Alphabet Soup of Continental Soccer Tourneys

CONCACAF, CONMEBOL, CAF, AFC, OFC, UEFA...these are the confederations of international soccer, organized on a continental level.

CONCACAF is the Confederation of North, Central American and  Caribbean Association Football.  It comprises what its protracted name suggests, as well as French Guinea, Guyana, and Suriname in South America.  But although CONCACAF has 41 member nations, for the purposes of focusing on the top teams in the various leagues, Mexico, Costa Rica, and the United States are easily the strongest countries.  Although the CONCACAF Gold Cup is held every two years to determine the overall national team champion, I am more interested in the CONCACAF Champions League, within which the top original league teams from the various nations compete annually.  These matches are interspersed throughout the regular season and create a sense of postseason excitement throughout the year.

The other confederation I'm starting to follow is the UEFA, or Union of European Football Associations, which naturally is the umbrella group for the various European leagues and which, like its North American counterpart, holds an annual Champions League with matches also interspersed throughout the regular season.  I just witnessed such a match on TV pitting Club Atletico de Madrid against Napoli (won by the former 3-1).  As a matter of fact, the overriding reason I am concentrating on the UEFA and CONCACAF is simply that they are the confederations whose teams I get to watch play on television. Univision has a Spanish language sports channel that shows many Mexican games and NBC Sports and ESPN have been showing MLS and European matches (especially of Barclay's Premier League in England).  There is a channel in Spanish showing Colombian soccer games, but that would cost more to watch and I have enough as it is...

I am gradually getting to know more how international soccer is run, according to the various leagues, tournaments, and the times that everyone seems to automatically transform into national teams and tourneys.  I like the league teams more, one of the reasons being that I don't care for the overwhelming sense of nationalism that permeates series like the World Cup.  Instead, I'm getting to know teams like Mexico's Cruz Azul, America, and Monterey...England's Chelsea, Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool, and Arsenal...Spain's Club Atletico (Madrid), Real Madrid, and Barcelona...and of course the United States' Seattle Sounders, Sporting Kansas City, LA Galaxy, and New York Red Bulls.  I do feel a bit disappointed, however, as I am missing out on a high level of soccer without access to Germany's Bundesliga...

Voted Today...and Past Regrets

Late this afternoon I finally got out to my voting precinct to continue my long string of participation in elections.  In this one, there was an assortment of races, some of them being party primaries (for governor, state attorney general, U.S. House of Representatives, county commission) and some non-partisan (judges and school board).  Except for the governor's race, I was probably less informed and prepared for this voting then any others in several years.  I picked up very little to help me from my local newspaper, the Gainesville Sun (which is turning out to be only useful in my household for its coupons, sales papers, list of local upcoming events, and puzzles section).  Besides, in regard to the judge races, how am I, with no legal background, supposed to feel qualified to rate the jurisprudential abilities of the candidates...and does a sitting judge automatically merit my rubber-stamp vote just because he or she managed to avoid scandal?  I voted anyway, for sometimes even when I AM well informed, it is still a matter of guesswork to an extent.  Sometimes it happens that candidates I voted for get elected and cause me to later regret my support...but then again, that's what reelections are all about!

I began voting for U.S. President in the 1976 election and have voted in every one since, save the 1980 election when I waited too late to register here in Alachua County.  I regret having missed it, though.  But I haven't regretted many of my nine votes for President over the decades...actually, I only regret one: my vote for George W. Bush in 2000.  I supported him then largely on the basis of his reputation for pragmatism and reaching across party lines as the governor of Texas, something I erroneously felt he would continue doing as the President.  But, as I said before, that's what reelections are about, and I supported Bush's opponent, Mr. Kerry, four years later...I still feel good about my 2004 vote but not about that election's outcome...

Just Finished Reading Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land

Robert Heinlein is one of the most renown science fiction writers of the twentieth century. Perhaps his most famous work is his 1961 novel Stranger in a Strange Land, which I just finished reading and which (according to Wikipedia) his wife said was inspired by Kipling's The Jungle Book story of how a boy brought up by animals adjusted to life among humans...only with Heinlein's story, the boy is brought up from birth by Martians and returned to Earth as a young man.  This character, going by the name Valentine Michael Smith, or simply "Michael", has a completely different take on life, death, sex, and society based on his upbringing.  The novel follows his "education" at what it means to be human through his small circle of human friends, who owe their fellowship with him to a ritual called the "sharing of water".  Michael is constantly seeking the deeper meaning of what he perceives around him through a process he calls "grokking".  Sometimes he puts himself into a deathlike trance while he tries to "grok" something.  And speaking of death, Michael sees it (he calls death "discorporation") as something not to be feared but rather a possible cause for elevation into a higher spiritual plane of existence.  Eventually, Michael's exploration into humanity leads him on a collision course with religion and sexuality, combining the two into a cultlike free-love religion that causes the established religions to oppose him, one of them, the Fosterites, with extreme violence.  It was this open expression of sexuality and dropping out of the dominant culture that caused Stranger in a Strange Land to eventually be embraced by many in the late 1960s counterculture "hippie" movement, although Heinlein himself has expressed that he wasn't advocating anything more in his story than for people to try to take a broader perspective on their beliefs and customs.

The supporting characters for Michael included Gillian Boardman, a nurse, Ben Caxton, a muckraking journalist, and Jubal Harshaw, an elderly doctor/lawyer/writer who serves in the story as the framer for the many and often intense philosophical discussions contained within.  For me, it is Jubal who makes Stranger in a Strange Land work as a story: I can't imagine it without him.

When Heinlein first had Stranger in a Strange Land published in 1961, it was a shortened version of his original work, which had undergone extensive editing, largely to omit some of the more sexually suggestive material.  A year or so after Heinlein's death in 1988, though, his wife stopped the publication of this truncated version and authorized the complete original, which is the version now available to us...

Rays and Marlins: Poor Playoff Prospects as Season Nears End

Depending on which team you're looking at, there are only 31 to 35 games left in the 2014 Major League Baseball regular season.  While the Florida teams of Tampa Bay (64-66) and Miami (64-65) can still put themselves into playoff contention with a super-hot streak in the remaining games, both of them will have to pass too many other teams to earn one of the wild card slots...and there is little to no chance that either will win their divisions.  The Rays are looking at this season as a down year (they made the League Championship Series last year), but for the Marlins, after going 62-100 last year there is a positive spirit and hope for the future.  Of course, with Miami, that's assuming that their management won't trade or sell off their star players in order to avoid paying them salaries comparable to general major league standards...a sad pattern typifying this franchise.  But maybe, just maybe, this time around they'll try to hold onto their standouts...but I'm not betting on it.

Tampa Bay is also known for underpaying its players, and they recently dealt away their ace Cy Young Award winning starting pitcher David Price, who had already settled with the Rays for $15 million this year, well below his market value.  When they traded him to Detroit in the final minutes of the July trade deadline, I realized that Rays management cared more about their financial bottom line than their fans.  It's hard to root for teams whose ownership holds them down and regards overachieving players as liabilities to be gotten rid of... 

Planets Pair Off in Evening and Predawn Skies

Following night after night of overcast skies here in Gainesville, I finally got the opportunity to enjoy a clear, unobstructed view of the evening August sky…and the predawn sky as well.  There is a tie-in between the two, as four planets have paired off to put on a kind of celestial show.  Just before sunrise, if you look toward the east, you should find (assuming clear skies) two very bright looking stars close to each other.  But they’re not stars, but rather the planets Jupiter and Venus.  And in the evening sky, looking toward the south-southwest, you can also see what appears to be two very bright stars…but by now you know I’m also talking about planets, these being Mars and Saturn (Mars is the one to the north).  They are located in the relatively faint zodiac constellation of Libra. In ancient times, Libra was simply the claws in the adjacent constellation of Scorpius (the Scorpion).  As a matter of fact, Libra’s two brightest stars are named Zeubeneschamali and Zeubenelgenubi, which mean, respectively, “northern claw” and “southern claw”.  If you look around Mars and Saturn you’ll most likely see these two, dim by comparison with the planets.

I like the summer night sky, remembering nights in south Florida when I would spend a good amount of time examining the sky.  For some reason, I tend to notice more random meteors this time of year, and the phenomenon of summer lightning, when the sky is absolutely devoid of clouds, is an eerie experience.  Only drawback: mosquitos…

Local Gym’s Helen Keller Quote

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”

This quote from the famous deaf and blind civil rights activist Helen Keller prominently adorns the wall behind the check-in counter at my local gym (Gainesville Health & Fitness).  It is obviously meant to convey an exhortational  message that inspires the members as they come in to work out.  That being what it is, I’m not very clear as to the meaning of this statement or its practical viability.

It is one thing for someone like Helen Keller to have boldly lived her life the way she did, fighting presumptions and prejudices against the handicapped…who doesn’t admire her for that…but was it always a “daring adventure”?  What if I were to only esteem what in my life constituted a “daring adventure” and regarded everything else as “nothing”?  You see, I probably have a long way to go before I fully understand Helen Keller’s statement…

I can see how dreaming something that seems out-of-the-box for oneself, like starting a brand new business, drastically changing one’s material existence, or moving to a completely different type of environment would seem like a daring adventure…it doesn’t take sky-diving or bungie-jumping to fulfull that definition.  But in implementing such adventures, there is a great deal of hard, tedious work involved that can at times makes one wonder where the “daring” and “adventure” is.  For example, I know a local entrepreneur with his own prosperous business here in Gainesville.  He has clearly stepped out in a bold if not daring way to independently pursue his economic dreams, and I bet when he envisioned it he saw it as a kind of adventure.  But I happened to step into this individual’s office the other day and was taken aback at the enormous complexity of what he was doing, with lists upon lists of clients and tasks spread out before him. His dream of successfully having his own independent business may have seemed like a daring adventure in its conception, but the actual day-to-day fulfillment of it involves an enormous amount of routine and attention to details that can easily obscure the initial sense of excitement at such an undertaking.  In fact, just about every “daring adventure” necessitates a lot of planning, preparation, and maintenance…it’s important, I guess, then, to keep reiterating your dreams to yourself in the face of this in order to avoid a feeling of entrapment in a boring, tedious existence. 

The main problem I  have with Helen Keller's quote is that is is an all-or-nothing, either/or proposition.  To have daring adventures is largely a subjective call, with each person having his or her own perspective on the matter.  But I've seen too many people during my lifetime who seem to expect others to make life interesting for them...that they are somehow entitled to be entertained and stimulated every moment of their existence.  The common complaint I hear from people like this is "I'm bored."  If you're such a person, who thinks that your life is meaningless unless you're continually being treated to an "adventure" that excites you, and that the burden of responsibility is on others to meet this need for you, then (1) you are probably, deep down inside, a very boring, unimaginative person and (2) I really, truly don't want anything to do with you...  

But perhaps I’m looking at this all wrong.  Maybe, and probably the only way it would work for me, though, is to find an overriding theme for life such that living that theme out with integrity would as a whole constitute a “daring adventure”. The “nothing” of the quote would be the result of living an aimless existence devoid of goals or challenges.  But here one person’s “nothing” could be another’s “daring adventure”… 

Just Finished Reading The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson

I just finished reading installment number two in Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn fantasy series, titled The Well of Ascension.  The story continues in what had been known as "the Final Empire" as Vin and Elend, along with the "crew", try to fend off challenging armies bent on taking over the capital city of Luthadel from the rebels who had liberated it and re-enslaving the "skaa" population (corresponding to what we would term as "peasants" or "commoners").  Vin is a mistborn; i.e. she has the ability to ingest and burn certain metals (within her stomach) that accord superhuman abilities.  She is by far the greatest mistborn in generations, and her people reverently depend on her as "the one" who will save them.  By contrast, Elend, her love interest and a principled, compassionate noble who sided with the just struggle against the oppressive "Lord Ruler" in the first book, has neither the charisma nor the forcefulness to hold on to the throne of King as others plot around him to usurp his authority and eventually overthrow him.  In the background of the story is the subplot...which rises to the forefront of the story at the end...of an insidious malevolence within the mist that pervades the lands at night and is now beginning to encroach upon the daytime.  Is Vin the prophesied "Hero of Ages" who will go to the Well of Ascension and release the power to restore the lands and eliminate the mists and ashes afflicting them?  It all comes to a head at the end and raises all kinds of questions for the upcoming third and final book in this trilogy.

Oh, did I say "third and final"?  Excuse me, for Sanderson has decided to write two more trilogies about the mistborn, making nine total books.  I suppose I'll be checking up from time to time on the Internet to see when he'll be coming out with the next book, until it's all over...unless he decides to make a trilogy of trilogies of trilogies, that is...

NFL Experimenting with Extra Point Rule Change

The National Football League, in a move designed to increase interest in the game and make the almost automatic extra point attempt following a touchdown a meaningful exercise, experimented for the first two weeks of this year's exhibition season and moved the ball placement for the kick from the 2-yard line back to the 15-yard line.  This made the "PAT" attempt more of a challenge, essentially turning it into a 33-year field goal attempt.  The two-point option remained the same with the ball placed at the 2-yard line.  Maybe they'll turn this into a permanent rule, but not until 2015 at the earliest.  Critics of making the extra point attempt more significant say they don't want games decided by special teams, but I say that kicking is an important part of the game and missing an extra point in a game might prompt a decision to "go for two" with the next touchdown, making it more exciting.  Besides, the kickers have already been in a state of retreat from their dominant position in the early 1970s when the goal posts were on the goal line and just getting the ball into the other side's half of the field created field goal attempt opportunities.  And don't forget that the kickoffs were moved back, too, in order to reduce touchbacks.  I think the rule makers may be having second thoughts about that change, though, since kickoff returns are probably the single most dangerous, injury-producing type of play in the sport...

My Running Mileage Increasing

Today, on only the 17th day of August, I have already surpassed my July's cumulative running mileage total, hitting the 74-mile mark.  This puts me on pace for 135 miles in August, a sizable increase from last month.  Yet I looked back on my totals for 2013 and I also exceeded 130 miles for August then.  Anyway, at this rate I should be in good shape to tackle some of the upcoming fall races...and perhaps even include one or two half-marathons.  I have noticed a general increase of endurance and comfort in my runs, and so far seem to be avoiding any significant foot or leg pains.  But I'm going to just continue with what I've been doing and, if the opportunity arises, I just might enter one of the upcoming races, either here in Gainesville, Jacksonville, or a nearby locale...

Soccer on TV All Day Long

Whew! Today for me was full of soccer action on TV...I ended up watching parts of six different games!  Barclay's English Premier League opens its regular season this weekend and I was able, while at my local gym, to catch the tail end of Manchester United's surprising upset at the hands (or should I say "feet") of Swansea City.  Then there was a match pitting Leicester City against Everton (a 2-2 draw), and Arsenal and Crystal Palace played it close until Arsenal pulled out a win at the end, 2-1.  All of these games were broadcast on NBC Sports (on two different channels).  Then they showed a MLS contest between Real Salt Lake City and Seattle, won by the former, 2-1.  Later in the afternoon I caught, on one of ESPN's more obscure channels, a game within the FIFA World Cup for Women under 20 between North Korea and the USA.  The Koreans played more like a team and were able to come from behind against the often sloppy Americans and win it on a penalty shoot-out.  And here I am now, watching Univision Deportes in a Spanish play-by-play of the Mexican Primera Division match between Monterey and Cruz Azul.  It cracks me up whenever anyone scores a goal, for the announcer always goes, "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!!!!!"

Chamber Orchestra Concert at UF

On August 15, 1914, exactly one hundred years ago, the Panama Canal officially opened after more than ten difficult years of construction.  The University of Florida is commemorating this historically significant centennial this weekend with an assortment of exhibits and activities.  To start it all off, a concert of classical music was given at the Phillips Center for the Perfoming Arts.  Melissa (pictured above in front of the Phillips Center) and I were there and we enjoyed it a lot.  Presented by the Symphony of the Americas, which is based in Broward County, the concert featured the Mission Chamber Orchestra of Rome.  The musicians included conductors James Brooks-Bruzzese and Lorenzo Turchi-Floris, along with violinists Orlando and Svetlana Forte and Aleksandre Tigishvili, cellist Juerg Eichenberger, flutist Marilyn Maingart, and oboist Juan Castillo.  Turchi-Floris and Castillo each had premier performances of their own compositions, and Forte and Maingart performed their own arrangements of other composers.  The music was a mix of old classical standards and more recent material.  The composition of Juan Castillo, a Panamanian himself, fit the theme of the weekend well: it is titled "Rapsodia del Canal de Panama".  To close it all, they performed as an encore a jazz piece of Cole Porter, arranged by Orlando Forte for the orchestra and violin...

Just Finished Reading Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace

I just finished reading Leo Tolstoy's gargantuan novel War and Peace and have to say that it was a very worthwhile experience.  My reading was of an English translation, and as such I'm confident that, like that which I encountered reading an English version of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment recently, the language in the original Russian-language version probably had a distinctive character to it that reflected the author's own style...a character smoothed out through the translation process.  Still, not being as confident with my Russian as I should endeavor to become, I went for the English translation, which read very, very smoothly.

War and Peace is a forerunner of a genre of fiction that we in this present age have become very familiar with: historical fiction.  The story is centered around the lives of the members of some Russian noble families, chiefly the Rostovs, Bezukhovs, and Bolkonskys, as they struggle with the ever-present "game of houses" to maneuver themselves through marriages and dealings into better positions of power and wealth.  By itself this probably wouldn't be all that interesting, but the setting is the Napoleonic Wars of the early nineteenth century, a series of conflicts that saw Russia and France go from adversaries in 1805 to allies in 1807 and then, finally, back to adversaries as Napoleon invaded Russia and occupied Moscow in 1812.  This ruptures the noble families as the young men make their decisions regarding their participation in the war...and the French occupation wreaks havoc with their estates.

Not obvious at the start of War and Peace, the main character (of many) gradually turns out to be Count Pierre Bezukhov, an illegitimate son of a count who, at the end of his life, favors him and bequeaths all of his immense wealth to him.  Pierre, though, comes to regard his newly-gained affluence as more of a burden than a blessing and finds himself pressured and manipulated by others in noble society...including marrying a woman, Helene, toward whom he feels no love.  Pierre is a dreamy, thoughtful man who stumbles through the developing, historically epic events like a Forrest Gump character: he witnesses the famous Battle of Borodino and is in the midst of Napoleon's ill-fated occupation of Moscow.  Continually exposed to extreme peril, Pierre seems to somehow escape the terrible consequences that affect those surrounding him.  He is a genuinely likable character.  Sometimes when I see someone like this in a novel, I wonder whether the author didn't invest his or her own personality in them.  Not knowing Leo Tolstoy, I can only speculate...

There are other characters whose stories Tolstoy focuses on: Andrey Bolkonsky, a cynical and thoughtful military aid during the war, his sister Maria, who is subjugated to the insults of her feebly old, cranky father, Nicholas Rostov, a young man who becomes a hussar soldier and dedicates himself to the military, and his sister Natasha, who goes through romances and heartbreaks.  These are by no means the only characters that the author concerns himself with, but for the purposes of the fictional narrative, they are the most significant.  However, to these must be added the real historical figures of Napoleon Bonaparte, Tsar Alexander I, and Russian commander-in-chief Mikhail Kutuzov.  These actual people, in War and Peace, interact with the fictional characters and behave in congruence to their personalities and philosophies as Tolstoy pictured them.

I became bonded with several of the characters, especially Pierre and Natasha, and their stories are the most unforgettable of the book.  But Tolstoy also spent a great amount of time discussing his beliefs on war and philosophy as it relates to the historical interpretation of events (especially in war).  He opposes the then-generally held view of history flowing from the actions of a few powerful leaders like Napoleon and goes into a series of rather lengthy essays into the nature of free will versus necessity regarding how events are historically examined and analyzed.  It's quite fascinating, actually, especially the final section of the book: for anyone who has a philosophical bent, this to me is required reading of the first order.  Still, Tolstoy's ramblings on war, history, and philosophy seem to belong somewhere else and, especially toward the end, feel awkward juxtaposed next to the fictional narrative.  However, the book is great: please read War and Peace and don't get intimidated by its length: if you've recently read any kind of multi-volume series, this is going to be considerably shorter...

Promotion and Relegation in European Soccer

Barclay's Premier League in professional soccer, which is based in England and Wales, begins its regular season this Friday.  I'm looking forward to watching some of the matches that get broadcast over here.  The NBC Sports Channel (channel 33 here in Gainesville on Cox) has been showing matches from last year to prepare the viewers for what is coming.  Yesterday there was an interesting match between Arsenal (of  London) and Norwich City.  Arsenal is one of those "football clubs" that, along with teams like Manchester City (last year's champion), Manchester United, Chelsea, and Liverpool, have dominated the Premier League over the past several years.  Norwich City, which has its own rich history and tradition in English soccer, found itself finishing the past season in one of the worst three positions in the standings....and this means that, for this 2014-15 season, it has been relegated to the next lower league, called the Football League Championship (or "Championship" for short).  If Norwich City recovers, though, it can regain promotion into the Premier League.  I find this promotion/relegation process intriguing and see that it is used in other European soccer leagues as well.  This year, the Premier League will have the three highest-finishing teams from the Football League Championship last year as part of its twenty-team schedule.  But I have a feeling that, unless any of them happen to be playing the "bigshots", I won't be seeing any of their games on NBC Sports.  By the way, if for some unexpected reason, Norwich City endures a disastrous season this year in the Championship, then it will be relegated to the next lower league, called League 1.  And so on...

The leagues in English soccer go like this, in terms of promotion and relegation, in terms of ranking for prestige:

1 Barclay's Premier League
2 Football League Championship
3 League 1
4 League 2
5 Conference Premier
6 Conference North and Conference South

The levels keep going down to level 10, so you can get a sense as to the degree of depth present in English professional soccer!  By contrast, there is no system of relegation for Major League Soccer here in North America.  If you want something here that is comparable to what is going on overseas, you need to go to a different sport and look at baseball's minor league system.  But even that fails the comparison to a degree, since, in baseball, (1) the minor league clubs on the different levels are mainly run by the major league teams, (2) there are much fewer levels in the minors, (3) it's the players, not the teams, which are promoted or relegated in minor league baseball, and (4) the grassroots local support for minor league baseball teams here is much less than the deep support for soccer clubs within local communities in England and the rest of Europe...

I Want a Cloudless Evening Sky to Star-Gaze

Lately I've been feeling like going outside in the evening to take a look at the summer sky, only to be repeatedly thwarted by the clouds that seem to have become a permanent fixture.  It used to be that with nightfall, the skies would tend to clear up, even if it was overcast during the day.  But this hasn't been the case of late...although I remember something like this happening in my youth.  It seemed like a whole season during 1964, just when I was getting started learning the constellations and was nightly going out to look at the sky to see the stars and planets, was a succession of cloudy, disappointing evenings.  But tonight the prospect of a cloudy sky may hinder one of the premier sky-gazing events we have: the perigee, or closest approach to earth of the moon, takes place as it is in its full phase and should appear to be relatively big as it rises in the east...as the sun sets in the west, of course.  Also, we're entering what is usually the most spectacular annual meteor shower, the Perseids, which should peak early Tuesday morning.  I'll be at work when that happens, though.  Anyway, I've had a very low level of success with spotting meteors during meteor showers ... although I've seen quite a few "rogue" meteors over the course of my lifetime that weren't connected with a shower.

All of the special events aside, I'd just like to experience a clear evening when I can go out into my back yard and observe the sky and my old summertime constellation "friends" like Scorpius, Hercules, Ophiucus, Aquila, Bootes, Lyra, Cygnus, and Sagittarius.  And to see if I can still make out the fainter ones like Sagitta and Delphinus.  Oh, and to see what the planets are up to as well...

Nixon's Resignation Anniversary and Conspiracies

Today marks the fortieth anniversary of the resignation of President Richard Nixon because of his role in the cover-up of the break-in of the Watergate Hotel in September of 1972.  This blatant failure of a true conspiracy illustrates why anything likewise done on massive scale is prone to failure: there are too many opportunities for people to betray the plot, especially in a time such as now in which communication is so readily available and instantaneous.  Yet it seems that all around us we have supposed conspiracies about just any area in which the government, banking, and/or big business seem to play any significant role.  Take what I've been hearing lately about the Ebola virus crisis on George Noory's late night Coast-to-Coast AM radio show...

Ever since they transferred that Ebola-infected American health worker to Atlanta from West Africa, George Noory has been vocal in his questioning of the wisdom of bringing the Ebola virus into the United States like this, all precautions being taken in this process for the isolation of the virus from the general population notwithstanding.  Then he had on as a guest someone who quite rationally emphasized that the Ebola virus isn't easily transmitted from person-to-person and that he would have no problem sitting next to an infected person on a plane.  This guest said that the malnutrition, scarcity of clean water, pollution, general poverty, war, and political oppression common to the lands where the Ebola virus had grown to epidemic proportions had compromised the general population's immune systems and made them much more susceptible to infection.  He also speculated that the aid worker and his colleague who were being sent for treatment in the U.S. probably were just fatigued and weren't actually infected with Ebola.  That's a reasonable opinion, as I see it...whether it is right or not is another matter.  But this guest went further with his argument to claim that the reason that there is now so much media coverage of the Ebola outbreak is due to the development within the American pharmaceutical industry of a new Ebola vaccine which they are anxious to produce and market.  Only one problem: those African nations are too poor to buy it.  But a panicked American public wouldn't be, and isn't it convenient that Ebola is now here on our shores?  So to him, there is a conspiracy to overdramatize the Ebola crisis so that the drug companies can make big bucks.  O.K., that's one conspiracy.  But the following night...

The following night on Noory's show, a different guest came on with his own spin about Ebola.  He claimed that the U.S. was obtaining patents on all the various strains of the virus and that nefarious elements within our government were using those lands in Western Africa to test their effectiveness (supposedly at wiping out human life).  You see, this guest claims to believe that there is an ongoing conspiracy in some parts to kill off nine tenths of the human race on the proposition that this is the optimal population level for planetary sustainability.  But with both conspiracy theories, there is no real proof...just shadow groups working behind the scenes to manipulate the media and the government.  My take on these ideas is that were there true conspiracies, either as the first or second guest had expressed them, then they would have been exposed long ago, with witnesses coming out and documents released.  Instead, conspiracy theorists like Noory's two guests paint a picture of a sealed group of people who have a tight control of all of the information concerning their "plots" and on all the people involved in them.  Not plausible at all, I say...

My Favorite Songs of 2014 So Far

A while back I had written how I had purchased Beck's newly-released album Morning Phase and had enjoyed several of its tracks, especially four of them: Heart is a Drum, Blue Moon, Blackbird Chain, and Turn Away.  I had also mentioned back then that I considered Blackbird Chain to be my personal favorite song of 2014 so far.  Well, I still like that song a lot, as well as Beck's other contributions on this more subdued but pretty album of his.  But after listening to my two area alternative rock stations (on 100.5 and 102.9) regularly, usually while driving, I've heard a few more current songs that I've taken to.  The Imagine Dragons have their slow-moving, driving hit Radioactive that gets a lot of air play.  I also like Fever by the Black Keys. But easily my favorite of these and the other songs I have heard is the Kongos song Come With Me Now.  There aren't too many rock songs out there that make liberal use of the accordion; the only other one I can recall is Paul Simon's masterpiece Boy in the Bubble from his 1987 Graceland album.  But Come With Me Now sounds like other artists as well, with sections eliciting mental associations for me with Led Zeppelin, Muse, and even Rob Zombie.  Especially Zeppelin with that mid-song guitar section.  I thought that I'd tire of hearing it, but as with other great songs, it just continues to grow on me: Come With Me Now is, at this stage in early August, my favorite song of 2014...

Florida Gators 2014 Football Schedule, Prospects

It's still a little more than three weeks until the 2014 college football season begins for the University of Florida, but I thought I might took a look at their schedule and try to divine what their prospects for success are.  Like last year, in which the Gators began well at 4-1 until skidding uncontrollably to a dismal 4-8 finish, this year's start promises a similar rosy early picture...at least for the first three games.  On August 30 and September 6, Florida hosts two smaller colleges: Idaho and Eastern Michigan State...and on September 13, they play at home again against Kentucky.  Chalk up an early 3-0 record for them, nothing that impressive considering their opposition, but certainly helpful in reversing last season's negativity and giving Florida an early advantage in giving them postseason bowl eligibility.  It's the September 20 game at Alabama that's going to present the most problems for them, though.  I see them losing that game and, hopefully, not much more.  I say this because, quite frankly, players tend to get injured against Nick Saban's Crimson Tide, especially quarterbacks (Texas' Colt McCoy in 2009's national championship game and the Gators' John Brantley in 2012).  I want Florida to survive the Alabama game without sustaining too many injuries to key players, because they can still do quite well the rest of the way if their starting team is still essentially intact.

After a bye week, Florida will travel to Knoxville on October 4 to play Tennessee, a team that they were fortunate to come from behind and beat last year.  For Florida to win it again this year, though, I have to go on faith that they are a much improved team...for the Vols probably will be, too.  They will have a shot at beating their annual rival from the West Division, LSU, on October 11 when they return home to play them.  Depending on how healthy Florida is at this stage, I give them a shot at winning this one. The following week they will remain in Gainesville to play Missouri, a team that last year shocked them in mid-season with their performance and set the Gators firmly on their devastating slide of seven straight losses.  I see a different result this time around.  After that, it's another bye week and Florida will go on to three straight crucial East Division games that will ultimately determine their fate for this year (three games that they lost last season).  On November 1, Florida will face Georgia in Jacksonville.  On the 8th they will play Vanderbilt in Nashville.  And on the 15th South Carolina comes in to Gainesville.  I see Florida at this stage gaining some revenge on the Commodores for last year's upset loss...and the Gators winning one of the two games against the Bulldogs and Gamecocks.  And that concludes their Southeastern Conference regular season.

On November 22, Florida plays what should be an "easy" opponent at home, Eastern Kentucky.  But last year's "easy" late-season foe, Georgia Southern, beat the Gators!  Don't expect that to happen again, though.  The 2014 overall regular season ends on November 29 when Florida travels to Tallahassee to play Florida State, a game that in all probability will go to the Seminoles...but should be closer than last year's blowout.  The football schedule also includes the SEC championship game for Florida (should they win the division).  The way I see it, Florida has a good shot at going 6-2 in the league and might be in a tiebreaker situation in the East...so who knows whether they'll make it this far.  But being the guarded optimist that I am, I see the Gators turning it around in 2014 to finish the regular season at 9-3 and returning to a reasonably prestigious postseason bowl appearance...

Pro Soccer Matches More Commonplace on TV

It appears that the push is on in the television sports media to fully promote professional soccer in America as a spectator sport.  I've seen a lot of matches on TV featuring the North American MLS league, especially with teams like the New York Red Bulls, the Philadelphia Union, Sporting Kansas City, Real Salt Lake, Dynamo Houston, and the Los Angeles Galaxy.  The games are quite entertaining, and with each viewing I am becoming more and more familiar with the sport...although I'm still a bit clueless about that offsides rule!  I like the fact that the MLS regular season, unlike with the European Leagues, has been going on all summer, even concurrently with the FIFA World Cup tournament.  Still, I was also able to get a taste of that European competition as well by means of the Guinness International Champions Cup series that just completed with matches between famous European "football clubs" like Barclay Premier League's Liverpool, Manchester United, and Manchester City along with La Liga's Real Madrid and other teams from Greece, Milan, and elsewhere.  But although the games, which were staged in the U.S. (the championship match between Manchester United and Liverpool took place in Miami), were fun to watch and the play seemed excellent, these were actually just pre-season contests for those teams as they prepare for their upcoming regular season in their respective European leagues.  I'm looking forward to seeing some regular season matches of theirs this fall, and I'll also be looking for players I saw in the World Cup on different national teams....

Centennial of Start of World War I Observed

While I was listening to BBC America on my local Public Radio station (WUFT/89.1) as I worked the late-night shift on my job last night, there was a piece about the one hundred-year anniversary of the beginning of World War I.  According to the broadcast, on August 4, 1914, the German army launched its surprise invasion of then-neutral Belgium according to its Schliessen Plan to invade and conquer its main land foe France.  Great Britain, which had up to this point displayed remarkable restraint at staying out of the cascading conflict, had a treaty with Belgium that it then used to jump into the fray.  So for them, the "Great War", as it came to be known during its run of a little less than four and a half years, began with the Germans crossing over into Belgium.  For others, though, World War I began a week earlier, on July 28, when Austria-Hungary, responding to the Serbian nationalist assassination of its Archduke Ferdinand a month earlier, began its armed conflict with Serbia.  This is where the dominoes of entangled treaties and alliances had begun to fall, leading up to the German invasion in the Western theater.  For Russia supported Serbia against Austria, Germany supported Austria-Hungary and threatened Russia, France supported Russia and threatened Germany, and...well, you can see how it all ended up in such a huge mess.  However, in spite of how the war seemed to come about so spontaneously, in fact the Germans had been carefully planning for such a conflict for decades, studying various invasion plans and working out a system of lightning-fast mobilization and transportation of its troops through its railway system.  It could be that this war, in one form or another, was inevitable given the militarism of the German Empire and its conflicting national interests with Britain and France that were on a global scale...

World War II was by far the most devastating and costly war in history, both for its global nature and for the degree to which civilians were victimized.  But for military combat casualties, World War I with its trench warfare and ill-fated frontal charges, particularly in the Battle of the Somme in 1916, was the ultimate nightmare of human existence, with the concentrated carnage and horror on a scale that could never have been imagined....and which hasn't since been matched.  Imagine having been a British soldier in the trenches on that fateful morning of July 1, 1916 in northern France and having to go over the top into "no-man's land" straight into the fire of the waiting Germans.  Nearly twenty thousand British soldiers were killed outright on the first day of battle!

What a tragic waste of a generation of young men, wiped out on the battlefield in this pointless war...

Jeopardy Wagering Strategies

This may be one of the more "trivial" blog entries I've ever written, but I felt some inner need to just get it all out...

The other night, while watching the popular trivia quiz show Jeopardy, they were on the final question, for which each of the three contestants could wager as much money as they had individually amassed throughout the game (before knowing what the question was, of course).

[Wait, switch "answer" for "question", for in Jeopardy, the answers ARE the questions (and vice versa).]

So anyway, this time around, when it was time for the final Jeopardy "answer", Contestant #1 had $21,000, Contestant #2 had $5,000, and Contestant #3 had $25,000 (those figures are approximate as my memory goes, as do the following...but the principle will be the same).  The correct "question" to the "answer", which all three should have gotten, was only written down by the leader, Contestant #3.  But he only had wagered about $10,000, giving him a final total of $35,000.  Had Contestant #1 gotten it right and wagered more than $14,000, he would have beaten Contestant #3 regardless whether the latter got it right or not.  This is important in Jeopardy because only the highest money winner gets to keep his or her earnings.  The other two get a nominal amount of money plus, appropriately, a supply of Alleve.  But Contestant #1 not only missed the final "answer", but only wagered about $4,000!  Both wagered stupidly, in my opinion.  But how should one wager, anyway, at the end of Jeopardy?

If the leader is has more than twice as much money as the second place contestant, than they should only wager enough that, should they lose, they would end up one dollar ahead of twice their nearest opponent's amount.  For example, if Ann has $20,000 and Dave, in second place, has $8,000, then she should wager no more than $3,999, giving her a dollar more than Dave at $16,001 should she miss at the end and he get it right.  And if a contestant is NOT in the lead when the final answer comes around, they should wager everything they have, since they won't be able to get their total winnings anyway should they finish second or third.  If the first place contestant isn't more than twice as "wealthy" as the second place contestant when it is time to wager, they have to wager enough for them to have at least one dollar more than twice their nearest opponent's amount should both write down the correct "question". For the third place contestant going into the final round, if his/her total so far is greater than the difference between the first two, than he or she can win it all, assuming of course that the others wager wisely (and miss the question as well), by getting the question right and by betting whatever money is theirs to wager. 

Looking at the specific game I witnessed, Contestants #1 and #2 should have wagered everything they had since the consolation prizes were insignificant compared to having the highest money total.  So Contestant #1 should have wagered all $21,000 and Contestant #2 should have wagered all $5,000 (but if memory serves me, she bet much less).  Contestant #3, aware that Contestant #1 would end up with $42,000 had he gotten the right "question", should have wagered #17,001 to ensure that he would still end up with the highest total. 

Of course, this all would be vastly different were the Jeopardy producers not such abject cheapskates and instead allowed all of the contestants to keep their hard-fought earnings regardless of their finish...  

Rays Trade Away Price Anyway

The Tampa Bay Rays made what many thought was an inevitable trade: sending off their ace pitcher David Price to another team that is in better contention for the playoffs this year.  That the Rays have painstakingly climbed back into the playoff picture this year at 53-55 after beginning with a horrendous 24-42 record seems to have been irrelevant in the decision.  The Tampa Bay ownership and management have long had a policy of paying their players as little as they possibly can, and have in the past let go of stars that they did not want to pay up to other teams' levels (e.g. Carl Crawford).  Let's face it: Price's annual salary is $14 million...the starting pitcher that Detroit sent to them in the trade for Price, Drew Smyly, is making $502,000.  Quite a difference, and the young Smyly has had a record of some strong pitching performances.  He may turn out to be a strong pitcher in their rotation.  But the bottom line in this transaction, which also involved the Rays picking up a couple of minor players form the Tigers and Seattle, is the desire on the part of the team's management to reduce payroll and give them future flexibility.  Seeing the general winning success they have had over the past few years with their frequent playoff appearances, it's hard to argue too vehemently against their strategy.  Yes, Price is a good, good pitcher and I'll miss him...I'll probably root for him when he's pitching at Detroit (but not against my teams).  Still, I'll repeat what I have said earlier: making these mid-season trades is a bad idea in general, when teams are touting their stars to their fans and trying to generate interest...only to confuse them suddenly and shuffle the players around.  I'm especially sympathetic to the Boston Red Sox fans, who are suddenly without their pitching heroes Jon Lester and John Lackey, along with outfielder Jonny Gomes.  Sure, they picked up Oakland's home run slugger Yoenis Cespedes to put in the outfield, but if you're a fan of the team and have bonded to the players you've had (and won in the past with, including last year's World Series for the Sox), it's got to hurt a little...

My July 2014 Running Report

My running mileage took a hit in July, with me amassing a total of only 73.2 miles, far short of my monthly goal of 100.   I did manage to run some, though, on 27 out of the 31 days. My longest single run during the month was for 5.3 miles. 

The biggest problem I see with my running right now is that I have fallen into a holding pattern, instead of setting lofty goals and working to fulfill them.  I have already finished seven half-marathon races and one full marathon since February of 2010.  There is the fall running season coming up, which includes half-marathons in my general area as well as one within Gainesville itself.  Should I aim for them?  I'm not sure right now...

Have Begun Reading Tolstoy's War and Peace

I am currently in the process of reading Leo Tolstoy's classic novel War and Peace, often cited over the years by many for its length.  Yes, this is a very big book, but if you consider that the average book I've been reading is 500-1000 pages long, then this 1386-page book really isn't that big a deal.  Still, it's probably going to take a while for me to finish it: I'm a little over a fourth of the way through...

War and Peace is about what happens to a small number of Russian noble families during that tumultuous period in European history known as the Napoleonic Wars.  Napoleon Bonaparte, the self-proclaimed Emperor of France, is traipsing through Europe conquering country after country and out-maneuvering his opponents on the battlefields.  In 1805, Russia stands with Great Britain and Austria (formerly known as the Holy Roman Empire) in opposition to Napoleon, and the Russo-Austrian alliance is put to the test late that year in the decisive Battle of Austerlitz.  That's where the timeline is right now in my reading.  But I know what happens next: Napoleon crushes his foes and Austria switches sides to become his ally and Russia and Britain's enemy.  But also, I know that in 1807 even Russia will change its allegiances to France against Great Britain.  Ultimately, though, that alliance with Napoleon won't last and he will decide to invade Russia on June 23, 1812...and I'm confident that War and Peace is going to cover much if not all of these developments.

There is a curious parallel between Napoleon's temporary alliance with Russia and his subsequent invasion and Hitler's non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union's Stalin in 1939 and the German dictator's decision to treacherously invade it...on June 22, 1941.  With Napoleon, Moscow was occupied but had already been evacuated and was set afire while Hitler's Nazis never quite got there.  Neither of them could conquer St. Petersburg/Leningrad. And the combination of harsh winters, logistics nightmares due to the sheer scope of the distance covered, and an effective Russian resistance under occupation were involved in both cases. 

I didn't anticipate a heavy history lesson with War and Peace, but I should have known it was coming with a book sporting such a title...

Baseball's July 31 Trade Deadline Approaches

As someone who has taken more of an interest than I have in the past in Major League Baseball, especially regarding my favorite teams Tampa Bay and Miami, it is disturbing to arrive at this point a little more than two thirds through the regular season as the July 31 trading deadline approaches and many teams will dramatically alter their rosters, largely depending on where they are in the standings.  Those teams who feel that they are still in reasonable contention for the post-season this year will be looking to add some star talent to their lineups to bolster their prospects.  And exactly where do they expect to find that star talent? Nowhere other than from the teams that don't entertain much hope of reaching the post-season.  This brings it back to Tampa Bay and Miami.  Both teams are slightly under .500 and, while each is capable of reaching the playoffs, they are currently relatively low in the standings.  And if either loses a couple more games before the trading deadline, their management may decide to trade away players that I have come to follow and identify with the teams.  Tops among these stars is Tampa Bay's Cy Young Award-winning starting pitcher David Price.  But he isn't the only one who could go.  I don't think it is wise of franchises like the Rays and Marlins to invest so much time and energy publicizing their players to the fans just to deal them away with still around fifty games to go.  It conveys the impression that they have given up on their team for the season...so why shouldn't their fans as well??!!

My Take on Downed Malaysian Jet in Eastern Ukraine

The understatement of the year may be that there is a lot of bad feeling going around concerning the recently shot-down Malaysia Flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine, causing the deaths of nearly 300 passengers and crew, among them many Dutch.  I'm convinced that Russian separatist rebels, armed with anti-aircraft missiles from Putin's Russia, shot it down mistaking it for Ukrainian fighters that were actively engaging them in warfare.  It is a terrible tragedy, but in the context of war, it is also an accident.  Clearly no one was trying to shoot down a passenger jet.  The U.S. and most every other nation under wartime conditions have committed their own share of accidents with innocent deaths resulting from them.  The corridor of the flight, which apparently was heavily used (but no more, obviously), took it directly over the combat zone.  Many critics in the West are pointing an accusatory finger at President Putin for arming the rebels with missiles sophisticated enough to target and hit such high flying planes, and I think he is definitely operating in a warmongering, land-grabbing mode.  But I believe that you can't go about business like usual in your own little peaceful bubble and intrude into war zones without expecting some potentially catastrophic results to arise.  The main problem I'm having with Putin and the Russian rebels is the cover-up and denial they seem to be engaged in following the fact, which they should have admitted as an obvious mistake and assumed responsibility and apologized for while cooperating with the crash investigators and recovery team.

The Russians living in eastern Ukraine, before the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 into its constituent republics, had always considered themselves as being part of Russia even though Krushchev in the 1950s had redrawn their area into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.  But back then it was all one big country, and they didn't have to submit as a minority within another country to that country's majority political direction.  The same goes for the Crimean region that Russia just annexed through force a few weeks ago.  Seeing for years within Ukraine that there was a deep division between the regions populated chiefly by ethnic Russians and the majority Ukrainian areas that caused serious crises in previous elections, the leaders in Ukraine should have been wise enough to allow referendums in the affected areas for the people to democratically determine their destiny, be it remaining with Ukraine, becoming independent, or rejoining Russia.  This way that Putin has of crisis-by-armed-crisis confrontational behavior destroys any trust or good will toward Russia that had been built up after the fall of the USSR and is only going to serve to militarize the rest of Europe in fear that he will seek further territorial gains elsewhere...

Blog Topics Need Widened Scope

Sometimes I reflect back on the kind of topics I choose to write about on this blog.  In the last few months, my articles have been rather narrow in scope.  They have chiefly been about books I've read, sports stories, my running progress (or lack thereof), the weather, and my very occasional visits to the beach.  There's nothing wrong with any of these subjects, but I used to write more about the news, politics, philosophy, and religion as well.  If you examine the archives here, especially the older articles, you'll find more about these.  Of course, with news, politics, philosophy, and religion, I'm also much more likely to ruffle a few feathers here and there among my readership...even when I express mainstream opinions, like I did when I happened to write a "religious" article lately on the "end times".  But you know, I'm not getting any younger and I have an increasingly stronger feeling as I age (I'll be 58 in October) that, looking back on my life from the end, my regrets will come more from missed opportunities than from acting when I should have restrained myself.  So I've decided to ratchet up my writing a notch or two and bring up topics that may or may not qualify as being controversial...as I used to.  After all, there's all kinds of stuff to look at: Russia/Ukraine/Putin, Israel/Gaza, the 2014 campaign season, discussion of Christian/Biblical topics, and various societal trends.  Oh, and I also used to publish lists of my favorites in music, literature, and TV.  Maybe I'll do a little more of that, too...

Just Finished Reading Robert Jordan's The Fires of Heaven

I recently finished reading the fifth book in Robert Jordan's fourteen-part The Wheel of Time series, this one titled The Fires of Heaven.  I have to admit that this series, of all of the fantasy series that I have read, is turning out to be my least favorite.  And it's the longest!  I have a number of objections, one of the biggest being its pretentious tone.  Another problem is that I am experiencing a great deal of difficulty in empathizing with the characters I'm supposed to be caring for.  They seem to spend the greater part of their time together arguing and insulting one another. One of the series subplots that I do like concerns the character Perrin and his developing romance with Faile.  So what did Jordan do with The Fires of Heaven but completely exclude them from the narrative, as if they never existed!  He'd better quickly pick up on their story in the next book if he expects me to continue on reading (if he were still alive, that is)...

But the main problem I have with Jordan's Wheel of Time series is the same one I have with George R.R. Martin's A Song of Fire and Ice.  There are too many characters, kingdoms, and subplots going on, with the confusion increasing with each successive book.  It is said that after the eleventh book, Jordan had intended to wrap up the series in the twelfth, but he died...leaving another fantasy writer, Brandon Sanderson, to finish it up.  But the story was apparently so convoluted that Sanderson needed to write three more books to bring it to a proper conclusion!  And here I am, a frustrated reader after only five books completed...

Pleasant Overnight Stay at Daytona Beach

I'm sitting here writing this early in the afternoon [published on this blog later in the day] at the Hampton Inn in Daytona Beach, looking out on the swimming pool area from the dining room.  Melissa and I came over here for an overnight stay, and it has been very pleasant.  This Hampton Inn is the newest one in town, located a little bit north of the boardwalk area.  We spent most of the time here lounging around the pool and the beach, naturally.  I managed a 1.6 mile run about three hours ago...it was pretty hot, but I was surprised by how well I felt running it. The weather has been cooperative for the most part, although yesterday evening it stormed a little.  We're going back to Gainesville a little later this afternoon...

Lebron James Owes Nothing to Cleveland Area

Four years ago, when superstar National Basketball Association forward Lebron James made his decision to leave his old Cleveland Cavaliers team to join the Miami Heat as a free agent, it seemed that many in the media accused him of deserting his home town and roots.  Now that he has made the decision to return to Cleveland, he is receiving positive press for returning to his "home", as if he were somehow personally responsible for staying there his whole life.  Yet I know of no other professional athlete in any sport who has had this sort of injunction placed on them.  Do top athletes like Carmelo Anthony, Deron Williams, Chris Bosh, Dwight Howard, the Manning brothers in football, or anyone else feel the slightest pang of guilt at choosing to play in a sports city far from their own upbringing?  What about foreign born athletes like the Yankees' Masahiro Tanaka or basketball's Dirk Nowitzki, Pau Gasol, Manu Ginobli, and Tony Parker...are they being "disloyal" to their homelands by playing in the United States?  Isn't it truly preposterous, then, to confine this "rule" to one and only one individual, namely Lebron James?

When Lebron James played for Cleveland the first time around, I felt that, despite the great talent he brought to the court, he was socially immature and exhibited very poor sportsmanship at dealing with defeat...as exemplified by his behavior following playoff series defeats to the Orlando Magic and Boston Celtics.  However, after he  joined up with Miami I began to notice a more mature Lebron James who seemed to care about others and who displayed grace when things didn't always go his way.  Now he is returning to play for the Cavaliers and I wish him all the best there.  But I sincerely hope that Lebron isn't going back because he feels that he owes anything to them just for having grown up there...because he doesn't and never did!

Just Finished Reading Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn: The Final Empire

Seeing that I am five books through a fourteen-part fantasy series by Robert Jordan and having already read through an eleven-volume fantasy series by Terry Goodkind, I thought it would be refreshing to embark on a series that was a tad shorter...say, a simple trilogy.  So I decided to read Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy, beginning with Mistborn: The Final Empire.  As it turned out, that original idea of a simple trilogy with this series was wrong: Mistborn is an ongoing project of Sanderson's, as he plans to make a "trilogy of trilogies" out of it, with nine total projected books.  He's working on the second trilogy, and I will probably eventually catch up to him as I did with George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series...and then await the next installment.  But in the meantime, I just finished reading book number one.

Mistborn: The Final Empire takes place in that mythical Final Empire, whose capital city is Luthadel.  For centuries the people have been oppressed by a seemingly immortal tyrant, the Lord Ruler.  There must be a lot of volcanic activity in this world, for everywhere in the daytime ashes permeate the air.  In the night, though, strange mists come in to settle the ashes and blot out the sky.  The common people fear the mist...but not all.  Within this society are people, born of nobles (in support of the Lord Ruler), who possess special powers, called allomancy, which derive from the burning of certain metals they ingest and which have their own specific superhuman effects.  On the fringes of this nobility, which enjoys the Lord Ruler's support, are people descended from at least one noble but who are considered common and who also have the ability to practice allomancy.  Among these are the rebel leader Kelsier and a young teenage girl named Vin, whose special skill at burning all of the allomantic metals earns them the designation of "mistborn".  Along with other more specialized allomancers like Ham, Breeze, Spook, and Clubs, they plot how to overthrow the Lord Ruler and liberate their society.

Sanderson, in this book, succeeded in creating a fantasy world vividly different from those about which I have read before.  Also, the very nature of the Lord Ruler, including exactly how he had saved the world from the "Deepness" in the distant past and apparently continues to do so is a mystery that the book reveals at the beginning of each chapter in the form of old journal entries of his as he struggles with his burdensome role and newly-found powers. Much of that mystery continues to the end of this first book and beyond: I'm looking forward to seeing how Sanderson reveals what really happened long before and what dire threats this interesting fictional world now faces... 

Very Stormy and Humid Weather Lately

The weather for the past week here in north central Florida has been has a progression of severe storms, constant rain, and intermittent mugginess.  Both the rainfall and lightning strikes have been much stronger lately than I've seen in years...I wonder whether there isn't some defining general weather phenomenon causing this. I do remember that, at the start of the record-breaking 2005 hurricane season, we experienced a lot of wet tropical weather, but what we're experiencing now is much more electrical.  Also, it transcends the typical pattern we see during the summer, when the temperature and storm conditions usually intensify during the day into late afternoon outbursts after generally clear mornings.  But the storm threat is around the clock: the other morning lightning was crashing around me at 5:30 during my "lunch" break at my graveyard shift job.

Besides the possibly of electrocution if I step outside during one of these many lightning storms, the sheer amount of rainfall has so saturated the ground in my yard that parking a car on it, or even pushing a lawn mower over it, causes heavy gash tracks.  But even above and beyond the lightning and rain, I have come to detest the extreme humidity and its unpleasant effects.  The other afternoon I walked around my block with Melissa and it felt like a run.  I'm not exactly happy with arid conditions either, but this is ridiculous! But the frogs around where I live seem to love it, though, if their continual, deafening noise indicates happiness...  

My complaints, however, seem to pale in significance when I turn on the news and they show what's been been going on further north around Pennsylvania and neighboring states...

Well, today it looks like we got a break from the bad weather...I hope it's the beginning of a new pattern...

World Cup Yields Germany as 2014 Champion

After watching several games in this year's FIFA World Cup men's soccer championship series, I have come to a conclusion about what constitutes "boring" spectator sports.  Earlier I had placed soccer in this category, as it seemed that all the two teams ever did was just kick the ball back and forth...if a goal did occur, it seemed to come as a fluke, not part of a strategy or the result of any special skill.  But now that I have become more familiar with some of the subtleties of the sport as it is being played, I can see how, by noting how the players are aligned and spaced on the field, I can often guess how the next few seconds of play will progress.  Toward the end of the Cup play, it almost was frightening, as a matter of fact, when more than once it seemed as if I were viewing the situation through the players' eyes when they would push the ball down the field in much the same way that I had envisioned them doing.  No, instead of the play being happenstance and random, it is really rather complicated and something quite to behold when it is well executed. 

I had been rooting for Argentina with their "Pepsi/Gatorade" star Lionel Messi to win it all...and they came pretty close, finally bowing to Germany 1-0 in a game lasting 120 minutes.  Some of the TV announcers expressed concern that low-scoring games like this were boring to watch, but I felt that it was fascinating to watch how the defenses of both teams were so quick to adjust to a change in possession and get down the field to exactly the optimal location in order to defend their goal...and when to come up and challenge whoever had the ball at the time.

Now that the European professional leagues are getting set to open their regular seasons soon, I am looking forward to watching more of this sport on TV wherever and whenever I can find a match being shown.  Who knows, maybe I'll even find a favorite team to pull for...

Just Finished Reading Stephen King's Mr. Mercedes

I just finished reading Mr. Mercedes, which is Stephen King's most recent novel.  The story centers around the struggle between a psychopathic murderer who drove a stolen car into a line of people awaiting a job fair, killing eight, and the retired police detective bent on catching him. The killer, an expert at computer hacking, stalks the detective and tries to provoke him to suicide...but his actions only serve to motivate him.   

Unlike many of Stephen King's other works, Mr. Mercedes contains no elements of the paranormal.  It is instead a classic cat-and-mouse struggle between good and evil as represented by people living out their lives in the real world. I actually, however, prefer King's stories that delve into more speculative/alternative reality stories like It, Lisey's Story, Insomnia, and 12/22/63.  The characters in Mr. Mercedes seemed to me like recycled characters from some of King's earlier works: I felt that I already knew them, but that they were in different stories with different names.  No, I wasn't particularly impressed with this book. I instead would recommend other recent Stephen King books like Joyland and Doctor Sleep...  

FIFA World Cup Now Down to Four Teams

Today begins the semifinal round of the FIFA World Cup of men's soccer, with Brazil pitted against Germany.  Not only is Brazil's star player Neymar out with an injury, but another key player, team captain Thiago Silva, is suspended for this crucial game because he accumulated too many penalty cards in the previous game.  That rule, along with the asinine off-sides rule in soccer, in my opinion detracts from the sport: instead, they should institute something like in ice hockey, where they charge penalty minutes after which they let the guilty player return to the game.  Then, fans could look forward to seeing their hero come into the game at a certain point, adding to the dramatics.  I'm rooting for the Brazileiros...but the bigshots who get paid for pushing their opinions in the media seem to be lining up behind the Germans.  In the other semifinal contest, to be played tomorrow, "my" team Argentina will play against the Netherlands, led by their dive-happy jerk Arjen Robben.  There are teams in sports, like the current New York Yankees, that I root for because of one great player (in NY, it's Derek Jeter).  Then there are teams that I WILL OPPOSE just for one player that I despise... in Holland's case, it's that diver Robben, who robbed Mexico with his antics, faking fouls by diving with accompanying pained facial expressions.  For that alone I would have rooted against Amsterdam...but I also like Argentina and their brilliant offensive genius Lionel Messi.   So GO Argentina, my current favorite for the Cup...

Looking at Other Pro Soccer Leagues

I've been checking out the Internet a little to see how the American-based MLS professional soccer league stacks up against other professional leagues across the world.  I was surprised to find it up in the rankings...in 12th place on one site and even in 7th on another.  The top leagues are clearly Barclay's English Premier League, La Liga (in Spain), and the German Bundesliga.  Having experienced a string of exciting FIFA World Cup matches (most of which did NOT feature the U.S. team), I have joined a growing group of Americans more interested in watching soccer beyond the once-every-four-years scope of the World Cup.  I have seen Barclay's shown in the past on one of the sports networks, the MLS regular season is currently ongoing, and the Spanish-language Univision shows some other leagues at different times (usually on weekends).  I'd like to become more familiar with the various teams in the biggest leagues...as well as those in the MLS.  Just the other day, the MLS Houston and New York teams had a good, close game that went back and forth.  I'm looking forward to more...

It seems that the European pro soccer leagues run from around August to May.  Apparently, the Americans stage their play earlier in order to get a jump on the American football season, which still draws by far the greatest interest among U.S. sports fans...

Just Finished Reading Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

I just finished reading The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins, culminating with the final book, titled Mockingjay.  The society that heroine protagonist Katniss Everdeen struggles to come to grips with is set far off in the future and involves a centralized dictatorial government (set in a place known as The Capitol, located somewhere in the Rockies) that oppresses the surrounding districts that comprise North America.  A rebellion has formed, though, and its leaders have embraced and promoted Katniss as its public relations/media leader as she has gathered a large following from her former participation in the previous to-the-death Hunger Games...when she openly defied The Capitol and its brutal ruler President Snow.  The rebel movement's symbol is the mockingjay, a hybrid new species combining mockingbirds and a genetically engineered bird called a jabberjay.  Katniss has deep reservations, though, about the rebel movement and particularly its leader, President Coin.  As the story progresses and the rebels advance, it begins to look like the last line in The Who song Won't Get Fooled Again: "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss".  But does Katniss get fooled? Don't count on it...

Much of Mockingjay is about the relationships between Katniss and her friends, particularly in regard to her efforts to rescue and restore her old Hunger Games partner Peeta.  Although it is clear that Katniss is a victim of the system and circumstances, she has a tendency to wallow in self-recrimination, blaming herself for everything bad that happens around her.  But then again, I wonder how many combat veterans have had to deal with that issue, especially if they survived situations that caused loss of life among their buddies but spared them...

The best part of Mockingjay is one crucial insight and decision that Katniss makes toward the book's end...a decision that I thought was so cool that I had to reread it a few times!  I enjoyed this series more than most of what I have read lately.  I have yet to see any of the movies, but now that I've read it all it might be a good idea to get started...

FIFA World Cup Now Down to Eight Teams

The 2014 FIFA World Cup of men's soccer has now progressed to the quarterfinal stage, where only eight teams remain to contend for the title.  In spite of their goalkeeper's heroic play (Tim Howard, with an incredible 16 saves), the United States lost to Belgium 2-1 and are now out of the running.  The teams that remain, however, promise some exciting games to come...

The quarterfinals will run on Friday and Saturday, with the following matches slated:

Friday July 4
--France vs. Germany
--Brazil vs. Colombia

Saturday July 5
--Argentina vs. Belgium
--Netherlands vs. Costa Rica

As for me, now that the U.S. is no longer contending, I have my own favorites to follow: Colombia and Argentina.  We'll see how far they go...with their respective opponents Brazil and Belgium up next for them, it may not last the weekend!  I do have one prediction, even though I'm not a particularly astute soccer fan: the eventual 2014 champion will come from the Brazil/Colombia and Argentina/Belgium matches...

Finished Reading Inheritance by Christopher Paolini

I finally finished reading Christopher Paolini's four-part Inheritance series, which began with the famous book Eragon (made into a movie), progressed to Eldest and Brisingr, and concluded with Inheritance.  I would be less than honest were I to claim that it was my favorite fantasy series, but then again it wasn't the worst, either.  Paolini did take a lot of themes from other fantasy works, especially from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.  This made me wonder to myself whether some of the ideas he introduced that seemed innovative on his part weren't actually taken from fantasy works that I hadn't yet read.  However, in spite of his obvious borrowing, Paolini was able to establish a legitimate fantasy world with its characters, history, and rules of magic.  He also emphasized the idealism that societies very different from each other and with a history of mutual conflict and prejudice could eventually be able to work out their differences and become allies...and eventually friends. 

Anyone who embarked on this series recognized that the main protagonist Eragon would eventually have a showdown against his antagonist, the evil King Galbatorix...and it naturally came toward the end of Inheritance.  Ultimately, it was wisdom, not brute strength, that would determine the outcome of that confrontation...something that I appreciated.  The climactic scene between Eragon and Galbatorix did not, however, take place at the very end of the book.  Instead, there was much material following it that sought to tie up all of the loose ends of the various characters' lives.  And yet Paolini slyly allowed some room for future spinoffs of this series...at least I think he did it intentionally....

My June 2014 Running Report

In June 2014 I managed to keep my running at a reasonable level despite some personal hardships.  I ran a total for the month of 100.6 miles, and my longest single run was for 5.4 miles.  I ran on 27 of the 30 days as well.   Most of my running was indoors, and I made extensive use of the treadmill.  The main thing to be said for my running in June was that I maintained my level of fitness and endurance without doing anything to appreciably elevate it.  But sometimes just keeping things the same is what is called for...

Writing Errors on This Blog

This blog has been around for a while...for more than seven years, as a matter of fact.  Every now and then, I go back into my archives and read what I had written in some bygone era.  Most of the time, though, when I read through back-articles, it is usually what I have recently written, in the past month or so.  But regardless of where (or more suitably, "when") I choose to read, I almost invariably run across little mistakes of spelling, punctuation, and grammar that make me shake my head.  How could I have let them slip by? After all, I reread each article usually at least a couple of times before I publish it...and again afterwards after I post its link on Facebook. I even take the pains to read it aloud to myself, for the mind often fills in or corrects errors...errors that are more readily noticed when heard but are often passed over in silence.  And yet, even with this precaution, I commit all sorts of mistakes with my writing. Some are intentional, like when I use the slang "gonna" instead of the more formal and proper "going to".  Also, I sometimes deliberately use sentence fragments, something that no doubt would earn me the ire of my past English teachers.  But in writing this blog, my intention is to convey a sense of the language as it is spoken and not to exasperate the reader with overly literary expressions and structures.    I suppose that one item, though, that I need some work on is my tendency to repeat the same word too often instead of using synonyms or alternative ways of expressing the same meaning.  This usually happens on the first draft of whatever I've been writing and gets cleared up, but sometimes I'll go back several days to a previously published article and grimace to myself how I not only would repeat individual words too much, but even whole phrases. Ouch!

Today's World Cup Matches Worth Watching

The so-called "knockout" round of the FIFA World Cup in men's soccer began today, and today's two matches lived up to their advance billing.  Both games pitted teams exclusively from South America: Brazil vs. Chile in the early game and Colombia vs. Uruguay in the latter.  I had gone to my local gym and was running on the treadmill, which conveniently has a television built into it.  So I watched a good portion of the early first half in the Brazil-Chile match, witnessing both goals that left the two teams tied one-to-one. I could tell by the way they were playing aggressively on offense (especially Brazil) that there would be a lot more goals scored in this match, but I had other things to do as I stepped off the treadmill, finished up in the gym, and then went grocery shopping.  As the afternoon wore on, I completely forgot about the World Cup.  Suddenly, though, it dawned on me that the first game should be over by then...so I checked it out on TV to see what the final score was.  To my amazement, it was still one-to-one...and this was after the thirty-minute overtime period following the ninety-minute regulation time!  It was my luck to witness the very beginning of the shootout that would ultimately determine the winner.  In such a shootout, which wasn't part of the previous group stage of the tournament since ties were allowed then, each team gets five shots on the opponent's goal (using a different player for each kick), with the ball placed just a few yards from the goal with only the goalie left to defend. As I watched it unfold, I could see that the whole process was more or less a guessing game on the part of the goalie to try to anticipate where the kicker would aim the shot...except for the couple of errant kicks that occurred. For the most part I didn't like this way of deciding such a hard-fought effort that emphasized teamwork to the extent that it did...although it WAS admittedly exciting.  Anyway, Brazil managed to prevail by one goal in the shootout when the final Chilean kicker hit the goalpost with his shot, which bounced narrowly away from the net and led to mass celebration among the Brazilians, on the field and off...  

The second game featured Colombia, led by young James Rodriguez, beating a Uruguay team that had lost its scoring leader Luis Suarez, who had been suspended for biting an Italian player in their previous game.  Still, Uruguay impressed me with their character as they came close to scoring several times in the closing minutes. Just as impressive was the Colombian goalie, who made several difficult saves...

I didn't just sit there all day today glued to the TV set watching soccer...I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it so much had I done so.  I just happened to be fortunate to have picked some of the most opportune moments in today's matches.  I wonder if my luck will hold up in tomorrow's games between the Netherlands and Mexico, and between Costa Rica and Greece.  I seem to have fallen into the pattern of rooting for teams from the Americas, so go Mexico and Costa Rica!

A couple more observations: in past World Cup tournaments, I had come to expect countries like Italy, England, and Spain to be powerful entrants challenging for the title.  Yet none of these made it past the group stage this time around! Startling.  Also, Colombia and the United States, two of the surprisingly successful teams so far, have coaches from Argentina and Germany, both strong soccer countries...

About to Start Reading Stephen King's Mr. Mercedes

When I found out a several weeks ago that Stephen King, currently my favorite author, was coming out with a new book, titled Mr. Mercedes, I went to my local public library's website and placed a hold on the book.  Even though the book hadn't yet been published, I still initially found myself far down on the waiting list.  Well, the book's been out for a few weeks and, apparently, my county library system had ordered several copies of it because I was notified yesterday that it was ready for me to check out.  Today I got it and plan to read a good portion during the weekend.

I read somewhere recently that Stephen King plans to make Mr. Mercedes the first book of a trilogy...I'm not so sure that I like that idea very much.  No offense to the "King" intended, but his track record in this area in somewhat inconsistent.  He stretched out the first four volumes of his seven-part Dark Tower series over more than twenty years...and then finished it by rushing through the last three in a two-year span!  And his collaboration with Peter Straub of the connected novels The Talisman and Dark House was even more unsettling: their publications were seventeen years apart!  But more than that, the ending to Dark House clearly sets the stage for a sequel, which thirteen years later I am still looking for and see no sign of. 

Yes, I'm a little bit dubious of Stephen King's track record with series...at least pertaining to the regularity of their publication through time... but I also understand that he was engaged in writing a lot of other high quality books in the interim periods.  It was a lot different for someone like J.K. Rowling, who was focused on writing the Harry Potter series to the general exclusion of other books...

U.S.A. Advances in World Cup by Goal Differential

I awoke late this afternoon (my sleeping hours conform to a late night work schedule) to discover that the two World Cup soccer games just held resulted in the United States squeaking through, on the basis of goal differential, to the next, so-called "knockout" round of the tournament.  The Americans, who lost a close 1-0 match with group winner Germany today, finished at 1-1-1, tied with Portugal, who narrowly edged last place Ghana 2-1.  But because Portugal had been routed by Germany 4-0 in their first World Cup game, they had been at a disadvantage to other teams with tiebreakers.  So Portugal sadly goes home, but the U.S. advances to play Belgium, the winner of their group.  I haven't seen Belgium play, but any group winner has to be pretty good...

The Germany-United States match was held in Pernambuco in northeastern Brazil, which being closer to the Equator than, say Rio de Janeiro or Sao Paolo, does not enjoy the more temperate winter weather that the latter do in late June (we're talking the southern hemisphere, so the seasons are reversed).  Hot and muggy conditions...I hear the field was soggy...hampered the scoring.  This unpleasant environment may have aided the Americans by suppressing the scoring and keeping the Germans from piling it on as they had done with Portugal.  But I don't think a match has to be played near the Equator to cause this effect; I experienced much the same kind of stifling, humid weather yesterday afternoon when I went outside here in Gainesville to trim some bushes...

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...