40-45 minutes max, and I own a very cheap, ramshackle bicycle!  But wait...even if I ran down 34th Street to my destination, I'd still beat out the bus!

My city bus service goes out of its way to cater to the University of Florida student needs...I don't mind that because they pay for it up front with their fees.  But permanent Gainesville residents should have a say in the route and schedule creation process as well.  Were there a route that just ran up and down West 34th Street, I would make liberal use of it, to the point where I would definitely purchase a long-term pass.  With the current situation, nobody wins...

Just Finished Reading the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, is the first novel in a trilogy with the same name.  It is in the science fiction/adventure/young adult genre of fiction and involves another of those strange, dystopian societies of the future which develops following a cataclysmic apocalypse.  North America is divided into twelve districts, tightly controlled and oppressed by the dominant center (around Denver) called The Capitol.  In the past, the districts had rebelled against their rule and, after having been conquered (and a thirteenth district completely obliterated), an annual punishment was set up to remind them of their subservient status.  Each year, each district is to supply, by the drawing of a teenage boy and a teenage girl as "tributes" to play against those selected from the other districts in a contest-to-the-death, called the "Hunger Games", in which the lone survivor brings material prosperity to their home district.  The story, written in the first person by protagonist Katniss Everdeen, describes how her little sister is selected and she volunteers to stand in for her as a contestant.  Katniss is in District 12, corresponding roughly to Appalachia, and in which the main economy is coal mining.  She is an expert hunter with the bow and arrow and is at home in the forest.  This will do well for her in the struggle to come. 

The Hunger Games are not just a matter of survival against others: the Capitol leaders have made this event into a highly political national media extravaganza, with the entrants treated like celebrities and coached into how to present themselves to the public...even in the middle of their desperate fight for survival.  There is obviously something highly allegorical about all of this...I don't think I'll have to wait too long before some of this sinks in for me.  I already have a couple of ideas: one concerns society's almost obscene fixation on reality television with its characters and their contrived personalities and relationships, and the other concerns the truly obscene specter of young people in economically depressed areas feeling compelled to enlist in the military and go off to war just to be able to make a living.

The characters in The Hunger Games are quite compelling and unforgettable.  I haven't seen the movie version yet and now look forward to seeing how it portrays them.  But regardless how it all turns out, I don't think I will be satisfied at the end of this trilogy if the Capitol and its despicable despots aren't completely and utterly wiped out...

Just Finished Rereading Christopher Paolini's Eldest

Still plugging away at Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle series of four fantasy novels, I just completed, for the second time, book #2, titled Eldest.  In it, young Eragon, along with his psychically-connected (to him) and talking dragon Saphira, go northward to live with the elves for a while and undergo training to improve their magical powers and develop a workable philosophy for dealing with both magic and war.  And it is war that he is facing, as his enemy Galbatorix is marching south to invade rebel-supporting Surda and crush the Varden rebel force there.  Meanwhile, Eragon's cousin Roran is trying to rescue the people of their hometown of Carvahall from the evil and (pretty scary) Ra'zac  by evacuating them and taking them to Surda on a boat.  Roran's trials are interesting; Eragon's training is boring.  But it all comes to a head at the climactic end of the story, which I have to admit pleasantly surprised me when I first read it years ago.  In Eldest, Paolini inserted a great theme: friends becoming enemies and enemies become friends. It set the stage for the next novel, titled Brisingr (named after a word of magic used in the series).  Brisingr was supposed to be the third novel in the originally-planned trilogy, but regrettably, Paolini decided he needed two books to express all he wanted for the series conclusion. I haven't yet read the last book, titled Inheritance, but Brisingr was so boring the first time around that I left it halfway through.  This time, though, I'm going to finish it!  But first, I'm taking a little detour by next reading the first book in the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins, aptly titled The Hunger Games (I deliberately avoided the movie in order to read the book first)...

America Back on the Moon

Sometimes I think that people, when regarding other spherical celestial bodies like the moon or Mars, tend to impose their sense of scale based on what the Earth is like.  It's easy to do this, especially with the moon, as it truly looks from our vantage point like a worthy counterpart to our own planet, albeit a very dry and desolate counterpart.  The truth is, though, that it is much, much smaller than Earth...how much smaller, you ask?

If you were to impose a map of the continental United States on one showing the visible lunar surface, with the same scale of distance for each map, the U.S. would essentially cover most of it and would span the horizons from east to west!  Think of Miami being near one horizon and, traveling in a west-northwestward direction, Seattle would be clear on the opposite lunar horizon!  That, my friends, is pretty small...and once you realize this, then look out at the moon your next opportunity and you just might come to the same conclusion that I did.  Which is that our moon is a lot, lot closer to us than it seems!

By the way, regarding that superimposed map of the America on the moon, try this link to see
what I mean: http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/moon-scaling

I'd like to believe that my article's title wasn't so misleading, that we were actually going back to the moon.  Frankly, I don't see why they couldn't just send a couple of modest missions up there each decade, just to remind the folks out there that we still have the capability to get there and back.  I would have preferred we did what our previous president, George W. Bush, had set into motion, which was to work to set up a permanent base there.  But our current president Barack Obama scrapped that plan almost immediately upon taking office...and we're now going nowhere in a hurry...

More on My Radio Listening Options

I was writing a few days ago about how one of my local radio stations around Gainesville, 100.5/WHHZ/"The Buzz", switched its musical programming format back to independent/alternative and away from the hard rock it had been exclusively playing for about six years.  Well, after listening to it for a while, I have to make a slight correction in my assessment...

It's true that WHHZ is playing more of what I would deem to be indie/alternative music, but they are also continuing with some of the harder stuff...of which, incidentally, I also approve!  Recently, I wrote an article praising the old Seattle grunge band Soundgarden, so knowing that this station will also play some of their material, along with other acts like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, Alice in Chains, Rage Against the Machine, Tool, and Linkin Park, adds to the appeal of its programming.  Of course, this tends to thin out the more indie type music that I'm likely to hear...so perhaps I should keep up with my Internet listening as well.  Also, the signal from WHHZ is relatively weak, and I can't pick it up on my MP3 player.  Instead, it is on my personal push-button radio station rotation when I'm driving. 

Speaking of my favorite stations while driving, what are they?

AM: 850 WRUF and 1230 WGGG (both sports)

FM: 100.5 WHHZ and 102.9 WOKV (both alternative rock)

Also on FM: 104.9 and 105.9 (oldies), 97.3 and AM-980 (conservative talk), 89.1 (public radio), and 90.5 (traditional Christian music).

Note that nowhere among my favorites are stations playing country and western, hip-hop/rap, electronic "party", or "top forty"  hit music.  Please also note that this is no accident, since I tend to steer clear of that stuff.   I also tend to shy away from contemporary Christian music in favor of hymns and older songs of faith, so I clearly prefer the 90.5 (BBN) station to the one on 91.7 (Joy-FM). There used to a station on AM-1390 that had liberal talk programming, but it seems to have left the air.  As did Alan Colmes and his evening show that used to be on AM-980. That's a shame: I like hearing different perspectives on the news and issues, not just one side slamming the other. In this area broadcast radio is abominably inferior to other types of media.

I don't listen all that much to the radio...except perhaps when I'm driving, so I really don't need too many good stations to listen to.  Well, let's be frank: I really don't need ANY of them...if they all went off the air tomorrow I don't see how my life would suffer at all!  After all, most of my favorite songs nowadays I have never heard played on the radio (and probably never will).  As a matter of fact, I can easily get all of just about anything I would want from radio off the Internet and television, and to a more satisfactory degree at that...

Camelopardalis Meteor Shower Late Tonight

On the ABC evening news show a little while ago, they mentioned that overnight will occur what many think should be a spectacular meteor shower.  Unfortunately, they devoted very little time to the story and missed out on important details.  Such as when and where.  So I looked up on the Earth and Sky website and got the scoop...

This is a relatively new meteor shower, called the Camelopardalis Meteor Shower.  Camelopardalis is a faint and obscure northern constellation representing which African animal?  You guessed it...of course, it's a giraffe!  Anyway, the central (or radiant) point of the shower will be in this nondescript section of the sky...just face due north and try to find Polaris (the North Star).  Then go down from it just a little and that's where you should train your eyes for the meteor shower.  The optimal time for the most meteors should be from 2 to 4 AM. 

I have no idea how spectacular or not it will be, and I won't be able to witness it.  Unfortunately, I'll be at work then, making eight hours of unsolicited overtime on my off day in spite of the claims of my organization that this sort of thing isn't going to be happening anymore.  But for most of humanity, this interesting-sounding meteor shower will be out there to see (well, that part of the population that lives north of the Equator, that is).  If you're in North America, then just look northward a few degrees above the horizon at the indicated time...

Still More Sci-Fi Short Stories from 1945

As I continue reading through Isaac Asimov Presents: The Great SF Stories 7 (1945), I am amazed at the insight and prophetic vision that some of these writers have shown.

In The Vanishing Venusians, by Leigh Brackett, settlers from Earth on Venus (well THAT wasn't exactly prophetic, was it) encounter dangerous life forms native to that planet that they must conquer in order to survive.  But leave it to human nature for people come up with the most ingenious ways to completely wipe out their biological competitors...while at the same time appearing to be heroic in the process. Decades later, a pang of guilt about what happened to native Americans and their culture, along the demise of the once millions-strong buffaloes in the American West would become an accepted part of our own national consciousness...but in 1945 Brackett laid it all out in this great allegorical tale.

Into Thy Hands, by Lester Del Rey, is a post-apocalyptic tale which involves a group of robots that a wise scientist/engineer had built and programmed to lay the foundation for the resurgence of humanity.  Yet there is doubt about the plan's success when one of the crucial robots, misinterpreting some Bible verses he is exposed to, mistakenly sees himself as Adam and begins to impose the Garden of Eden story on his environment.

The third story, Henry Kuttner's Camouflage, examines what it truly means to be human, when an engineer, after a terrible accident destroys the rest of his body, is reduced to essentially a brain with connections, within a life-supporting mechanical box.  In this story, this individual retains his identity...even maintaining his marriage, although many around him doubt his humanity.  An attempt to hijack an atomic plant he is guiding on a spaceship to the Jovian moon Callisto brings the debate to the foreground, as the criminals on board, trying to wrest control of the ship from him, simultaneously debate with him while trying to find where he is hidden in order to "turn him off"...like a machine.  That this story discusses a concept like an atomic plant twelve years before the first operational nuclear reactor in the world sounds impressive...until you realize that another science fiction tale from three years earlier discusses in detail a nuclear plant meltdown...36 years before Three Mile Island and even years before the atomic bomb was first detonated!   

I have five more stories to read in this book...and then I'll reach back into my big box of old sci-fi anthologies and randomly pull out another one...

Just Finished Rereading Christopher Paolini's Eragon

I've mentioned in an earlier article that I decided to go back to Christopher Paolini's Inheritance fantasy series, which I had previously put down (both figuratively in criticism and literally, "putting it down on the table") without finishing.  Now I'm determined to see the reading project through and have successfully reread the first book Eragon without too much pain.  But now I'm on book # 2, Eldest, and the pain is starting to coming back...

First of all, let me say up front that Paolini's writing is good.  Others seem to think, though, and with good cause, that he coopted much of the story of Eragon from two sources: Star Wars and Lord of the Rings.  I agree that he could have been more circumspect with that, especially his naming his main hero character Eragon with such striking resemblance to Aragorn, the name of Tolkien's ranger hero (I get what he was thinking, though: replace the E with D and you get Dragon).  That having been said, though, Paolini did a good job of creating his own new world, with its own "rules of magic", that is clearly distinguishable from other fantasy settings.  And let's just be frank about all this: all fantasy series feed off each other! Robert Jordan, one of the all-time great writers in this genre, was very forthright in admitting that his first Wheel of Time novel, titled The Eye of the World, was written with the idea of recreating much of the narrative present in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings first book, Fellowship of the Ring.  In fantasy literature, you have specially named swords, reluctant "chosen" savior/heroes, dragons, elves, dwarfs, wizards, talking animals, questions about the hero's true father, sorcerers/sorceresses, witches, tyrant kings/emperors, important dreams, cryptic prophecies, magic with various limitations, monster enemy hordes, harrowing chase scenes, epic battle scenes, the hero rescuing the captured damsel, healing by magic and herbs replacing modern medicine, court intrigues, exotic invented languages, strange names with diacritics....all of this isn't just Paolini being a copycat: it is PERVASIVE throughout this genre and ALL draw from it to a degree, some just a little more than others.

So I did finish reading Eragon and am now beginning the second of the four books, this one titled Eldest.  So far, so good, although there isn't a lot of interesting stuff here...mainly, political intrigues going on between the various factions that Eragon has to figure out, although Paolini is at least making things interesting with the subplot about Eragon's cousin Roran.  Oh, by the way, I think that one of the reasons for such vehement criticism leveled against Christopher Paolini is that he was only fifteen when he came out with Eragon and that he had to do very little himself to get it published and promoted...seeing how his own parents ran an established publishing company.  I think a lot of aspiring writers resent his fast track to fame and fortune and consequently are likely to be more negative about their reactions to his writing.  And having a generally panned movie come out for Eragon doesn't help much either...

Break from My Writing Today

This has been one of those days in which my brain simply has not gotten into gear with the writing.  Usually I can come up with one thing or another to write about...actually, I can think of a lot of things, but I just don't feel up to the task.  Let's see...I have three more short stories to discuss from my 1945 science fiction short story anthology.  Or, I could write some about the theological concept of the "end times" and how much emphasis it really merits in people's daily lives...and what "end times" means to me.  I could  talk about the disparate ways that the political left and right often frame the issues, to the point where it often sounds like the two sides are talking about two different things.  And there's other stuff, too, but it'll all have to wait...

Maybe I'll get around tomorrow or in the ensuing days to raise some of these topics.  For now, I think I'll just take it easy, sit back, and watch some baseball (another potential topic)...

Meteorologists Predict Light Hurricane Season in 2014

Recently, the weather experts in charge of hurricane prognostications have come out with their annual assessment of the upcoming Atlantic tropical storm season, which officially begins on June 1.  The prediction is (drum roll, please): fewer hurricanes than usual.  Whew, that's a relief, right? Wrong.  Last year they were predicting a heavy season and it died out, not that I'm complaining.  There's nothing to me quite as exhilarating as seeing a named storm, even a hurricane-level one coming westward in our general direction toward the Caribbean area...and then to suddenly be destroyed by wind shear and opposing weather patterns.  This seemed to happened over and over again last year, so in spite of the relatively large number of named storms, they tended to have a very inhospitable environment for continued growth...or even survival.  Only the ones who stayed put out in the Mid-Atlantic high seas seemed to hang in there. Since I am no longer in elementary or high school, the one incentive for me to want to get hit (or at least seriously threatened) by a hurricane, which was to get a day or two off from classes, has disappeared and I no longer have any desire whatsoever to see any of them come within a thousand miles.  Especially after the traumatic 2004 and 2005 seasons. 

Even in "slow" years for tropical storms, there need only be one that hits at the worst place and the worst time.  In June 1972, early hurricane Agnes, which by itself wasn't all that terribly nasty, slammed into the Florida panhandle from the Gulf of Mexico and merged with a severe frontal system that eventually caused catastrophic flooding in the interior of the eastern part of the country.  It was one of only four named tropical storms for that year.  Likewise, in another four-storm season, 1983, Hurricane Alicia slammed into the Houston/Galveston area and caused massive damage.  I'm sure the folks there couldn't have cared less whether it was a "light" or "heavy" tropical storm system for that year!

Gainesville, where I have lived pretty much the last 37 years, has within my memory never been directly hit by a hurricane, although it has experienced tropical storm weather.  The worst storms here were Dora in 1964 (while I was still living elsewhere, near Miami in West Hollywood) and the double combination of Frances and Jeanne in 2004.  The eye of Dora passed through (westward from the Jacksonville area) about 40-50 miles north of Gainesville while the worst of the 2004 storms passed to our west (although Jeanne approached closer with more severe winds).  After 2004, everyone in the media, it seemed, thought themselves a weather expert and that this type of hurricane-intensive season would become the norm (global warming getting the lion's share of the blame).  Well, it hasn't...at least not yet.  Hopefully, we'll dodge the bullet again this year, light season or not...

More on 1945 Science Fiction Short Story Anthology

As I reported a few days ago in an earlier article, I've begun to explore some of my old short story collections (of other authors, not me), which tend to focus on the science fiction genre.  One series is a year-by-year review of the best in science fiction stories, edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg.  The one I'm reading right now, titled The Great SF Stories 7 (1945), contains the best of the best from that year.  Here are some of my reactions to more stories from it...

Isaac Asimov, besides editing this anthology, also contributes one of the stories, titled Blind Alley.  It is actually a tale embedded within a much larger one: Asimov's own created futuristic universe within which he wrote many memorable stories, both short and in novel form, about the development of robotics, the initial human explorer/settlers, called "spacers", the ensuing Galactic Empire, and then the famous Foundation series of novels.  Blind Alley deals with the bureaucracy and red tape that permeates life throughout the entrenched Galactic Empire...and how one bureaucrat is able to play the system in order to outmaneuver his opponents and surreptitiously accomplish the fulfillment of his own hidden agenda.  Fortunately, his aims are benevolent...but are so well concealed in the red tape and authorization requests that the ending to this story is truly surprising.  This isn't the last time that Asimov pulled this feat of literary misdirection: the novel Foundation is loaded with it...

In Correspondence Course, by Raymond F. Jones, a wounded war veteran, while convalescing and grieving his recently killed girlfriend, reluctantly responds to a mysterious letter advertising a correspondence course touting how to become a "power coordinator" and thereby attaining the ability to harness energy and use it in a manner unimagined.  After the first few lessons, he realizes that, contrary to his initial suspicions, the course is legitimate and highly technical, using advanced mathematics.  He decides to visit the return address of the course, only to discover that it is in an isolated, run-down Iowa town where no one knows anything about the school sending him the material.  Well, not one to give away the ending, let's just say that it accomplishes two things for him and one important thing for the party that sent him the course. And it's out of this world!

Murray Leinster's First Contact is a story that I first read in a different anthology years before, so I was quite familiar with it when I reread it.  The premise of the story is that space explorers from Earth, while researching stars deep within the Crab Nebula, unexpectedly encounter an exploration ship from a completely alien society.  Both sides feel that the only workable solution to the encounter is to destroy the other ship and trace its origins...and destroy the base of the other's civilization...all in the interests of self-defense since neither side knows whether the other side has malicious intent or is possibly vastly superior with its technological capacity to destroy.  Thus a stalemate ensues in which the leaders of each ship try to think of a workable solution that allows all to survive the experience. How does First Contact, which shares the same title as a Star Trek movie but is a completely different story, end?  You should know better than ask me at this point!

That covers six of the fourteen stories in this volume, and more are forthcoming here.  One thing I appreciate about this book is the prefacing to each story that contains introductory comments by editors Greenberg and Asimov about the story's author and its nature and context. For example, in the intro to Correspondence Course, Asimov refers to the literary device of the "double-double-cross", in which the author subtly hints at a surprise ending, which the reader begins to suspect...only to have that ending abruptly turned on its head. That sort of thing happens a lot in many of these sci-fi short story classics, and is one of the reasons I love reading them...    

Some Sports Observations

This evening, at 6:23 supposedly (why do they come up with these strange times) will occur the annual Preakness race in Pimlico Park, Baltimore...the "Second Jewel" of horse racing's Triple Crown.  All three of its races, the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont, are spaced just a few weeks apart in the spring and pit that sport's best three-year-olds against each other.  No horse has won all three events in a single year since Affirmed did in 1978.  So we're looking at a highly improbable event this year as well.  Still, with a strong horse like California Chrome having just won the Kentucky Derby, it looks as if this may well be the year it finally happens.  I'll be pulling for the favorite, just to make the upcoming Belmont Stakes a climactic, exciting event.  Otherwise, as far as I am concerned, it will just be another horse race...

In the National Basketball Association playoffs, we've finally reached the point when the elite teams are facing off for the conference titles and a chance to play for the league championship.  After all of the maneuvering, team momentum shifts, and upset talk of the past few weeks, we are left with the very same four teams that many, if not most of us, predicted would survive to this stage: Miami, Indiana, San Antonio, and Oklahoma City.  Action starts tomorrow afternoon between the Heat and Pacers while the Spurs and Thunder play Monday evening.  This is going to be great!

And regarding baseball, I've still continued to watch games assiduously while trying to become familiar with each team's lineup.  This has become harder than I had thought because of the almost constant lineup changes caused by an epidemic of injuries afflicting the teams.  I understand how pitchers like Jose Fernandez, Matt Moore, Clay Kershaw, and C.C. Sabathia are so prone to injury: they are straining themselves throwing so many pitches, and each pitch hard in itself (especially those fastballs).  But what I don't get about this sport is that, except for the pitcher and catcher on defense, it is typified by everyone just sitting or standing around, be they in the dugout in out in the field.  Sure, every two or three innings a player goes up to bat and maybe even gets a chance to run some if he makes contact with the ball, and chances are that he'll get a limited number of opportunities to field the ball (unless he's the designated hitter, that is).  It is these players that I can't figure out the injuries: Carlos Beltran, Mark Teixeira, Bryce Harper...at this stage in their careers, they should have already figured out how to take a fall or slide, or the limitations of their bodies as they are extending themselves on a play.  But maybe the injuries are less a phenomenon of their increased frequency than of the tendency to get medical treatment and rest in today's age, rather than in the past when they'd just play through the pain...

Reading Paolini's Inheritance Series Again...After Earlier Abandonment

For a period of time a few years ago, I got myself into the disconcerting habit of picking up a book and starting to read it...only to abandon the project after just a few chapters.  There are books by Patricia Cornwell, Dean Koontz, Tad Williams, Sue Grafton, Suzanne Collins, James Grisham, Philip K. Dick, J.K. Rowling (with a non-Potter novel), Victor Hugo, James Joyce, and even my favorite writer Stephen King, among others, that have experienced this humiliating fate of me not reading them all the way through (fortunately, some of the authors are no longer around to have suffered through such disgrace).  In the past year, I have gone a long way in finishing what I had started (and left) before: recently, for example, I finished Terry Goodkind's monstrously huge eleven-volume The Sword of Truth series...after initially quitting only halfway through the first book. There's another fantasy series (a four-"parter") that I actually was determined enough to get all the way to halfway through the third book: the Inheritance series by Christopher Paolini.  I walked away from it because I became frustrated with the preponderance of passages loaded with mental introspection, to the detriment of dialogue and action.  I still stand by that criticism, but now I feel that I should have stuck it out to the possibly bitter end.  Well, now I've picked this series back up and will go on that reading "quest" with stalwart perseverance...in the spirit of its fantasy nature... to whatever end it takes me. 

That having been said, I don't think it would be a good idea, after a few years' hiatus, to pick up where I left off.  Instead, I'm going back to the very beginning, with volume #1, titled Eragon.  I'm about a third of the way through it, and it strangely seems this time around to be better written (although, if memory serves me, the bogging down of the narrative didn't become overwhelming until the third book).  Also, it's almost like a reunion of sorts with old friends that I haven't seen in years...

Just Finished Reading The Dragon Reborn by Robert Jordan

I just finished reading The Dragon Reborn by Robert Jordan, the third book in his fourteen-volume The Wheel of Time fantasy series.  In it, chief protagonist Rand is convinced he is the legendary "Dragon Reborn" after Moiraine of the Aes Sedai sect tells him so at the conclusion of the previous book.  Now, burdened with this realization, he wants to defeat his evil nemesis Ba'alzamon once and for all by claiming the sword Callandor in the Stone of Tear (yes, this all sounds like a humorous caricature of the fantasy genre, doesn't it) .  So he leaves his company of friends and allies to venture out on his own, rationalizing to himself that the evil forces are pursuing him and that separating himself from the others will make them safer (which only turns out to be partially true).  Instead, three different groups of "good guys" (1) Mat and Thom , (2) Perrin, Moiraine, Lan, and a new character Zarine, and (3) Egwene, Nunaeve, and Elayne, all go on to the same destination as Rand: the dreary city of Tear.  It is their adventures along the way that dominate the narrative in The Dragon Reborn; very little space is actually devoted to Rand.  So as a result, Jordan is able to develop other characters more fully...especially those of Mat and Perrin.  There is also an ominous trend revealed toward the end: the thirteen "Forsaken", who were the agents of the Dark One and had been imprisoned for centuries, are now showing up free and powerful all over the map...although in other guises. 

I enjoyed The Dragon Reborn more than the first two books in this series.  I expect more character development in the next book as well as the introduction of new characters.  This series is beginning to resemble more George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, with more and more sub-narratives simultaneously going on among disparate peoples.  I'm fine with all that, as long as it all comes back together at the end...

Deluged on Facebook with George R.R. Martin Spam

I was stunned today when I woke up (in mid-afternoon after working the late night/early morning shift), eventually checked out my Facebook page, and was bombarded with posting after posting devoted to Game of Thrones creator and author George R.R. Martin...and how he uses a primitive DOS work processor to write his novels.  It's not his decision that surprised me.  I already know the value of writing "away from the Internet": I'm writing this on an even more primitive AlphaSmart portable word processor!  No, the shock was in the flooding over of my Facebook with this essentially unsolicited spam, coming in from sources whose "friendship" I never sought and which never sought me.  I stopped counting, after forty, the number of posts about Martin's late-night TV interview...which naturally crowded out the postings I wanted to see of my actual "friends". The only link I see with Martin and myself is that I have written about him and his A Song of Fire and Ice fantasy series on my blog in the past, to which I have posted links on Facebook.  So just by dint of that connection, Facebook has snowed me under with this Martin/DOS stuff. 

In his recent interview that apparently caused such a stir, Martin revealed that he tired of the auto-correct features of more modern word processors, which tend to second-guess the writer and often make unauthorized revisions to the written material.  I agree with him on that: when I copy my AlphaSmart writings to my main computer, either directly to my blog or to a Word application, my text tends to be altered and I have to assiduously observe the copying process to make sure that what I wrote actually gets copied in the form I had intended. Also, this ever-increasing tendency for Internet companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter to flash what they themselves deem as related links to what I'm posting on them is, to me, an unwarranted interference in my writing as well.  If I write an article about Greg Gutfeld (which I did a few days ago) and post a link to it on Facebook, I don't want to see related material others put out about him grouped together with MY article: I don't know what others have written or said about him.  For all I know, it could be the opposite of what I am trying to express and could even be slanderous, profane, or obscene in nature. And yet there it is, right next to my posting and associated with me whether I like it or not.

I think that computer applications and social networks make far too many assumptions about my choices and writings.  They need to back off and let my work stand on its own, apart from their own "standards" of writing and without the intrusion of extraneous, unwelcome material piled on top of it... 

Began Reading Great SF Stories of 1945

For some reason, the initial article I had written here, which was quite extensive and involved a review of sorts of three short stories from the book Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 7 (1945) (they are The Waveries by Frederic Brown, The Piper's Son by Lewis Padgett, and Wanted--An Enemy by Fritz Leiber), was mysteriously deleted...with no trace of it remaining.  I don't remember ever doing such a thing, so I'm not very happy about this, as you might guess.  I'm backdating this entry to the original posting date (May 13) even though right now, as I am writing this, it is May 18.  I don't know what happened to that other article.  What follows is a replacement...

Anyway, this book is part of a series covering, year-by-year, the period from 1939 to 1963.  I selected the one for 1945 at random: I just reached into my box of books and pulled out this one! As for the first three stories in it...

Frederic Brown was a great science fiction short story writer and was my favorite when I was a kid, since my father had a couple of his collections that I was able to read several times over.  The Waveries involves what happens when aliens composed of radio waves invade Earth and feed off humankind's own radio waves and electricity, essentially permanently shutting down everything in technology dependent on them.  How humanity ingeniously adapts to its predicament is the positive message from this story...

The Piper's Son presents an interesting situation: a worldwide nuclear holocaust has already been envisioned in this 1945 tale, the very year that such a weapon was first produced and sadly used.  One byproduct of the mutations that the radiation from this disaster produces is a number of people who possess telepathic powers.  How these people balance the fears of others about their abilities with their obvious use to society is a theme of this story...and how one of their children's vivid daydreams may imperil everything.  The author Lewis Padgett is actually a pseudonym for the husband and wife writing team of Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore.  Under the name Padgett, they also wrote Mimsy Were the Borogroves, my all-time favorite sci-fi short story, in 1943...

Wanted--An Enemy, by Fritz Leiber, examines how close to being a warmonger a pacifist can be. Such a pacifist travels to Mars to try to coax the Martians he finds there to stage a mock invasion of Earth in order to end its own wars and unite the planet in the face of a common enemy.  Of course, his scheme backfires, but how do things go wrong and what does he do about it? Read it...the final line in this story is unforgettable.

Well, this replacement article doesn't do justice to my wiped-out original, but it covers the basics.  Maybe I'll just have to back up my future writing in another file as a precaution to avoid a repeat erasure...

The Major League Baseball Standings So Far

When I was younger and used to follow major league baseball, I was rapt up in the standings and studied them in detail every day to see how "my" teams were doing.  While still interested in the standings, my emphasis this year has been to simply enjoy games as they unfold on TV, half-inning by half-inning,  and get to know the different players on the different teams.  Yes, there is still this backdrop of the "standings", with some of the teams I follow the most doing well (like Atlanta at 21-15 and Miami at 20-18, three straight losses notwithstanding) and some on the "other" end (like Tampa Bay at 16-22 and the Chicago Cubs at 12-24).  For the most part, the teams are bunched around each other, playing around .500.  Even those who have spurted ahead of the pack in their divisions, like Detroit and Milwaukee, could well see some slippage down the line.  I can't say the same, though, about last place teams Houston (12-26), the Cubs (12-24), and Arizona (15-25) significantly changing their positions.  These don't seem to have very bright prospects for the future, at least regarding this season...although in the games I've watched them playing, they seem to be competitive.  Still, I recall that at one point early in the 2003 season, the Florida Marlins were mired in the bottom of their division with a dismal 19-29 record...only to go on a late-season tear to make the playoffs as a wild card team, eventually making it to the World Series (thanks to that Chicago Cubs fan) and beating the Yankees.  So even with these, you can never be too sure whether that elusive team chemistry might just catch on and make a major difference down the stretch of the regular season (like it did with the Pirates and Indians last year and the Orioles and A's the year before)...

Baltimore (20-15), Detroit (21-12), and Oakland (23-15) are leading their respective divisions in the American League while Atlanta (21-15), Milwaukee (24-14), and San Francisco (24-14) are on top in the National.  The biggest surprise so far has to be the Brewers, who at this point are far ahead of three teams in their own very competitive NL Central division that made the playoffs last year.  But the season is still early, and I expect at least the St. Louis Cardinals to give them a run for their money...

Just Finished Reading Terry's Goodkind's Book Confessor

I have just completed reading the eleven-volume Sword of Truth fantasy series by Terry Goodkind, after finishing the final book, titled Confessor.  I was impressed with how Goodkind was able to tie up all the loose ends and arrive at a satisfying (as well as surprising) resolution to the dire circumstances that were simultaneously taking place on so many levels with Richard, Kahlan, the Imperial Order, the Chimes, the Chainfire spell, the Beast, and so on (I'm sure that you don't have a clue about any of this).  But don't expect me to relate here what happened; you're welcome to trudge through the entire series like I did!  Still, I'll give you one hint about how things end, although it's no secret: the author has begun a new series featuring Sword of Truth protagonists Richard and Kahlan.  I wonder whether I should start on it soon...maybe not, I'm in the middle of another series, The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan.  And there are other genres of literature I'm pursuing as well.  Still, its faults notwithstanding, I was generally pleased with Goodkind's efforts in this series and feel that he probably deserves a bit more respect on the Internet sites that rate fantasy fiction than what I'm been seeing him get.  I suspect that one of the reasons for the criticism of his work is that he makes no apologies about strongly making his philosophical beliefs known, chiefly through his main character Richard Raul...beliefs that stress the need for individuals to have economic freedom and to assume complete responsibility for their own lives.  That seems to rattle some with other ideas about how things should be, sad to say...

Going to the Beach Today

It's a beautiful, warm and sunny day today, and Melissa and I are heading out to the beach...Daytona Beach, that is.  Specifically, to Daytona Beach Shores and the hotel we stayed at back in early March. With my back feeling much better than the last time we went, I'm looking forward to swimming some and running on the beach.  Plus, just relaxing around and enjoying the ocean and sand...

Also, there's something special about going out on the beach at night, with the stars overheard and the dark surf crashing ashore on one side.  During the last few years, it has been more pleasant with the hotel lights dimmed in order to help out the sea turtle population, which apparently needs darkness at night.  Good, I never did like all of those blinding lights anyway...

When I was a kid, the big attraction for me at the beach was to venture out into the ocean and go up and down with the waves, occasionally doing battle with them as they broke just before reaching me.  As a father, I'd also go out there...with my own kids, who had the same sense of adventure.  But quite honestly, given the choice, nowadays I'd just as soon confine my oceanic forays to wading in the water at about ankle-level!

Just Finished Reading Patricia Cornwell's Novel: At Risk

Two or three years ago I bought a cheap used paperback copy of one of novelist Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta's novels (and I can't for the life of me remember its title).  Scarpetta is a forensic pathologist/investigator who is featured in a long-running series of Cornwell.  I'm not sure why I didn't finish it, other than that I got tired of the open antagonism expressed between its characters.  It gets a little tedious after a while reading that, almost as if the people themselves were surrounding me arguing.  Well, I decided to give Cornwell another try and got a copy of her short novel At Risk.  Dr. Scarpetta is nowhere to be found here; the protagonist is a young man named Win Garano, who is an investigator and whose mixed-race status sadly seems to rattle some people, even in the supposedly more enlightened 2006 setting of the story.  Win is working for a Massachusetts district attorney named Monique Lamont and has been sent to Tennessee to further his crime-stopping education.  He also is trying to solve a cold case murder in Knoxville more than twenty years old.  A new company that Monique is touting is providing cutting-edge DNA technology that can help to solve such mysteries, and Win, with his assistant, work to employ it to solve the case.  Meanwhile, Monique is attacked in her apartment and raped...what is the tie-in between this and what Win is doing...and that company in question?  Don't worry: in stories like this, nothing takes place by happenstance and everything ties in together...all to be resolved at the end.  And it is resolved.

But although I managed to get through this novel of Patricia Cornwell, and the characters were different this time around, they were just as argumentative and negative around each other as in the Kay Scarpetta book I had put down years earlier.  "Snippy", a term made famous by Al Gore when he briefly argued on the phone with George W. Bush on election night in 2000, would be an appropriate designation to describe the conversations these folks typically have: with At Risk, just imagine such a conversation between Gore and Bush that lasts about four hours....ouch, my ears!