2016 Presidential Politics After the Democratic Debate

I didn't watch Tuesday night's first Democratic 2016 Presidential debate on CNN since I was at work...although I doubt that I would have sat through the whole thing had I been off.  The main thing is that I consistently vote on election day after arriving at an informed decision concerning candidates and issues...I wonder how many of the reported 15.3 million debate watchers can claim that??!!  I did watch some of the news channel reactions to the debate, though, and it doesn't surprise me at all that the general consensus, regardless of how conservative or liberal the politics of the commentator was, is that Hillary Clinton came away as the clear winner...

The end result of the upcoming election to you and me will be how the winner makes decisions as President.  Although personality and "likableness" may play a part, I suspect that ultimately it will be the new President's philosophy of governance and his or her sense as to what constitutes America's greatest interests...including how its ENTIRE population is treated...not just the wealthiest 1%...

I have seen the Republican candidates get more than their fair share of media exposure...and I can, at least for myself, confidently claim that not one of them has even remotely made any impression on me that they have either my own personal interests in mind or those of anyone in my family, my friends, or associates, for that matter.  The one candidate that I held out hope for, Jeb Bush, has made some comments in recent weeks that show him as only one of many wannabes who want to show how extremist he can be on the political right.  As for polls leader Donald Trump, his appeal seems to be for those who want a supreme ruler (remember Stalin, Mao, Hitler?) whose feet they can grovel at and who they can just give carte blanche approval to do whatever he deems necessary, without any scrutiny.  As for Ben Carson, I am totally blown away by an incredible human being who can do what he has accomplished with his pediatric neurosurgery...and then act totally clueless about almost every other issue...

I'm not a big fan of Hillary Clinton...and I have never been.  I supported Barack Obama early on in his campaign back in 2008, and you can read my blog archives from back then to see my political leanings in favor of our current President.  But she is a vested, proven politician who knows more than almost anyone what it takes to get things done...and she has your interests and mine at heart, regardless whether you're aware of that fact.  Bernie Sanders, although he expresses ideas I agree with, especially in regard to a single-payer national health care system modeled on the Europeans and Canada, does not fully appreciate the benefits that capitalism and trade have brought for us and our standard of living.  I think Hillary does...and she is the only viable candidate out there for whom I can vote as the next President of the United States of America...

Florida's Will Grier and His PED Suspension

After the University of Florida football team finally seemed back on the road to national prominence, having amassed a perfect 6-0 record and rising to #8 in the national rankings, the NCAA dropped a bombshell yesterday when it announced that starting Gator quarterback Will Grier, who seemed to be developing as a top-tier college passer and playmaker, was suspended for a calendar year after testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs.  Grier was contrite and almost tearful before the cameras...but only said that he had bought something over-the-counter with something in it.  On ESPN2's excellent morning sports talk show First Take, Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith discussed this news.  Bayless was pointed about his problem with Grier's statement, saying that if the substance that caused the failed test was due to a legal product bought at a store, then he should be specific about what he bought and where...unless, of course, he was just repeating a commonly-spoken excuse that others from the past have maintained upon flunking drug tests.  Smith, on the other hand, was more sympathetic toward Grier, saying that the suspension was much too severe, especially considering that NFL discipline is comparatively much lighter toward its highly-paid players and that college athletes are unpaid and without due representation for their own interests.  I tend to be on the side of Stephen A. Smith in this one...

A shorter suspension, with Grier 'fessing to the NCAA about what he did take, would be the appropriate discipline in this case.  And I say this as a general sports fan, although since I root for Florida it will be sad to see him have to sit out this season and part of the next.  Florida has appealed to have the suspension shortened to only encompass the remainder of the 2015 season...but I doubt that it will be embraced by the NCAA unless Will Grier gives them something besides a vague over-the-counter claim.  As for the Gator football team, it is much more than just its starting quarterback, and besides, backup (and now starter) Treon Harris is a proven, quality competitor.  It would be a mistake to sell Florida short now that Grier is gone...

Stars are Bright Over Gainesville Tonight

I stepped outside tonight (it's between 10 and 11 as I write this) and noticed, for a change, how clear the sky is and how bright the stars are.  No clouds or moon are in sight to dim the view.  The early autumn evening sky is not exactly known for its splendor, but looking up in a westward direction the "summer triangle" of first-magnitude stars Deneb, Altair, and Vega highlight their respective constellations of Cygnus (the swan), Aquila (the eagle), and Lyra (the lyre).  I look southward, and just above the nearby tall pine trees and slightly to the east is Fomalhaut, another bright star, in the constellation Piscis Austrinus (the southern fish).  In the north, above the North Star, or Polaris, is the constellation Cepheus (the king), looking like an inverted ramshackle house.  Just east of Cepheus is the relatively bright Cassiopeia (the queen), looking like a "w" or "m" on its side, depending on how you look at it. Further down in the eastern sky can be found Perseus and Andromeda, two constellations, along with Casseiopeia, that are a part of the Greek Perseus mythology.  But to me the constellation that represents the essence of the fall season is Pegasus (the flying horse), which right now is passing near to overhead.  It is a very large constellation, not faint but not that bright, either.  Its dominant feature is the rectagular box of stars from which the horse's head and limbs extend.  I look down from Pegasus to the lower southeastern sky where lies Cetus (the whale).  It, too, usually isn't very bright...but tonight I see a pretty bright star there.  Is that Mira, I wonder...Mira is a variable star that undergoes great extremes in its brightness.  I'll have to find out about it.  Yes, the stars are out tonight, for sure...I can even make out fainter stars and constellations, such as the Zodiac's Capricornus, Aquarius, and Pisces, that are usually invisible from my yard.  It's too bad that conditions here weren't like this when we had our recent "Supermoon" eclipse...

Just Finished Reading Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe

Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, which I just finished reading, is a historically-based fictional story in the setting of late twelfth-century England, during the reign of Richard II "Lionheart".  It centers around the social and political conflict there between noble descendants of the Norman invasion of 1066 and those nobles of native Saxon ancestry...and it delves into the precarious status of Jews in England at that time.  Various parties have returned from the Crusades in Palestine...among them King Richard (disguised as the Black Knight) and the Knights Templar, led by Sir Brian de-Bois Gilbert, a Norman nobleman.  Prince John, Richard's brother, is planning to usurp the throne of England in his absence, only to discover that he has escaped captivity in Europe and is now in England.  The "main" character of Wilfred of Ivanhoe is a young Saxon knight who had gone with King Richard in the Crusade and has returned.  His father Cedric has disowned him after discovering Wilfred's love for the Lady Rowena of high Saxon nobility, whom Cedric wants to wed to the head Saxon pretender to the throne.  And then there is the Jewish moneylender Isaac and his compassionate daughter Rebecca...along with the forest outlaws (generally benevolent in nature) thrown into the mix...and you have several different story lines going on at the same time.  There are tournaments to test the knights' swordplay, along with ambushes, captivities, and daring rescues...but remarkably there really isn't all that much of the title character of Ivanhoe.  One thing that surprised me upon reading this 1820 novel of Scott was his sympathetic focus on the plight of Jews in England and the way they were treated there...especially by the ruling classes.  On the other hand, from the convenient hindsight of our politically correct world in 2015, Isaac, with his miserly nature, was portrayed in a very negative, stereotypical fashion...

There is plenty of knightly, noble action that you might expect from an adventure yarn like Ivanhoe, but this book is also very heavy on dialogue and the discussion of social, historical, ethical, and religious ideas.  So on one level, you could read it for the surface story (which I understand has been adapted a number of times to the screen)...one another level, though, it levels some pretty serious charges at folks who like to loudly trumpet their religion over others without actually practicing it: in other words, religious hypocrites and bigots...

My Favorite Music At This Stage of 2015

Musically speaking, my preference is for independent/alternative rock...although sometimes I like to sit back and listen to classical or ambient music.  My favorite acts are Regina Spektor, Radiohead, Kasabian, Sufjan Stevens, Beck, Arcade Fire, the now-defunct (hopefully just temporarily) Gorillaz, and Spoon...in that order. Of late, I have been listening to recent album releases by Sufjan Stevens (Carrie and Lowell), Kasabian (48:13), and Spoon (They Want My Soul).  Aside from the rotation of hit songs played on my local alternative rock station, WHHZ/100.5, I have spent much of my music listening time with these three albums.  Although Kasabian's Treat and Spoon's Rainy Taxi are standout tracks on their respective albums, it is Sufjan's Carrie and Lowell that contains the best stuff, with four songs...Death With Dignity, Should Have Known Better, Fourth of July, and Blue Bucket of Gold...being some of the best he has ever done.  As for the radio songs I like the most, there are Awolnation's Hollow Moon, Beck's Dreams, Bear Hands' Agora, and the Cold War Kids' First...

I'm eagerly awaiting the release of Beck's new album and for Regina Spektor and Radiohead to come out with something new.  Regina always seems to have at least a couple of memorable tracks on her albums, but I was disappointed in the last one from Radiohead, titled King of Limbs...  

Speaking of music from the radio, I had reported a couple of days ago that WUFT had begun broadcasting their classical music station on FM-102.7.  But, alas, only a day after noting this, they went back off the air!  Maybe they were just testing...or maybe some trouble arose.  I'm still tuning in from time to time with hopes that they're back on the air for good...

Just Finished Reading Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings

The Way of Kings, which came out in 2010, is the first book in what promises to be many over the next several years of fantasy writer Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive series.  Although I have had my share of fantasy reading over the last few years, I began this new series because of my respect toward Sanderson and his writing after reading his excellent Mistborn series...and then reading how he he salvaged Robert Jordan's protracted The Wheel of Time series after the original author died...

The setting of The Way of Kings is an imaginary world with a tumultuous history...in other words, a typical fantasy world.  There are legendary heroic figures from the distant past called Knights Radiant and the Heralds while monsters abounded: the Voidbringers.  As usual in fantasy fiction, our more modern technology is suppressed while alternative forms are introduced: certain gemstones contain special powers to those who know how to use them and a strangely sentient phenomenon called a "high-storm" imparts power to these stones when passing through.  Also, those Knights Radiants had left behind special armor and swords with super powers to those who possessed them: the Shardblades and Shardplates.  Sanderson was very thorough about describing this sometimes nightmarish world, but his main strength here...he has done in other stories...is his character development...

The people in The Way of Kings belong to a more medieval society where royalty, knights, slaves, and wars abound and the weapons of choice are swords and spears.  There seems to be a great deal of emphasis placed on the color of one's eyes: the lighter they are, the higher the position in society they enjoy.  Four characters present the story from their points of view: the reluctant assassin slave Szeth,  the noble and persecuted bridgeman Kaladin, the young scholar girl Shallan, and the king's uncle, brave warrior Dalinar...who, during high-storms, keeps having recurring visions of the past and warnings about the future...

I can see how Brandon Sanderson can eventually turn this series into another overblown fantasy library as did Robert Jordan and Terry Goodkind with more than ten volumes to read through.  However, if he can avoid Jordan's mistake of introducing too many characters and subplots, we might have here an epic series.  It seems to me that, at least in this first book, Sanderson compares and contrasts two often disparate meanings of "nobility"...and applies them to his characters.  I expect this to continue with his next book.  So far, we only have two books in this Stormlight Archive series...it will probably be well into my senior years before it's finished...

Classical Music Now on 102.7-FM in Gainesville

Finally, a strong classical music station is back on broadcast radio here in Gainesville, Florida.  WUFT-FM, which as the University of Florida's College of Journalism radio station, formerly aired classical music as part of a mixed schedule combined with news, National Public Radio programs, and late night jazz programming.  But a few years ago, it went all news/talk and relegated its classical music to a station that could only be accessed online or with a special HD-equipped radio.  Now, it's back on the airwaves...although on a different frequency than I thought it would be.  I was surfing the radio last night when I discovered a powerful new station playing classical music just before I got to that annoying country station on 103.7 kHz.  I checked it out today, and it is that promised (back in June) WUFT classical station, broadcasting on 102.7.  I wasted no time in programming my car radio settings to give me quick access to this gem...

My Belated 2015 Baseball Playoff Picks

I should have written this yesterday, before the American League wild card playoff game between the New York Yankees and the Houston Astros...won by the latter 3-0 at Yankee Stadium.  That result affects how I look on the upcoming games, since my preference among all five AL playoff teams was in the following order:

1-Yankees, 2-Toronto, 3-Houston, 4-Kansas City, 5-Texas

Now I'm rooting for Toronto to handle Texas in their upcoming series while hoping that the Astros can capitalize on Kansas City's late-season slide and upset them in their series.

In the National League, my preferences are in the following order:

1-New York Mets, 2-Chicago Cubs, 3-Pittsburgh, 4-Los Angeles Dodgers, 5-St. Louis

The Cubs play their single wild card game against the Pirates tonight. Whoever wins this contest will face St. Louis in the next round, while the Mets are already slated to go up against the Dodgers. I think that this one-and-done wild card game format is asisine...especially considering the 162 regular season games played by each team to reach this point...not to mention that the true measure of a team is expressed over its starting pitching rotation in a multiple-game series.  That rotation is meaningless in a one-game playoff.  Also, I don't think that since both Pittsburgh and Chicago had better regular season records than the division-winning Mets and Dodgers, they should have to play against the Cardinals, who had baseball's best regular season record.  Instead, once the wild card round is completed, the four teams left in each league should be seeded according to their regular season win-loss records...

As for the World Series, since the Yankees are out of the picture, I'm going for Toronto to win it all.  Now all of this, understand, is based on which teams I want to succeed...not which ones I think are most likely to succeed.  If I went by who I thought was most likely to get to the World Series, I would still pick Toronto in the American League and the Cubs-Pirates winner on the National Side...with the Blue Jays winning the series...

Just Finished Reading Isaac Asimov's Foundation's Edge (Again)

Foundation's Edge is the fourth book in the late science fiction writer Isaac Asimov's Foundation series.  He wrote it, along with the final installment, Foundation and Earth, decades after the first three books.  Unlike those stories, the two concluding novels run together with the same protagonists, based on the same time period...which is 500 years after the beginning of the Foundation as psychohistorian Hari Seldon established it.  It's a little awkward for me to refer in the past tense to something that supposedly might happen some 25,000 years in the future, but since it's all make-believe anyway, who really cares?

In Foundation's Edge, there is another crisis in the galaxy as the Foundation, following Seldon's Plan, attempts to establish the Second Galactic Empire only a thousand years after the fall of the First.  At the midway point in this quest, it looks as if the Foundation can militarily take over the rest of the galaxy and prematurely establish the new empire.  But the novel's protagonist, a Foundation councilman named Golan Trevize, suspects that the Second Foundation, a shadowy Seldon-established counterpart to the First Foundation and which is composed of psychics, is manipulating events (and his Foundation) behind the scenes.  After revealing his suspicions to the Mayor (ruler of the Foundation), she sends him out into space to find the elusive Second Foundation, under the guise of seeking Earth, the mythical original planet of humanity.  Trevize is accompanied by an aging historian named Janov Pelorat, who is sincere in his search for Earth and isn't in on Trevize's secret mission.  Ultimately, as the story unwinds, Trevize finds himself as the focal point of a three-way life-or-death confrontation between civilizations vying for control of the galaxy.  Who will win? Trevise seems to have the answer...but what does all this have to do with robots?

Well, if you haven't been reading the Foundation series, I doubt that much of the above makes a lot of sense to you.  Let's just say that Foundation's Edge is the first book in a two-part conclusion to the Foundation series.  It deals with Golan Trevize's decision about the fate of the galaxy...and the second, Foundation and Earth (which I'm about to start reading for the second time) concerns the significance of that decision.  Good sci-fi reading...I recommend this series, as well as Asimov's Robot and Empire series...

Attended Yesterday's MLS Match Between Orlando City and Montreal

Yesterday Melissa and I traveled down to Orlando to watch a Major League Soccer match between the Orlando City Iron Lions and the Montreal Impact, two teams that are fighting for the sixth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Division...and the regular season is nearing a close.  Orlando, in seventh place, had to beat the Impact in order to at least stay in the hunt...but this match was tied until late in the second half, when Orlando kicked in the winning goal: final score Orlando City 2, Montreal 1.  In case you're wondering about the use of "City" in the team's name, it's just an affectation that MLS teams (all based the United States and Canada) use to imitate their more historically famous counterparts overseas.  For example, we have in the league "Sporting" Kansas City, "Real" Salt Lake, and the Houston "Dynamo" as well.  Still, I think it's silly to not just say "Orlando"...

Before the game we visited the nearby upscale mall where we ate at the Cheesecake Factory.  I recommend their crab bites appetizer and the pulled pork sandwich (with cole slaw inside).  Sitting around there looking at the patrons made me realize what an international magnet the Orlando area is, especially with its nearby Universal and Disney World theme parks...which as I understand is a major reason that MLS granted Orlando an expansion team franchise beginning this year.  When we got into the stadium, which is the Citrus Bowl, the international flavor of both teams as well as of the fans was prominent.  The enthusiasm that the Orlando City fans showed their team was comparable to that of Florida Gator football fans at the "Swamp" here in Gainesville.  I did my part, loudly yelling "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!!!!" with each of the home team's two goals.  After noting a friendly couple sitting nearby leaving about ten minutes before the end of the game, we decided to prudently follow suit a couple of minutes later in order to beat the stampeding exiting crowd and traffic logjam...but not before seeing that final goal...

My impression of Orlando City as a professional soccer team is very favorable, although they have an expected modest record in the league their first year (11 wins, 13 losses, 8 draws).  Their talent level probably drops a bit after their handful of standouts, but they play very well as a team and seem to be giving their utmost to the game throughout.  And that, for me as a sports fan, makes them worth following. Of course, I'm not too fond of how they rip off the fans when selling drinks at the stadium...Melissa had to pay $5 for a simple bottle of water (without a lid) and two fans sitting in front of us shelled out $22 for a couple of cans of Heineken beer...

The idea of going to the soccer match was Melissa's, as a way of honoring me on my birthday.  We both enjoyed the game (although she's not exactly a die-hard soccer fan) and created some wonderful memories together...

Nor'easter Storm, Not Joaquin, the Concern Along US East Coastal States

Yesterday I was watching the Weather Channel when New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was giving detailed storm preparation instructions.  He discussed the two southernmost Jersey counties and how they were especially susceptible to flooding.  Around the governor on the TV screen, the Weather Channel had "Joaquin" in large letters and was showing projected paths for this hurricane, which was then (and still now) almost stationary in the Bahamas...and growing stronger and stronger.  But Christie wasn't addressing Joaquin: he was referring to the massive cold front storm, commonly known as a "nor'easter", that was spreading up the east coast of the United States.  He said that his sources had predicted heavy flooding and winds up to 75 mph (minimal hurricane force winds).  Crews were on the beaches desperately trying to deposit enough sand there to hold back the storm surge in order to prevent ocean encroachment on the inland...

Today the focus seems to be on the Carolinas, especially lowland South Carolina where 12 to 18 inches of rain are forecast over the weekend.  It is another part of this nor'easter, not related to Joaquin.  As for the hurricane, at this writing it remains in its "spot" in the Bahamas and has strengthened to a powerful Category Four with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph, but its projected future path has shifted during the past 24 hours from hitting the US mainland between North Carolina and Massachusetts early next week to completely missing land, going much further east in the Atlantic.  The funny thing about this is that, among the several computer models for its trajectory given a couple of days ago, the "European" model (which was the one model that worked with Hurricane Sandy back in 2012) diverged greatly from the others in that it had Joaquin doing just what it is now predicted to do and miss everyone...except possibly Bermuda...

My September 2015 Running Report

In September, I ran more carefully in order to recover from plantar fasciitis in my right foot.  I missed the first five days, but ran daily for the rest of the month.  I ran for a total of 171.8 miles.  My longest single run was for 5 miles, while over the course of a single day my longest daily mileage was 12.1 miles.  If I continue to improve as I have over the past three and a half weeks, I should be ready for some long-distance races early in 2016...

In the Middle of Reading Four Different Books

As is the case from time to time, I have found myself in the middle of reading a number of books at once.  This is because I read circumstantially...that is, if I am at a specific time and place I'll have a certain book available to read while in other situations others will be available. I also avail myself of audiobooks and CDs that I check out from the library.  For example, I am listening to Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe (by means of CD) whenever I drive...I'm about two thirds through it.  I have an audiobook version of Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings, the first (and rather lengthy) book in his new, ongoing Stormlight Archive fantasy series, that I listen to on my little MP3 player at convenient times.  I'm at the halfway point in that one.  I'm also midway through Isaac Asmov's fourth book (paperback edition) in his Foundation series, titled Foundation's Edge, which I've read before several years ago but have forgotten the details.  And I have just begun Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, a very long book whose contents don't seem transferable to the cinema, although more than one movie...including even a musical, of all things...have been made from it.  I say this because much of the text is composed of Hugo's musings on society, morality, and religion...how can that be effectively portrayed on the big screen?  No, I never did see any of the movies...I like to form my own internal images of the characters and locales from the written story before I see how others interpreted them...

All of the above I checked out from my local public library.  And with each of them, I searched the books online on the library website and placed holds on them so that they would notify me when they were ready for pickup...and at the library branch closest to me.  The only exception is the audiobook, which downloads directly from the online site that checks them out.  Now that's not to say that I don't have a sizable and growing library of books in my personal possession.  I need to get them organized and begin to read some of the many that I haven't yet read...most of them are science fiction novels and short story collections.  I'm also gradually accumulating books on my Kindle.  However, the public library is a great resource for reading and I have of late been heavily relying on it for my books...

Major Lunar Eclipse Sunday Evening

The moon will be offering a nighttime show on Sunday when it passes through the Earth's shadow, culminating in a lunar eclipse.  The effect will be a darkening...although not complete obscuring...of the moon...for around three hours for observers in the Eastern United States.  The total eclipse (the moon completely inside the Earth's shadow), for our EDT time zone, will be from 10:11 pm until 11:23 pm with the partial phases starting and ending 1-2 hours before and after.  The total eclipse will be visible in eastern North America, South America, western Africa and western Europe.  East Asia and Pacific Oceania will completely miss it, even the partial eclipse, because they'll be in the middle of the day when it happens...and you can't see a full moon at that time...

This event is being called the "supermoon eclipse" or the "super blood moon".  The reason for the "super" designation is that the moon will appear to be slightly larger than usual because it will be at its perigee (closest point in its orbit) to Earth, while "blood" seems to refer to the ongoing string of consecutive eclipses six months apart.  The earthsky.org website can furnish more information about this if you're interested...

If we're fortunate, the skies in Gainesville will be clear enough to watch this lunar eclipse, although in recent weeks a clear night sky hasn't exactly been something to count on.  I'd like to thank my Facebook and workplace friend Evelyn for having posted about this upcoming astronomical show, giving me some forewarning about it...

Grateful for Break from Torrential Rains

Not one who enjoys extremes in weather, I am heartened by the reprieve we've been getting the last few days from the nearly devastating rainfall that has pounded and flooded us this past summer.  And now it's fall season...not that a technical astronomical event as yesterday's fall equinox, with the sun's position on the elliptic passing across the celestial equator on its way into the southern celestial hemisphere, automatically calls for an instant climatic change where I live.  But still, I'm looking forward to our weather pattern shifting from a tropical (and humid) orientation, with storms brewing in the Gulf of Mexico and then passing over us, to one more temperate (and dryer), with cold fronts sweeping down from the northwest.  In any event, the temperatures may still be pretty hot outside, but at least the relative lack of precipitation is allowing the water that has saturated the ground to recede.  Of course, that's not saying that there won't be a big storm today, tomorrow, or the next day...

Baseball Great Yogi Berra Passes Away

The great Yogi Berra, who as New York Yankees catcher over the course of his playing career won ten World Series championships and three American League MVP awards, has passed away at age ninety.  As a little kid growing up in the early 1960s, I quite naturally assumed that he was named after then-cartoon superstar Yogi Bear.  I didn't understand his greatness then, but I did appreciate the baseball card of him I collected from the backs of Post cereal boxes...along with those of other early 1960s baseball players, including his teammates Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris.  Later on I came to associate the name "Yogi Berra" with the chocolate drink Yoo-Hoo, which he promoted for a long time on TV commercials.  It was only later in life that I came to esteem not only the on-field accomplishments of this iconic sports figure, but also his humanity and humor.  And, of course, all of those incredible "Yogi-isms"...many of which I'm hearing on ESPN as they pay homage to his memory: "If you come to a fork in the road, take it", "The game isn't over until it's over" "It's like deja vu all over again", "I really didn't say everything I said", "Baseball is 90 per cent mental.  The other half is physical", ....and on and on it went.  As his off-beat quotes piled up over the years, there began to be a question as to whether some of them may not have come from him.  Oh well, I love hearing them, anyway...

Just Finished Reading John Updike's Rabbit, Run

John Updike, who passed away in 2009, was a writer of both short stories and novels, as well as serving as a regular critic for New Yorker magazine.  He was also someone whose works I never got around to read, and only did so this time because Stephen King's most recent novel Finders Keepers led me to him.  Although Updike wrote a lot, his most famous work seems to be the Rabbit series, the first book of which he published in 1960 and spaced subsequent installments in approximately ten-year intervals as he examined the unfolding life of its main character, Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom...

Set in 1959, Rabbit, Run, as the first book is titled, sees Harry, our "hero", at age 26 in his home town of Mount Judge, Pennsylvania (a mythical suburb of Updike's mythical city of Brewer).  He is a former high school star basketball player and can't seem to let go in his mind of his old "glory days".  He lives near both his parents and those of his wife Janice, whom he had married after discovering that she was pregnant with his first child.  Janice is now pregnant again, and Harry is a door-to-door salesman for kitchen gadgets.  Being something of a dissatisfied "seeker" in life, but never really knowing exactly what he wants or in which direction to look, he starts up his car one night and spontaneously takes off in it, going several hundred miles south and west before returning to Brewer.  But he has left his wife, and the story takes off from this disturbing beginning.  How it develops and ends I'll leave you to read for yourself...

Self-discovery and personal fulfillment in the face of social obligations and responsibilities is a theme I found in Rabbit, Run.  The problem with the character of Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom is that, while he is continually upsetting the latter, he is clueless about the former...ultimately projecting the impression of himself as being something of a selfish, manipulative jerk.  I never could get into this character's mind or find a basic for empathy/sympathy.  Sure, we all have that struggle going on in our lives between what we want for ourselves and how we respond to others' expectations of us.  But Harry never seems to learn anything from his experiences: he is so focused on whatever situation he is currently in that he cannot see beyond it...and the ramifications of his often destructive behavior...

Not only did I find Harry a disagreeable character, but I didn't get how Updike portrayed his thinking. Although he is 26 and fully engaged in what people would call "adult" behavior, in dialogue Harry speaks like a little kid...reminding me of Dennis the Menace's way of talking ("Jeepers, Mister Wilson!")  Yet, when he is alone and the author wants to express his thoughts through the general narrative, Harry comes across as a very serious, contemplative man.  Was this discrepancy intentional on the part of Updike?  Who knows...but I had difficulty with his protagonist as someone who I could imagine as being real, and that was a huge problem for me with this book...

As far as I know, the Rabbit series is comprised of four books.  The next one is titled Rabbit Redux.  Seeing how it is set in time several years later than Rabbit, Run, it might be intriguing to see how Updike developed Harry Angstrom's character, if at all...

Return to Running, Albeit Cautiously

I am cautiously advancing once again with my running, being careful not to cause any aggravation to my right foot, which I now see is a case of plantar fasciitis.  I do the appropriate stretches recommended for this affliction before running and then run on a cushioned surface while wearing thick-soled running shoes.  I will continue to train this way at least until the end of October...and then I'll see where I stand.  I still maintain hopes of running some long-distance races down the line...but they'll most likely be early in 2016.  The main ones ahead of me are the Ocala Half-Marathon in January and Gainesville's FivePoints Half-Marathon the following month.  I had been considering trying to complete a marathon-distance race sometime this winter, but the foot problem has put that idea on hold...unless I make dramatic progress during the next few weeks...

Miami Dolphins, Especially Head Coach, Display Indifference About Loss

I watched in dismay today's Miami Dolphins football game against the Jacksonville Jaguars.  Dismay is the proper word for a number of reasons.  For one, they lost, pure and simple...and in the worst possible way: Jacksonville won on a last-minute field goal, 23-20, after they moved into field goal range because a Dolphins defensive player angrily shoved back at a Jaguars player after the end of a play and was called for a personal foul.  As the camera followed this player walking back to the sidelines, he didn't seem particularly perturbed at what he had done...and neither, it appeared, did any of the other Miami players.  In fact, the Dolphins head coach Joe Philbin not only remained completely taciturn and untalkative at the game's end (and for most of it as well), but he actually had the nerve to clap when Jacksonville kicked through the winning field goal with only seconds left.  What is it with this guy and his team?  Where is the kind of passion I see in other NFL and college football teams?  Why should the Dolphins organization expect me, as one of their fans who followed them since 1968, to feel anything other than abject apathy about that team's performance when their own coach and players seem indifferent?  Miami has a lot of talent out there...although they do seem to have some issues on their offensive line.  Still, they have an excellent quarterback in Ryan Tannehill and enough key players to fill in gaps in their lineup.  After all, every team has its own weaknesses.  And I'm okay with the Dolphins having their own.  But weaknesses or not, they just don't seem to care that much whether they win or lose...

Just Finished Reading Isaac Asimov's Prelude to Foundation

The late science fiction writer Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) originally published his Foundation series as a trilogy in the 1950s...or least that's how people in general regarded it, for it wasn't until the 1980s that he added the final two books to make it a quintet.  And upon rereading Book Three, titled Second Foundation, I also felt that the good author didn't properly finish the series and needed to add something else to make it a whole.  I've read all five books before, but time has passed since my first voyage through Asimov's Foundation universe and I forgot many of the more detailed facets of his saga.  During that last decade of his life, he also wrote two prequel novels dealing with how the pivotal character of Hari Seldon came to develop his theory of psychohistory that drove the narrative in the series.  These two, Prelude to Foundation and Forward the Foundation, I hadn't read before.  But before taking on Book Four, Foundation's Edge, once more, I decided  to take a little detour and read the first one...

In case you haven't read any of my other Foundation series book reviews on this blog, let me lay down the "foundation" of the story as it pertains to Prelude to Foundation.  It has been more than 10,000 years since our galaxy has been unified under a single political authority called the Empire, with its capital based on a very densely population planet, called Trantor, near the galaxy's center. Unlike the case with Star Trek or Star Wars, the intelligent population is entirely human.  The origins of humankind have been lost to history, although there are myths that people originally came from one planet, with Aurora and Earth coming up often in speculation.  Also, there were apparently very advanced robots back then at the beginning, too...whether or not this information is ultimately relevant to the book is up to you to find out.  In any event, Hari Seldon is a mathematician by training from an outlying planet in the empire who visits Trantor and gives a speech in which he states the possibility of developing a new science, which he calls "psychohistory" and combines psychology, history, sociology, and mathematics to be able to make long-term forecasts about the future state of the Empire.  Upon being notified of Seldon's speech, the sitting Emperor seeks him out in order have him propogandize the Empire's agenda...in spite of Seldon's informing him that his theory has yet to be developed and his ultimate conclusions about the Empire's future are as yet unknown.  With the aid of others, Seldon flees into the very complex underground world of Trantor, encounters very disparate societies...and tries to hit upon a workable strategy for developing his psychohistory.

Having read the Foundation series before and picking up on some of the hints that Asimov laid throughout the book, I was able to figure out early on some of what would be revealed at the conclusion of Prelude to Foundation as a surprise ending. As it turns out, looking back on it all, the author may well have felt the need to write the book this way, especially considering the shocking way he concluded his series at the end of Book Five...

Because Prelude to Foundation is chronologically the first book in Isaac Asimov's Foundation according to his fictional narrative, I would instead recommend to new readers that they start their reading with the original Book One, simply titled Foundation...and read through the five-part series before reading the two prequels.  Or, maybe, do what I did and, after reading Book Three, go "back in time" and read Prelude to Foundation.  In this way, it may help you if you hadn't read beforehand Asimov's other series about the Empire and what preceded it...

The Florida Teams as the 2015 MLB Season Draws to Close

At the start of the 2015 Major League Baseball season, the National League's Miami Marlins were given a lot of support in the sports media for being a team that was on its way up...definitely a playoff contender and even possibly vying for the East Division title.  In the American League, on the other hand, the Tampa Bay Rays, after losing its longtime manager Joe Madden to the Chicago Cubs in the off-season and trading away some of its major talent, weren't expected to do much beyond finishing last in their East Division.  Instead, the Rays, with its new manager Kevin Cash, surprised most of us, actually being in first place for much of the early part of the season and remaining in wild card contention until just recently.  Miami, however, started out dismally slow and never recovered.  After the All-Star break, they went into an even worse tailspin, actually falling briefly into last place in their division.  Of late, however, they have been playing very well and are now solidly in third place...albeit with a horrendous 64-83 record.  This team disappointed me and many others this year: proven veteran players that they acquired in the off-season, with the notable exception of overachieving 2nd baseman Dee Gorden, have had substandard performances.  Losing their star slugger Giancarlo Stanton halfway through the season to injury didn't help, either...and don't get me going about their pitching...

Tampa Bay is currently only a half-game ahead of last place Boston with a 70-76 record, considerably better than Miami's but getting worse.  They have sixteen games to go in the regular season to try to stay out of the cellar.  Seven of these games will be against the Red Sox...and they will most likely determine where the Rays end up in the standings.  As for the Marlins, I'm sure at this point that they're just looking ahead to 2016 and the many changes they will need to make: a new manager would be a good start...

Voter Turnout, Presidential Election, Off-Year Elections

The second Republican presidential debate was held last night, this time on CNN, and it was that network's turn the following morning to be all giddy about its "news" story.  But to me, as I have interpreted the last few elections, both of presidential election years and of the "off" years, whoever ends up winning the Presidency (or US Senate seat, or state governorship) in politically-divided (or "purple") areas will depend more on voter turnout than on the candidates' comparative virtues or ideology...unless these characteristics are seen as being way over-the-top.  Take the state of Florida, for example.  I ask you: does it make any sense at all for this state to go for Barack Obama, a left-leaning Democrat, in 2008 and then elect as governor a tea party right-wing Republican, Rick Scott, in 2010?  But wait, there's more...two years later, the state went right back and went for Obama again!  Yet even with this, I'm not finished...this same Florida turned around in 2014 and returned Mr. Scott, a favorite of Sean Hannity, back to office!!!

I don't believe for an instant that the Florida people politically veered left in 2008, turned back right in 2010, switched back left in 2012 and then doubled back right in 2014.  No, what happened was that a larger segment of the Democratic-leaning voters decided in the 2010 and 2014 off-year elections that they weren't "motivated" enough to get off their asses and invest about 10-15 minutes of their oh-so-precious time at their local precincts...

Well, 2016 is an "on-year" election, so I expect my fellow moody Democratic voters to be "motivated" once again to actually participate in the electoral process.  Which doesn't bode very well for any of the candidates currently running on the Republican side, regardless who ends up wearing that party's mantle in the general election.  Of course, should either party commit political suicide by nominating someone without a prayer of a chance at winning a nationwide election, voter turnout won't matter much.  Unless, that is, BOTH parties end up nominating "unwinnable" candidates...which I see as a possibility right now with Trump and his repulsive personality ahead on the Republican side and the leftist/Socialist Sanders surging with the Democrats...

Just Finished Reading A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge

I was rummaging through a pile of stuff in the house when I came across a science fiction novel by Vernor Vinge that belongs to my son.  Upon further investigation into this author, I discovered that he has written a science fiction series titled Zones of Thought.  I got a copy of the first book, titled A Fire Upon the Deep, and just finished reading it...

One thing about science fiction that is often considerably different from more reality-based genres like mystery, crime, war, or romance is that the "world" that the author has introduced, along with the technology within it, involves an extensive use of new terminology and concepts.  This can make sci fi reading a bit cumbersome at the beginning of a story as the reader struggles to understand what the heck is going on.  A Fire Upon the Deep is no exception, with its own computer lingo and Vinge's idea of a galaxy divided into four different zones that affect attainable velocity and consciousness.  Since he didn't explain everything up front at the beginning, I had to just read on in faith until I could start to make sense of the scenario.  Once I did, though, it turned out to be a pretty good tale...and with well-developed characters who brought out the feelings of empathy, sympathy...and sometimes antipathy...that made them believable and memorable.

Three situations drive the plot in A Fire Upon the Deep.  One is the accidental reactivation, by human explorers, of a long-dormant, malevolent transcendant entity that threatens the very existence of life in the galaxy.  Another is the stranded party of people fleeing this Blight, as it has come to be called, as they struggle to survive around their adopted planet's dominant life form: the Tines.  And the third centers on an unlikely foursome as they race through space to rescue the survivors and recover from that group's grounded spaceship what may be the only thing that can stop the Blight...

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of A Fire Upon the Deep, besides those four galactic zones, is how Vinge studies the concept of group identity and consciousness through the civilization of the dog-like Tines.  I was also impressed with his unpretentious writing style...this made it much easier to grasp the mind-stretching ideas he was introducing into his story...

So now I'm hooked on another series.  A Fire Upon the Deep came out in 1992.  The next book, A Deepness in the Sky (1999), is said to be a prequel to the first book.  And Book Three of the series, the last one to be published, was only released in 2011.  So Vernor Vinge's Zones of Thought project isn't exactly one that I should sit around awaiting the next installment: he took 12 years to get around to the last one...    

Piecing Movie Fragments Together

For most of the movies I've seen, I sit down at the beginning and watch them through to the end.  However, there are movies I've experienced piecemeal...I may start off with a clip near the end, then maybe a scene toward the middle or beginning, usually because I encounter them while channel surfing at those particular stages.  After a few "sightings" of such a movie, I'll start to form a picture of it as a whole, with gaps throughout that I haven't yet seen.  Usually a movie like this is one that I feel I would like to watch but for whatever reasons can't seem to find or make the time for it.  In this category, for me, is the latest Star Trek movie: Into Darkness.  I knew there was a real nasty villain in it, played by Benedict Cumberback, with whom Spock had a chase/fight scene.  There was a brutal attack on Federation headquarters early in the film.  Something else about Scotty in a bar somewhere getting drunk with his weird-looking alien buddy when Kirk calls him.  Kirk and McCoy running in hooded robes from a mob of painted aboriginals on a red planet, with a volcano erupting in the background.  A huge black spaceship crashing into the downtown of a large city.  And on and on it went, until...

Until I finally had enough of all the fragments and set out to watch Star Trek: Into Darkness in its entirety.  I checked out my streaming Netflix and, for a change, they actually had the movie I was searching for!  Last night I enjoyed it from start to finish...it was worth it, one of the best Star Trek movies ever made.  The next movie in the series comes out next year.  In the meantime, maybe I should put together some fragments from other movies I've never completely watched...

Gators Manage to Win Sloppy Game vs. East Carolina

After the University of Florida football team breezed by New Mexico State in its first game of the 2015 season 61-13, many fans expected a similar outcome yesterday against their second non-conference opponent, this one being East Carolina.  But the Pirates were a much better team than Florida's first opponent: last year they beat then-seventeenth ranked Virginia Tech 28-17, clobbered North Carolina 70-41 and severely challenged the SEC's South Carolina before finally succumbing 33-23. And then they played the Gators at the very end in the Birmingham Bowl, losing a hard-fought contest 28-20.  So East Carolina was never a second-rate team.  That having been noted, however, it was clear to me that Florida played a very sloppy game yesterday in spite of their ultimate 31-24 victory.  The Gators committed turnovers directly leading to ten East Carolina points, and two crucial penalties cost them dearly...one nullifying an early touchdown and one putting the Pirates in good field position for their last touchdown drive.  Also, Florida was remiss at capitalizing on the many East Carolina fumbles in the first half.  The quarterback play was generally good, but Will Grier threw three passes that should have been intercepted...while the one pick he did throw was a deflection off the receiver...

Florida plays Kentucky in Lexington next Saturday evening.  By all accounts, I think the new Gator head coach Jim McElwain is doing a good job...but man, that dude can really get agitated on the sidelines...        

Just Finished Reading Isaac Asimov's Second Foundation (Again)

As I continue to reread renown science fiction writer Isaac Asimov's celebrated Foundation series, I have just finished Book Three of the five main books, titled Second Foundation.  The story is set tens of thousands of years into the future, as humanity...now inhabiting the entire known galaxy...is recovering from the destruction of the ten thousand year old Empire that once politically, economically, and militarily united them all.  Hari Seldon, the famous psychohistorian/mathematician who had predicted the Empire's demise and had laid out plans for two "Foundations"...one on the planet Terminus at the galaxy's frontier and the other at "Star's End"...has been dead for four hundred years.  His plans were for the two Foundations, the first run by physical scientists and the second governed by psychologists, to preserve and then spread into the galaxy to resurrect human society into another, more benevolent empire and avoid a protracted dark age.  But those preparations have come unraveled: a singular element in the form of psychic mutant named the Mule has conquered much of the galaxy, unanticipated by Seldon and throwing off his equations and predictions.  How the Mule's reign culminates and its ramifications dominate the story of the first part of Second Foundation.  And the Second Foundation becomes forefront in both the confrontation with the Mule and in Part Two of the book...the main questions being (1) where exactly is the Second Foundation located, (2) who are in it, and (3) what exactly is it up to...

Second Foundation is a good, fast read...especially for science fiction when sometimes the heavy emphasis some writers place on discussing technical matters, in order to give their works more credence, can bog down the reader.  Instead, Asimov adroitly moves the plot along while presenting sympathetic characters.  As opposed to the beginning of the Foundation series, however, I am finding that some of the themes of the developing story line deal more and more with paranormal, psychic abilities...that, I'm afraid, tends to inject too much uncertainty and too many possibilities into the narrative, making it harder for me to follow and even harder to relate to...

Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation were all published in novel form in the 1950s.  Asimov would wait until the 1980s before capping off this series with Foundation's Edge and Foundation and Earth.  I decided to take a little detour in this series and next read (this one for the first time) his 1980s prequel novel Prelude to Foundation, which purportedly goes back to the earlier years in Hari Seldon's life...

Tomorrow's 9/11 Television Coverage

The terrorist attacks against our country and its people on the morning of September 11, 2001 should never be forgotten or swept under the rug.  I don't know how all of the various news channels and networks on TV plan to cover it...I only know from my TV schedule about the two channels that plan to devote special programs in remembrance of this outrage against America: MSNBC and The History Channel.  Late tonight, at 1 AM Eastern Time, MSNBC will have a one-hour show about 9/11, while tomorrow morning at 8:30 they will rebroadcast, as they do every year, the NBC Today show as events unfolded that tragic morning 14 years ago.  The History Channel has a whole slate of interesting programming scheduled for tomorrow.  But I'm hoping that, although other channels may not be setting aside time for special programs exclusively devoted to 9/11, they will still be giving a considerable amount of air time about it on their regularly scheduled shows...

Just Finished Reading Exit Ghost by Philip Roth

Philip Roth is one of those famous writers whose works have slipped by me over the years.  Stephen King, in his latest book Finders Keepers, dropped Roth's name a few times...prompting me to investigate something he wrote.  I went to my local public library branch and grabbed Exit Ghost off the shelf...it had the added incentive of being relatively short.  Unfortunately, Exit Ghost is apparently the last book in a long series that Roth had been writing concerning the fictional character of Nathan Zuckerman, a famous New York writer.  Since I tend to try to avoid picking up books in mid-series, end-of-series has to be the worst!  Nevertheless, I gamely pressed on with my reading...

The setting of Exit Ghost is New York City of 2004, right at the time of the presidential election between Bush and Kerry.  Zuckerman, who has gone into retreat to woodsy western Massachusetts for more than a decade following death threats emanating from around the New York metropolis, has shed all of the trappings of his former life and has been devoting himself, in rural isolation, to his craft of writing.  Unfortunately, he was diagnosed with cancer a few years earlier and had been compelled to return to the city off and on for treatment of the disease and the complications arising from that treatment (I'll leave the sad details for you, the potential future reader, to find out).  During one of these return trips, at that time I mentioned, he decides to stay in town for a year...and becomes involved in two subplots that intertwine throughout the book.  What they specifically are and what happens I'll leave others to discover for themselves.  Let's just say that there is a lot of introspection here, presented in the first person narrative by Zuckerman...

There are many things I derived from Exit Ghost.  One is that I didn't need to read all of those other Zuckerman books after all...Roth did a masterful job of creating a complete story here without making me feel as if I needed to go back to previous stories to fill in gaps.  Another is the author's Jewish heritage and experiences as he applied them to his characters.  Roth also employed a device that I found intriguing: the playing in Zuckerman's mind, eventually transferred to paper, of imaginary conversations he has with characters...when in the real narrative of the story his communication with them is full of awkwardness and missed moments.  This resonates with me...and probably would with many people...as I've often recreated scenarios from the past with different outcomes if only I had said this or that...of if the person I was talking with was just a little more reasonable or compassionate...

In Exit Ghost, Philip Roth explored a potential problem that many authors of fiction face as they tend to put much of themselves and their own lives into their characters. Sure, it's "fiction", but can one, by reading a writer's books, conversely work backwards from the fiction and make conclusions about his or her personal life?  I have to admit to believing sometimes that Nathan Zuckerman IS Philip Roth in fictional disguise...but that's probably not the case at all.  Well, maybe Zuckerman does serve as a spokesman for many of Roth's views and they may have some common life experiences, but he is make-believe nonetheless.  The problem is that once I realize that an author is speaking their views and expressing at least some of their own real-life experiences through a particular character, the temptation is to extrapolate that everything that character says and does has a reality to it reflected in the life of the author...

And finally, for the purposes of this particular blog entry at least, there is that recurring theme of mortality and aging that pervades the book.  This probably resonates stronger with someone like me who is close to 59 and who just lost a friend from elementary school to cancer than it would to someone in their twenties or thirties.  How does one deal with the progressive degeneration of their physical and mental abilities?  If this subject bothers you, then perhaps Exit Ghost may not be the book you want to read.  Then again, if such is the case, maybe it's a book you need to read...

Watching Some U.S. Open Tennis Matches

During the last few days I've been watching the U.S. Open tennis tournament, one of the major events in the sports world.  ESPN and ESPN-2 have been showing the various matches, which for both the men and women are now down to the quarterfinals stage.  Right now France's Kristina Mladenovic has her hands full with Italy's Roberta Vinci...both players were unseeded for the tournament.  Tonight will be the much-hyped match between the Williams sisters Serena and Venus, with Serena going for the first calendar-year tennis Grand Slam since 1988.  Yesterday, England's Andy Murray and Switzerland's Roger Federer each had close matches against their respective opponents Kevin Anderson and John Isner to try to qualify for the quarterfinal round.  Murray lost his and Federer won...it was interesting to compare the demeanor and behavior of the two as they were tested like this.  Murray was agitated and cursed while under adversity, while Federer was poised and confident...just as much when his back was against the wall as when he was triumphant.  There's a lesson here: whom do I want to emulate the most in my own personal walk through life??!!

I am by no means a tennis fanatic as my parents were for decades, but I can see how one could get drawn into the sport.  It's not like football, basketball, hockey or soccer where the clock determines the sport's parameters...no, tennis is more like golf or baseball in that, as a player, you can be only one hole or out...or in tennis, just one point...from victory. But that last hole, out, or point MUST be accomplished or ultimately you lose...

Melissa and I Celebrate Our 29th Anniversary

It was 29 years ago on this date, on a Sunday afternoon, that my sweetheart Melissa and I got married in a small southwest Gainesville church.  And now, in 2015, I can say that my love for her has only gotten stronger as we have gone through many seasons in our lives together.  She is a priceless treasure!

Happy Anniversary, my dear Melissa!

Just Finished Reading John Grisham's The Brethren

Last month, Melissa and I went to a retreat in Ocklawaha, on the shores of Lake Weir not far from Ocala.  During it, one night after dinner, we got into a discussion with the others sitting at our table about the books we liked.  When I mentioned John Grisham, a renown author of many law-centered novels, the guy seated on my left suggested his two favorite titles: The Testament and The Brethren.  Having already read three of Grisham's books (The Pelican Brief, The Firm, and The Appeal) and being disappointed in that last one, I was anxious to get a little advance encouragement before taking on another of his works.  With that endorsement in mind, I just finished reading The Brethren.  As it turned out, my new-found friend was right: it was one of Grisham's best...at least with the limited number of his books that I've yet read...

The Brethren refers to the informal name given to a trio of ex-judges serving sentences in a low-security federal prison near Jacksonville, Florida.  They come up with a scam extorting money from various men across the country whom they have snared answering their fake ads in magazines for male pen pals.  Concurrently, a presidential campaign is on, and the CIA director, intent on having the country's military budget dramatically increased, has created a candidate out of an obscure Arizona congressman.  How these two subplots ultimately connect determines the flow and outcome of the story.  Grisham kept what could have been a lot of extraneous material and characters out of this novel and made it an easy and quiet suspenseful, enjoyable reading experience.  Naturally, you're going to have to read it for yourself to discover the details and its ending...

If you're inclined to believe in the invisible hand of forces behind the scenes in our politics manipulating politicians and public opinion with their cynical actions, then The Brethren is the book for you.  It was published in 2000, a full year before 9/11 and the "Truther" movement with its "false flag" accusations arising from that tragedy.  It also reaffirmed a sad truth of our times that I've learned from the mistakes of others: never express anything in a letter, the phone, or on the Internet that you aren't fully prepared for the entire world to know...privacy as we grew up expecting as an inalienable right is almost nonexistent anymore, regardless what the written law says...

Now I'm going to get hold of John Grisham's The Testament...well, after I read some other books by other authors, that is...

Preseason Football Rankings 'Rank'le Me

The college football season began this week, culminating today in the first full day of games.  Already there are preseason polls out, ranking not only the top 25 teams in the country but even the most likely prospects to win the Heisman Trophy as player of the year.  To me, these polls are ludicrous as the structure of college sports is very different from that of the pros.  Each year, the seniors leave school...as well as those underclassmen entering the NFL draft early...and the various schools have to essentially overhaul their teams.  Plus, the entering freshmen class of players adds another level of uncertainty to each school's outlook for the upcoming season.  Yet Ohio State is Number One without having played a single game...some media folks are making an issue of the "fact" that Alabama has dropped down to Number Three after several years of being ranked preseason as One or Two.  They have to be kidding...

Well, maybe the rankings do have a certain bearing on things as we go through our first weekend of college football.  Those who gamble on the games need to have something to go by as they lay their money down...even if they don't yet know how good or bad the teams are going to be this year.  If I were a betting man (and I'm not...but I'll leave that for a future blog post), I would wait a little bit into the season before I began to wager any serious money.  On the other hand, Vegas puts its own line out for the individual games...no need after all to follow some mythical rankings chart when no games have yet been played...

Just Finished Reading Sue Grafton's "R" and "S" Mystery Novels

I've been a big fan of mystery writer Sue Grafton, whose claim to fame is her "alphabet mystery" series featuring California private investigator Kinsey Millhone and the titles of which have been published in alphabetical order, with just a couple of "letters" to go until completion.  I'm also going through it in alphabetical order, sometimes running across a book I've already read...but most of them are new reads.  This was the case with my latest: "R" is for Ricochet and "S" is for Silence, published in 2004 and 2005, respectively.  This is significant because Grafton has compressed Kinsey's ongoing sleuthing adventures to the point where the stories themselves are set in the late 1980s...and this can be important when dealing with such things in the stories as telephone access and computers...

Although I've enjoyed reading these books, I have to weigh in on the negative side about these last two.  In "R" is for Ricochet, the character of Kinsey Millhone is made passive and secondary by another character, a young woman named Reba who is the individual our private eye has been hired by Reba's father to guide through her initial stages of parole after imprisonment for embezzlement.  Reba seems to assume all of the spunky and intelligent aspects of Kinsey that I have come to admire...leaving the detective to spend most of the story "tagging along" or dealing with her 87-year old landlord's romantic situation or that of her own...quite separate from the main story line and presenting an annoying distraction for me, the reader.  As for "S" is for Silence, much of the story is presented as a 34-year flashback to a young woman's unsolved disappearance...no Kinsey in sight anywhere.  When she does occasionally make her presence known and finally figures out the case, her method and reasoning for finding the main culprit in the story is unexplained.  I was so frustrated by the ending to this book that I went on the Internet to read others' reactions...and found that many of them agreed with me...

If these last two books of Sue Grafton that I just read happened to be the first ones for me as well, I might have decided to abandon reading any more of her books.  As it is, however, I know that she is much more capable of producing a good result...after all, I've now gone all the way through book #19.  I'm looking forward to a better story with the next Millhone novel, which I discovered is titled "T" is for Trespass...

CNN Amends Debate Rules to Let Fiorina In

CNN has just recently amended its rules for which candidates qualified for its Republican presidential debate, which will take place on September 16.  Last month's Fox News main debate limited participants to ten while relegating the seven other "major" candidates to its secondary "happy hour" debate.  The criteria for who got in for the prime time debate was the average of several public opinion polls taken beforehand...fair enough, I suppose.  California former business executive Carly Fiorina finished low in those early polls...most likely due to lack of name recognition outside her home state...but performed very well in the debate provided for her and jumped markedly in the polls held afterward.  Unfortunately, most of the polls CNN used to determine their lineup for the upcoming debate were those done before those two Fox debates...so Fiorina once again didn't make their cut of ten.  Recognizing this flaw, one that essentially nullifies the performances of the candidates in the first debates, CNN slightly adjusted their rule to allow Fiorina in as the "eleventh" candidate.  But this is also, in my opinion, not enough...she has jumped in the polls far beyond any "eleventh" place and by no means should be regarded as an "extra" candidate.  The fault for her initial omission is with CNN for having placed too much weight on early polls.  Their excuse is that not enough more recent polls had been taken...that strikes me as being a bit disingenuous, especially when all I see when I watch cable news channels on TV is public opinion poll after public opinion poll...

Just Finished Reading Madeleine L'Engle's A Swiftly Tilting Planet

I've been reading, off and on, Madeleine L'Engle's science fiction series for children called the Time Quintet.  I just finished reading the third book, titled A Swiftly Tilting Planet.  In it, we once again find the Murray and O'Keefe families, featuring main characters Meg and Charles Wallace.  But several years have passed between books two and three, and Meg has just married her old friend Calvin O'Keefe while the precocious Charles Wallace has by now turned fifteen.  A new crisis presents itself at the story's beginning: a South American dictator has gotten hold of the atomic bomb and is threatening a nuclear holocaust if his near-impossible demands are not met.  Meg's father, a physicist who has direct access to the White House, tells the grim news to his family.  Meg's mother-in-law, who is present at this moment, places a charge on Charles Wallace to set things right...and presents him with a "rune"...which takes the form of a prayer to heaven to influence the various forces on earth to rescue the speaker during a dire crisis.  Charles Wallace, with Meg psychically tuning in through a process called "kything", then travels back through time with the help of a nifty unicorn and tries, by subtly entering the minds of different people (and with the help of that rune), to influence events enough to change the present and alleviate the nuclear crisis...

First of all, let me just say that I "get it": this is a children's story, and fantasy and implausibility are lathered on thick here.  That being said, I have to object to the idea expressed within it that there is such a thing as an evil ancestral line any more than there is a benevolent one.  But part of the project that Charles Wallace is engaged in is just with that in mind: change the line of descent to the present so that the genetic makeup of the current ruler in that South American country is "good" instead of "evil".  Maybe I'm making too much of this, but it bothered me nonetheless...

So now I've finished three of these books, with two more to go.  But wait, I just found out that the author had also written another series parallel to this one...a series featuring the O'Keefe family and the eventual children of Meg and Calvin.  Maybe I'll just wait a few more years, Lord willing, before I start on that one...

My August 2015 Running Report

Although I accumulated mileage during August, my running ultimately was unsatisfactory as at the end, I suffered an injury of sorts on my right foot between the arch and heel.  As such, I've missed five days running for the month, and this will continue substantially into September.  Instead, I have been riding my bicycle more...that is, when it isn't torrentially raining outside...and using my portable stepper exercising machine.  I plan to continue with these while my foot recovers, and add the use of my gym's elliptical cross-trainer.  As for August's total, I ran 259 miles...

Hopefully, this running layoff won't last too long...but I have to give myself time to heal...

My NFL Favorites in Each Division This 2015 Season

It's getting closer to the start of the National Football League regular season this year, with the opening game between Pittsburgh and New England on Thursday, September 10 less than two weeks away.  So, as I usually do this time of year, I'm going through each division and picking my favorite teams.  No, I'm not predicting which ones will win each division...I'm strictly going by personal preference.  And since I'm doing this blog basically as an ongoing writing exercise, I'll explain the reasons for my picks...

AMERICAN CONFERENCE

East Division: MIAMI DOLPHINS-The Dolphins have been my team of choice since 1968, their third season of existence in the then-American Football League and when I was eleven going on twelve.  I suffered through two sub-par, typical expansion team seasons...and then Don Shula came over from Baltimore to coach them.  They won two Super Bowls under his direction and appeared in five...but more incredibly, during Shula's 26-year tenure there, they had only two losing seasons.  His successor Jimmy Johnson enjoyed some moderate success in his four years there, but from 2004 through 2015 Miami has enjoyed only two winning seasons.  And their last playoff appearance was in 2008.  They've frustrated me to no end the last two years because in each one they were in an excellent position to make the playoffs...only to choke up instead.  Will they be any better this year?  Guess we'll find out before too long...

South Division: JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS-Until 1977, I lived in South Florida.  But ever since the Jacksonville franchise came into existence I've lived the closest to that city.  I've always rooted for them unless they were playing Miami...although in recent years their mediocrity has made it often an exercise in futility.  If they finish higher than last, I'll be surprised.

North Division: BALTIMORE RAVENS-I've always admired the swarming defense of the Ravens...it reminds me of that of the Dolphins during their "No-Name Defense" era of early '70s  Super Bowl glory and the "Killer B's" of the 1982 season when they made another Super Bowl appearance.  I also feel a bit of gratitude to Baltimore for having been so kind as lose to Miami late in the 2007 regular season, giving them their only win and keeping them from going 0-16.  The Ravens are by far my favorite in this division.

West Division: SAN DIEGO CHARGERS-I can't root for Denver after it abandoned Tim Tebow right after he got them into the playoffs in 2011 for the first time in years.  I've always despised Oakland and feel neutral about Kansas City.  But I like the Chargers for their quarterback Phil Rivers.  Unfortunately, the management of this franchise has been remiss about retaining the talent around him.  Still, I'm going to pull for them when they're not playing a Florida team or the New York Giants...and I believe they have a good shot at making the playoffs this year.

NATIONAL CONFERENCE

East Division: NEW YORK GIANTS-When the Giants upset the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl capping the 2007 season...ruining the Dolphins' bitter divisional rivals' quest for a perfect record...I vowed to myself that I would begin to support them on a regular basis.  And, what do you know, they repeated the feat in 2011 against the same villains! Let's see, another four years have passed...do the Giants still have it in them? Probably not, but my gratitude hasn't diminished.  Besides, I admire their quarterback Eli Manning, and head coach Tom Coughlin has my respect going back to the Jaguars' old glory days when he led them into the playoffs soon after their inception into the league.

South Division: TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS-This is a team that should have done much better last year than 2-14...so I have high expectations for them this time around, especially after getting what could eventually be a Hall of Fame quarterback in Jameis Winston.  But high hopes abound easily before the first game is played.  They're going to have to figure out ways to keep their composure in close games in order to pull some victories "out of the hat".  Fortunately, Winston has plenty of experience in this area and seems to be a natural leader on the field.  The Bucs have the potential to be the turnaround team of the year.  Of course, I root for them primarily for one reason: they are a Florida team...and for the first 18 years I lived in Gainesville, the nearest one to me...

North Division: GREEN BAY PACKERS-I like the Packers not only for their outstanding quarterback Aaron Rodgers, but also for their tremendous fans.  I especially like the custom at Packer home games for Green Bay players, upon scoring touchdowns for their team, to go jumping into the stadium to be mass-hugged by their supporters.  It's nice to root for a team with a great shot at the championship, and the Pack fills the bill here.

West Division: SEATTLE SEAHAWKS-I followed Seattle from time to time as they were first getting used to their then-new head coach Pete Carroll.  I was impressed by Carroll's exuberance and positive attitude.  This guy has a lot of fun out there coaching his team, and his expressiveness is infectious.  So when they won their first Super Bowl a couple of years ago, I was already all aboard with the Seahawks.  They have, I believe, what it takes to make a third consecutive Super Bowl appearance...if Green Bay or Dallas don't prevent them.

As for the teams I oppose the most, let's just say that I dislike, in order of intensity: New England, Buffalo, New York Jets, New Orleans, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Denver, Oakland, Houston, and Dallas...

Just Finished Reading Isaac Asimov's Foundation and Empire

Foundation and Empire is the second book  in the late science fiction writer Isaac Asimov's Foundation series.  Originally a part of the Foundation "trilogy" back in the 1950s, Asimov wrote two more books in it during the 1980s and then added two prequels. After his death in 1992, three other sci-fi writers wrote authorized Foundation novels as well...bringing the total so far as I know it to be ten books. I happen to possess all of these books.  Unfortunately, they are buried in the  deep recesses of my garage, which I desperately need to declutter and organize.  But even if one reads all of the Foundation books, in order to understand the full context of Asimov's futuristic imaginary universe it is necessary to go through the four "Robot" (or "Spacer") novels as well as the three-part Empire series.  This begins to become apparent toward the end of the Foundation series...and although I haven't as yet read the two prequel Foundation novels, I understand that this is true for them as well...

As for Foundation and Empire,  there is little I can tell any prospective  reader without giving away the first book in the series, also titled Foundation.  In very general terms, I will say that this second book deals with the Foundation...and with the Empire...as if that wasn't obviously self-evident.  But for more than half of the book, another element enters the story...and it is this part I found to be the most compelling...especially its chief antagonist and the sly manner in which Asimov wrote him into the story.   As for the first part, I did pick up an important theme expressed within it that I myself have learned over the course of my lifetime:  if you are working for an organization, individual, or cause and are so committed and excellent with the results of your efforts that you begin to be recognized for that excellence, then your biggest opposition...as well as your eventual downfall...most likely will come from among those for whom you are so diligently striving as they will begin to perceive you as a threat to themselves.  Sounds cynical, but it has been borne out with my own experiences time and time again, sad to say...

My Running Detoured by Foot Pain

Although I would like to train up to be able to run in the upcoming half-marathon races (even possibly marathons) this fall, I have developed a nagging pain in my right foot that may just derail any substantial running for a while.  I am looking for ways to get around this problem, which involves pain that only occurs at impact, neither existing at rest nor with simple muscular exertion.  So right now I'm working at alternative forms of exercise, including getting my old dilapidated cheap-o bicycle out of the shed and riding it around the neighborhood.  I also have a portable stepper exercise contraption that I can use as a "no-impact" exercise...not to mention that I can do modified push-ups using it that serve as an alternative to abdominal crunch exercises.  And then there is also the elliptical cross-trainer machine at my local 24/7 gym.  In any event, I have to give my foot enough time to heal while avoiding aggravating whatever problem currently exists.  I haven't given up on my race plans...well, at least not in a general sense: the upcoming October events may not be feasible for me, but toward the end of the year I see no reason not to resume competition...which for me, isn't against any other runners, but rather to simply finish with reasonable times...

Just Finished Reading Sue Grafton's "P" and "Q" Mystery Novels

As I continue along with the so-called "Alphabet Mysteries" of writer Sue Grafton from "A" to "X" (her latest "letter"), I just finished reading a couple: "P" is for Peril and "Q" is for Quarry.  I was happy to discover that I hadn't read either before...sometimes I forget which books in the series I've already gone through...

In "P" is for Peril, protagonist private investigator Kinsey Millhone, a single mid-thirties California ex-cop, is hired to look into the disappearance of a woman's ex, a physician working at a senior care center.  There are all sorts of subplots involved, especially an ongoing Medicare fraud investigation at the center, the missing man's marital relationships, and his wayward daughter.  A second story in the book, intertwined with the main mystery, is Kinsey's new landlord for her office: a couple of brothers...and she has started to become romantic with the younger one.  But with them as well, a mysterious and sinister past is revealed.  Plenty of suspects to go around with this story.  I thought the ending was quite intriguing...

In "Q" is for Quarry, the panoply of suspicious characters continues as Kinsey is hired by an old police associate to team up with another ex-cop...this one retired...to investigate a cold (long unsolved) murder case: a 1969 "Jane Doe" killing involving a dumped unidentified young female corpse in a remote area.  Subplots in the story include the dire medical problems of Kinsey's police partners, as well as new information regarding her own clouded family past. At the conclusion of the book, it is revealed that author Sue Grafton had based her story on an actual cold case involving very similar circumstances...

Now I'm working on her next novel in the series, "R" is for Ricochet...

Light 2015 Atlantic Hurricane Season Entering Most Intense Phase

The 2015 Atlantic hurricane season, which has been predicted to be very light with few named storms due to cooler Atlantic waters, has so far vindicated the prognosticators.  Until just recently, there have been only three named storms, none of which have made much of an impact although two struck the U.S. mainland.  This past week, Danny followed the common Africa-to-West-Indies trans-Atlantic path, strengthening to hurricane level. But then, as it approached the Leeward Islands, it weakened and was sheared into nothing more than a rainy low pressure area.  Following Danny westward across the Atlantic, close to its path, is Erika, a much larger storm in area.  Although Erika is only a minimal tropical storm at this writing with maximum sustained winds of 45 mph, forecast models have it passing safely between two shear zones as it passes just north of the Leewards, Puerto Rico, and Hispaniola and enters the warm waters of the Bahamas.  According to the current projected path, slow-moving Erika may be approaching the east coast of Florida as a minimal hurricane by this Sunday.  Still, right now there is a huge shear zone covering the eastern Gulf of Mexico and most of the Florida peninsula that, should it remain in place, would weaken Erika if the potential hurricane makes a Floridian landfall...

I'm not too concerned about Erika possibly hitting Gainesville in north-central Florida, especially as it looks right now as if it will only make it to weak hurricane status and then probably weaken again.  But the media will probably amplify the coverage, since the tropical storms this year have been too few and far between and Erika might be the first full-fledged Atlantic hurricane in 2015 to threaten the U.S. mainland (tropical storms Ana and Bill earlier hit the Carolinas and Texas, respectively)...

Stock Market's Ten-Minute Thousand-Point Plunge This Morning

Wall Street's Dow Jones Average shocked the news world this morning as it went into a ten-minute free fall, finally leveling at a thousand points lower and scaring the bejesus (or dickens...or choose your own epithet) out of everybody. This is after Friday's loss of 531 points and right on the heels of a massive selloff in the Chinese stock market.  The prices rose back up to around down a little more that 100 points...but over the course of the afternoon, the average has crept back downward...it's 350 points at this writing.  The White House laid much of the blame for this fall at the doors of Congress, which it claims is dragging its feet at passing important fiscal legislation.  But what seems to be powering it all to me is the bursting of China's financial bubble...and their government's reevaluation of their currency...

It is too early right now to see whether this drop in the stock market is only a temporary scare like those in 1987 and 2010...or the sign of a traumatic economic downturn, as in 2008.  But the market suddenly has MY attention...

Just Finished Reading John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men

When I was in the ninth grade, my English teacher assigned John Steinbeck's novel The Pearl as a required reading.  I did not like it at all...and since then 44 years have passed until I picked up another work of his.  As it turns out, the book I finally did choose, the short 1937 novel Of Mice and Men, is another Steinbeck story that is now commonly assigned in high school.  After reading it, though, I can understand why perhaps my English teachers may have passed up on it: the language is pretty rough in places and there are some areas in it with sexual material...not necessarily something that they were ready to deal with in high school in the early 1970s...at least not as a required book...

Of Mice and Men is about two young men: the smart but uneducated George, short in stature, and his traveling and working companion, the mentally challenged near-giant Lennie.  Lennie has a fondness for petting little furry creatures like mice, but he cannot seem to handle any for any length of time without accidentally killing them with his strength, which he chronically underestimates.  Ultimately, he wants for George and him to buy a small plot of land of their own where they can live off of it and he would get to tend the rabbits.   The two are migrant farm/ranch workers on their way to a new job at a ranch in California.  Once there, they encounter problems with a bully who not only feels challenged by Lennie's size and demeanor, but also is extremely jealous about his own attractive newlywed wife, whom the men working there regard as a flirtatious "tart".  You might imagine some scenarios for trouble...and you'd be right...but since I'm not going to give away the story, you're going to have to find out what happens for yourself!

The thing that struck me the most about Of Mice and Men was how Steinbeck moved the story and revealed the personalities of the characters with extensive dialogue, keeping the narration and introspection to a minimum.  That was pretty impressive.  Another thing he did involved misdirection...leading the reader to anticipate a climactic conflict in one direction while ultimately leading into a different one...an outcome that, having finished the story and looking backward at it, seemed completely reasonable.  Steinbeck also examined racial prejudice and injustice, as well as how everyone needs to have something to believe in and dream for...and how a good, feasible dream can spread like wildfire through a dispirited group of people and revitalize them.  But perhaps most of all, he spotlighted the plight in his times of the mentally disabled and how they, especially the ones who were poor, were often misunderstood and treated unfairly.  I sometimes wonder to myself just how much better off they are today...and how much more we need to do...

Get a copy of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men: it won't take you very long to read it and it will be worth your while.  And, besides, you won't have to impress some high school English teacher with a book report after you've finished...

Gainesville and Its Coffee Shops Swell Back Up With Students' Return

Well, this is the weekend that the population in Gainesville swells back up again with its transient University of Florida student population returning (as well as a few attending Santa Fe College).  It's time once again for me to reconfigure my routes through town, especially to and from work, that have me driving through pockets of heavy student presence.  Looks like I may be taking some detours east on Waldo and Williston Roads or west on I-75 to avoid not just the University of Florida traffic, but also that of the public schools, which are also beginning. Moreover, it will again be necessary for me to keep tabs on important events taking place on campus...not because I'm planning to attend them...but rather because I'm avoiding them and the traffic emanating therefrom.  And, of course, I might as well resign myself to the fact that, starting next week, I'm more likely than not to walk into any Starbucks and not find one empty seat left: that's too bad since going out and sitting somewhere in public tends to focus my thoughts and helps me with some of my personal academic goals...

Maybe it's finally time for me to just face reality and make the big break from Starbucks...and start going to McDonalds instead.  Since I only drink regular brewed coffee, anyway,  why not save some money and go somewhere that I know will provide not only free Internet access (actually, I rarely go online except at home or on my cellphone), but also plenty of empty seats to choose from while charging much less for their coffee?  McDonalds fulfills all of these criteria, and furthermore, it isn't generally considered "cool" enough by those hipster and yuppie types who like to camp out for hours in the more highbrow coffee shops, hopelessly clogging up all of the seating along with the myriad students who use them for study halls (nothing inherently wrong with studying there...I do the same). And since I'm a working-class kind of guy, why not hang out in a working-class place like a national fast food chain?  The only problem I have with McDonalds is that sometimes they act confused when I order coffee at any time other than during breakfast hours.  Still, more often than not I get my order right away and can go on to study, read, and write to my heart's content.  And what's more, McDonalds are just about everywhere...there's even one within easy walking distance of my workplace. Yes, I suppose it's just about time for a change in venue.  I just hope that McDonalds remains "uncool" in the minds of many, especially all those pesky students... 

Just Finished Reading Finders Keepers by Stephen King

Stephen King's latest novel Finders Keepers, which I just finished reading, is the middle book in his ongoing series that began with Mr. Mercedes.  In it, a celebrated writer by the name of John Rothstein (apparently a fictional amalgam of John Updike and Philip Roth) has gone into self-imposed isolation from the world for many years as he continues his writing...but without publishing any of his works.  This proves to be problematic as one of his most renown works, the "Runner" trilogy, and which features the young American anti-hero character of Jimmy Gold, seems to trail off in the final book with a marked sense of anti-climax...as if there were more to come in the series.  But if Rothstein had written any more books in the Runner series, he's not publishing.  Enter Morris Bellamy, a deeply disturbed man who has identified so closely with the Jimmy Gold character and is so disappointed at the ending of the third book that he feels compelled to find any new books for himself...eliciting an unwelcome encounter with Rothstein at his retreat.  I'll spare you the details except to say that the story does get around to connecting itself with the previous book, Mr. Mercedes...and that its unlikely trio of protagonists...Bill Hodges, Jerome Robinson, and Holly Gibney...once again team up to set things straight.  In the midst of their endeavors, King inserts some hints as to what direction the final book in this trilogy will take...

I enjoyed Finders Keepers and found it to be better than Mr. Mercedes...unusual for the second book in a trilogy.  But what I got the most out of it was the John Rothstein character...and the real-life writers of John Updike and Philip Roth.  So much that I'm now starting to read Exit Ghost, one of Roth's more recent books, and am working to get hold of the first book in Updike's celebrated Rabbit series.  Roth, by the way, is known probably the most for his stories Goodbye Columbus and Portnoy's Complaint...

So now I await Stephen King's final installment in this series.  In the process, he joins George R.R. Martin, Daniel Abraham and Brandon Sanderson in the "club" of authors whose ongoing series I've caught up with as I patiently anticipate what's up next...

Soccer: UEFA (European) Champions League Qualifying Playoffs Underway

International professional league soccer can be downright confusing at times.  At the same time that the various leagues are going on with their regular seasons, a parallel "league" is also taking place.  In Europe, the UEFA takes the 22 top finishers of the various European leagues from the previous season...and then adds 10 more teams to comprise the 32 that will begin group stage play in a few weeks.  Those 10 teams are now being determined through a series of playoff games.  Fox Sports and Spanish-speaking Galavision are showing several of them on their different channels.  On Galavision (Gainesville Cox Channel 89) I just saw the ending of one between Celtic (of Scotland) and Malmo (of Sweden) with the former prevailing.  Right now I'm viewing the second half between Valencia (of Spain) and Monaco on Fox Sports 1 (Channel 62)...Valencia currently leads 2-1...

Since I can't watch all the various European leagues in professional soccer, this Champions League gives me the opportunity to acquaint myself with teams that I normally would not be able to follow...especially those from Spain, France, and Italy.  Also, it's fun to see how well (or poorly) some of the English (Barclay's) Premier League teams fare against their European competition...

Just Finished Reading (Again) Isaac Asimov's Novel Foundation

Foundation, originally written in serial form in the 1940s and then revised and combined into a complete book in the 1950s, in turn is the first book in a series of science fiction novels (also named "Foundation") set more than ten thousand years into the future, when a galaxy-wide empire envisioned by author Isaac Asimov is going decadent and beginning to crumble.  On its capital planet of Trantor near the galaxy's center lives Hari Seldon, a "psychohistorian" by profession.  By using intricate mathematics and principles of psychology, sociology, and history, Seldon determines that the Empire will soon dissolve and a prolonged dark age, lasting many thousands of years, will pervade the galaxy.  But he has a plan to shorten that time span, and embarks on an elaborate scheme of projects and foreseen dilemmas (which he terms "Seldon Crises") to steer humanity back on a fast-track to reunite under a new (and hopefully improved) empire.  The story thus develops with Seldon explaining his ideas to mathematician-recruit Gaal Dornick as well as to his persecutors working for the Empire.  It then jumps ahead fifty years to another situation with other characters when a Seldon Crisis forces their hand and directs them onto a path toward Seldon's goals.  These leaps of time between stories, with subsequent new characters and an accompanying Seldon Crisis in each one, continues on throughout the book.  What happens in them I leave you, the reader, to discover for yourself...

I have read the opening novel Foundation a couple of times before, but I only read the core series of five novels in its entirety once.  It had a great ending, and I recently decided to go through it once more.  There are also a couple of prequel novels Asimov wrote for it, as well as three other "Foundation" books that others wrote after his death in 1992.  Maybe I'll get around to reading them, too, but for now I'm rereading the "five"...

Next in the series is Foundation and Empire...