A Good Website for Following Political Campaign Season

Over the years, I have come to appreciate the website RealClearPolitics as I tend to follow several races for higher office...not just for president, but also for senator, representative, and governor.  This website is very consistent and faithful in publishing public opinion polls for the various races as they are issued.  This year, I am not only interested in the presidential race, poll results for which are commonly available on the televised cable news channels, but also in various state contests. In Florida, we have an open senate seat being vacated by Marco Rubio: how's that race going? In other states like Ohio, New Hampshire, Kentucky, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Wisconsin, there are important senate races as well.  You can go to RealClearPolitics and bypass the presidential polls to see the latest polls in these smaller races, as well as seeing what's going on in the gubernatorial campaigns taking place this year.  This site also features a balanced assortment of articles analyzing the current election season...

As the election season ramps up in intensity and the primary contests for each party reveal the final candidates for these various offices, you may want to occasionally partake of this website to see how things are going in the races you care about...

My April 2016 Running Report

April saw me with some health issues, especially toward the close of the month.  I missed running on the final eight days while trying to recover from a nasty, nagging upper-respiratory illness, while during the remainder of the days I was babying my right foot, which had been causing sporadic pain.  Not exactly my optimum running month!  I had numerous racing opportunities, but passed on all of them. For the entire month, I ran a total of 109 miles...

Above everything, I want to get my health back in order.  I did pass my annual cardiovascular medical tests this past Wednesday, so in that regard I have a green light to proceed with my running.  But I do want to change the setting and emphasis of my running to pleasant outdoor jogging over interesting courses instead of feeling that I have to crank out impressive numbers or participate in public races in order to justify myself.  So maybe I won't be running for very long distances in the near future as I make this change...

Four Types of Listeners

Seeing how I've lived as long as I have already and therefore feel somewhat confident that I can makes some comments about human nature, I've come up, from my own personal experiences with talking to others, with four different types of listeners.  Now, people can be any combination of these, and can also change from one type to another...but generally speaking, they usually display one of these types as their own particular personal way of listening...at least when it concerns listening to me.  The four types are, as I have coined them: sympathetic listeners, critical listeners, attention-deficit listeners, and narcissistic listeners.  Let's explore these, one-by-one...

The type of listener most valued by yours truly...as well as being the rarest of the four, is the sympathetic listener.  They will hear me out and try to discover and understand the full scope of what I am trying to impart to them...and then make a point of even remembering it!  This does not necessarily mean that they are emotionally attached to me or even like me...I see examples of sympathetic listeners on TV and radio...Larry King on his CNN interview show was of this type (at least with his guests...not the callers), as well as is late-night radio's George Noory.  If you want to people to open up to you, then you need to let them say what they want to say...and that involves giving them some time to express their thoughts while putting your judgments on at least temporary hold.  As I said, this is rare...

The critical listener is another type, one that I sadly run into far too often.  They will let me speak...at least that much is true...but then they act as if their greatest mission in life is to find holes in my rhetoric that they can expose, or that they are doing me a great favor by jumping in to offer counterarguments or worst-case scenarios.  Also, critical listeners may want to me to talk about topics other than the one I chose to discuss, and they have no problem interrupting me in mid-sentence to change the subject to the one they want to dissect.  There are too many of these types of TV and radio: three of the worst are MSNBC's Chris Matthews and Fox's Bill O'Reilly and Chris Wallace...

In spite of the fact that critical listeners annoy me to no end, at least I know they're paying attention to me...and as such I feel that, on at least some level they respect me as a fellow human being.  Besides, like it or not, it can be helpful for someone be pick apart your thoughts every now and then.  But regarding the attention-deficit listener, trying to communicate a connected thought with them that lasts more than a couple of sentences can be an exercise in futility.  And being the rather touchy, sensitive individual I have been for most of my life, I can recall many times when I renounced to myself friendship to others who had suddenly cut me off or just turned away while I was in the middle of trying to say something to them.  This type, as rude as they are, is oblivious to the disrespect they send out.  The idea with them seems to be that I am only being heard for their entertainment, and if what I'm saying doesn't immediately excite their attention, then it's time for them to immediately direct their thoughts elsewhere.  There is some similarity here with critical listeners, but whereas the former has a tendency to interrupt my train of thought, this attention-deficit type is the master of zoning out, and I have absolutely no use for them in my life.  They do worse then interrupt: they turn away...

The final type of listener is the narcissistic listener, and they are only slightly better the attention-deficit type.  Have you ever begun relating something about your own life to someone...or perhaps it was just an opinion you might have held about something, and the person you were talking to breaks in to relate how something similar to your topic tied into their personal life...and then took over the talking to make it all about themselves?  If you haven't had this experience, you are blessed, my friend...but sadly I cannot the same about myself.  I have known someone, no longer with us, with whom I spent much, much time in "conversation" over the years but realized that he never really valued anything I had to say about my own life, feelings, and thoughts...but rather that the world revolved around himself: his own vast life, with his own opinions and experiences automatically supplanting mine whenever I managed to bring up a subject on my own.  I realized after a while that my role was not to speak independently, but rather to just sit there and give the appropriate affirmation-sounds (like "uh-huh", "yes", and "you're right").  Over the span of decades, in countless conversations, I could not bring up any kind of subject without being interrupted and the talk shifting back his own monumentally important life and thoughts....implicitly relegating me to insignificance.  Sad. By the way, if you are looking for this type of listener in the media, just tune in on the radio to Michael Savage and see how often he interrupts a caller to go off on a tangent about his personal life and opinions...

If you know me, then you also know that I don't talk very much...I have let myself be wounded too many times by critical, attention-deficit, and narcissistic listeners.  Notice also that by writing my thoughts out and posting them, I can bypass these types...while anyone interested in actually knowing what I have to say can read them: ahh...finally, some communication!

One More Chance for a Race in April

As far as my running in races in April is concerned, it's been a complete washout so far, with me missing a 5K, 10K, and two half-marathons.  Not that I would have run in all of them, but I thought I would probably at least get around to one or another.  The three main reasons I missed them are my occasional right foot pain, stormy weather at racetime, and...this past weekend...me getting sick.  Well, before I completely write off this month, I checked out whether there were any Gainesville-area races coming up this Saturday, the 30th.  I was pleased to discover a 5K race being held at Boulware Springs Park in southeast Gainesville, most likely utilizing the Hawthorne Trail as a race course.  It is called the EHS STAR Autism Research 5K...the title's acronym is "Eastside High School Students Together for Autism Research".  I'm still recuperating from this viral attack, but should be sufficiently recovered and "back on track" by then to run in it.  Which I'm inclined to do, as long as I pass my annual medical tests this coming Wednesday, that is...

Thoughts About Prince After His Passing

I had just written and posted last Thursday morning a second blog article about David Bowie, who had passed away back in January, when the TV cable news channel I was tuned in to broke in to announce the passing of American pop/rock legend Prince.  It's still unclear what caused his death...the autopsy has already been performed but toxicology results may be much slower in coming.  Regardless, it is a tragedy that he died...and (at least for me) at such a young age: 57.  Over his career, Prince produced an phenomenal number of studio albums...39...but like many other artists he is best known for his earlier works: with him it was in the 1980s...

As was the case with Bowie after his death, I find myself relatively ignorant of Prince's music other than the singles he released that became such big hits.  I generally liked his songs, Raspberry Beret being my favorite of his with Let's Go Crazy and Kiss close behind.  Prince was a product of the newly burgeoning music video industry in the early eighties...I first saw his videos (Little Red Corvette and 1999) on the Turner Broadcasting System music video show that, in mid-1983, would go on for hours on the weekend.  So it's not surprising that this showy performer would make a semi-autobiographical film...Purple Rain...in 1984.  I've tried watching it lately and I'm sorry to say that it's just a little too difficult to digest.  But, hey, I'm happy for him for being so successful with it back then...

I'm hearing all of these accolades for Prince with people commonly referring to him as a musical genius.  It makes me want to do what I'm currently doing with Bowie's discography: investigating this artist's body of work over his career.  But 39 albums? Whew, that'll be some task if I decide to do it...

At one point in his career, Prince had a conflict with his recording label and changed his name to a symbol...the designation he would allow himself to be referred to was "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince".  When he decided to go back to "Prince", I would jokingly call him "The Artist Formerly Known as the Artist Formerly Known as Prince".  Maybe that sounds disrespectful of him considering his passing, but it did strike me that he had a tremendous sense of humor and would have understood...

Maybe I'm just getting old and all of these "elders" in pop, rock, and country are just finally succumbing to the same afflictions when they age as the population at large, but it still feels as if there are way too many people dying recently.  What do you think? 

Just Finished Reading The Spider's War by Daniel Abraham

I have been reading Daniel Abraham's fantasy series titled The Dagger and the Coin during the previous few months, but had managed to catch up with the author's progress in writing this quality work and had to wait a while until he released the fifth and final volume, titled  The Spider's War...

In the fantasy world setting of The Dagger and the Coin, humanity owes its existence and its several vastly different forms to ancient, highly intelligent dragons, who ruled this world and regarded humans as their slaves.  After a war that all but destroyed these dragons, humanity was left to its own devices and, for thousands of years, formed nations, royalty and class distinctions, engaged in wars...you know, much like our own "real" world.  The series concerns itself in a sly manner about the question of which is ultimately more powerful: brute force (the "dagger") or the system of finance (the "coin").  Two of the main protagonists are a young woman named Cithrin, brought up in the world of banking, and her friend and partner Marcus, who only knew war and fighting as a means to victory and survival.  Together, along with other characters such as Clara, a widowed noblewoman and Kit, an apostate priest of a sinister order bent on dominating the world, the "heroes" struggle to regain the world from a perpetual war fomented by that order, which uses an unstable character named Geder as their political puppet...

As does Daniel Abraham's friend and colleague George R.R. Martin (who has lavished heavy praise on this series) in his "Game of Thrones" The Song of Ice and Fire series, each chapter in the books presents a part of the developing story from the viewpoint of various characters...I find this to be a very effective way of writing fiction.  As is the case with almost any fiction I read, I tend to judge works based on how deeply and compelling (and believable) the characters are.  And the author has done a masterful job here...

I liked how Daniel Abraham concluded The Spider's War, and consequently, the Dagger and the Coin series.  Also, he seems to have left an opening at the end that just might indicate that he is thinking about a follow-up series.  There are no television or movie adaptations that I know of in the works for The Dagger and the Coin...but after seeing how they are mangling Lev Grossman's Magicians trilogy on the Sy Fy Channel, I'm not sure I'd want to see this series portrayed on the screen...

Gainesville and Vicinity Affected by U.S. House Redistricting

The court-ordered redistricting in Florida for the United States House of Representatives has, at least on the surface when looking at the new borders on a state map, drastically altered the representation in northern Florida.  In Gainesville, that part of the gerrymandered 5th District that Democrat Corrine Brown has represented underwent the most draconian change, having shifted from its generally north-south Jacksonville-east Gainesville-Orlando orientation to an east-west district stretching westward from Jacksonville (the only part of the earlier district remaining intact) along the Georgia-Florida border, cutting into Tallahassee, and ending on the other side in Gadsden County.  Brown is understandably upset with all this as most of her constituents are going to be in a different district and she would have to court a new population for reelection.  As for the rest of Gainesville, in which I reside, teabagger Republican Ted Yoho's 3rd District will remain, but has also drastically changed by now encompassing all of Alachua County and shifting eastward and southward to now include parts of Ocala and Palatka.  It will be a little more liberal than before, but if Yoho, not very well liked in his own party, can get past the primary stage, then he should still have little trouble being reelected.  The rest of Yoho's old district, that vast area west of Alachua County and including some friends of mine living in Levy, Gilchrist, and Dixie Counties, has been reassigned to District 2...which stretches westward all the way into the state's panhandle, even including Panama City and extending northward to the Alabama border.  It should continue to be very, very conservative politically...

Brown went to court to challenge the revision of the congressional map as it pertained to her own district, but just recently received an unfavorable ruling.  And it's still highly unlikely that I will be represented by a Democrat anytime soon, while my memories of the period from 1993 to 2003, when Karen Thurmond was my representative, recede even further into the past.  It should be interesting to see how the various incumbents handle the redrawing of our districts in the upcoming primary and general elections...

Discovering David Bowie's Vast Legacy of Music

In my January 11 article this year, I paid tribute to rock music legend David Bowie, who had passed away, at age 69, the previous day after suffering through cancer.  Everything in that article still stands, except for the statement I made that his song Changes, which I loved, said it all.  Turns out I was wrong about that, for Mr. Bowie has left a vast legacy of interesting music over the years, and has had quite a lot of things to say...

It was late one night a few weeks ago and I was channel surfing TV, my remote finally resting on Palladia, a fantastic channel oriented to music performances (in Gainesville it's on Cox Channel 1098).  A tribute show to David Bowie was ending, and at its conclusion they played his video to Blackstar, the title track to his final studio album...released just before his death.  Full of mysterious symbolism, the Blackstar video, along with the music and lyrics of the song itself, sparked my interest in further investigating Bowie's career as a recording artist.  By the way, Blackstar is currently by far my favorite song of 2016, but you might need to set aside a little time to hear this ten minute long masterpiece...I also suggest that you listen to the song without the video since its lyrics seem to carry an entirely different meaning from the visual presentation...

Beginning in 1967 with his eponymous debut album and concluding with 2016's Blackstar, David Bowie recorded 27 studio albums.  I have been listening to 13 of them and am trying to get hold of some of the remaining in order to get a better sense of this extraordinary artist.  Each album has its own characteristic personality, and as is the case with any other musical act, I like some songs while thinking a bit less of others.  But I have yet to listen to a David Bowie album that doesn't contain at least a few really good tracks.  So far I've been listening to the following: Space Oddity, The Man Who Sold the World, Hunky Dory, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, Diamond Dogs, Young Americans, Station to Station, Low, Lodger, Heathen, Reality, The Next Day, and Blackstar. If you know the chronology of these albums, you'll discover that I have most of his early works and the last four he recorded...but I still completely lack the albums he made in the eighties and nineties. So there's still a big gap as far as the span of Bowie's musical expression is concerned, although I know well his singles hits from the eighties...

Of the albums I have listened to so far, my favorites are The Man Who Sold the World and Blackstar.  Unlike so many other musicians, be they solo or group projects, whose quality of output suffers over the decades, David Bowie maintained his high standards up to the very end.  I can't yet say at this point of time that he is up there with my all-time favorite acts (such as the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Regina Spektor, or Radiohead), but I can say that his music over the years is very listenable and a lot of it is excellent...

Hero Worship Deserves No Place in American Politics

The above title pretty much says it all: hero worship deserves no place in American politics.  When I hear someone getting downright giddy at the sound of a candidate's name while demonizing his or her opponents for no other reason than for having the nerve to run against their idol, it frankly creeps me out.  I'm afraid that this was the case with President Obama's two successful elections in 2008 and 2012.  I supported him in both years, but I went into it all knowing that he was a fallible human being like the rest of us, not a savior or know-it-all guru as some seem to have concluded.  Of course, if you were against him, he just might have been the devil incarnate as far as you were concerned...that, in a way, is also a form of worship, but it's villain worship instead of hero worship.  This 2016 presidential campaign, which began in earnest a year ago (much, much too early), has its own "heroes" that voters have placed high on pedestals in their minds, in my opinion emotionally bonding with them to a level that I find ridiculous and a little bit frightening.  Each party has one of them: the Republicans with Donald Trump and the Democrats with Bernie Sanders.  It disturbs me to see at their campaign rallies masses of fanatics who seem to have thrown away their own capacity to critically think for themselves in favor of riding on every word that comes out of their hero's mouth.  Not that all Trump or Sanders supporters are like this...remember I supported Obama but was capable of viewing him critically...but I can see a trend, and these two candidates give me pause...

You see, in American politics after all the voting is finished and the elected politicians begin their job of governing, you just might discover that the Presidency isn't the only game in town. We have a national Congress with a 100-member Senate and a 435-member House of Representatives, as well as state governors with their cabinets along with state and local legislatures.  But if you're a hero worshiper who just sees your one candidate as the be-all and end-all of everything, then you might well ignore all of these other crucial offices while you're floating high in the clouds, enamored with your guy.  And that's a big problem when whoever does get elected as the president needs elected officials from his or her own party to support the needed policies.  Trump and Sanders say they'll fix this or that problem, but in reality...in this American representative democracy...it takes a lot more than electing a charismatic chatterbox to get things done.  And that means supporting whichever party, to whose philosophy you most strongly subscribe, in all of those other important elections, especially for senator, representative, governor, and the like.  And Trump and Sanders are doing little or nothing to help out their parties with this important facet of the upcoming election.  I suspect that, if one of them does get elected, than many of those who voted for him will sit out future off-year elections in which he is not directly involved (this sadly happened with the off-year elections during Obama's administration).  And if they likewise lose their nominations, in Trump's case most likely to Ted Cruz and in Sander's to Hillary Clinton, then many of their supporters will angrily "pick up their toys and go home"...helping to ensure the general election defeat of the very party that would have more strongly supported their views on the issues...

Governor Scott's Gainesville Starbucks Incident Revisited

I wrote a few days ago about a verbal altercation that recently took place in the downtown Gainesville Starbucks between Florida Governor Rick Scott, who was at the counter to order something, and a woman "customer" seated facing the counter.  They went back and forth arguing about a bill that Scott had signed into law prohibiting Medicaid funds for being used in women's health care that is provided by Planned Parenthood.  Finally, the woman, who turns out to be a self-avowed anarchist, called the governor something profane...eventually he and his accompanying group decided enough was enough and they left.  Later, after it was discovered that most of this exchange had been video recorded and had become viral on the Internet, Scott's office released his own video with the aim of refuting the woman's arguments and making her look pathetic...so why am I still talking about this?

The protester, whose name is Cara Jennings, like I said, is an anarchist by personal conviction who has done this "yelling" kind of disruption in the past.  She disclosed this in an interview published in The Gainesville Iguana, a left wing magazine.  It is obvious that Ms. Jennings has been enjoying her fifteen minutes of fame and has attracted supporters of her views and tactics.  Jordan MacKenzie, a columnist in the Independent Florida Alligator, is one of these and opined that shouting at Governor Scott in public is just about the only option left, since he seems to be unresponsive to petitions and the like.  I, on the other hand, maintain that Rick Scott is behaving as Florida's governor exactly as he said he would, and he has been elected twice to that office...the fact that I disagree with much of what he does won't change anything.  The correct way to handle this would have been to never have elected him in the first place, which would have been a probable outcome had thousands upon thousands of Floridians who had voted for Obama for president not sat out the gubernatorial election because they didn't feel motivated...after all, the "hero" they idolized wasn't on the ballot...

Finally, looking at that Starbucks video, I never did see any sign of a drink or evidence that Jennings was a paying customer...maybe I'm mistaken about that.  But it does bring to mind how many times I've walked into a Starbucks, intending to sit down somewhere with my coffee, only to walk right back out when I see no seats available.  And I've noticed that a small minority of people who use places like Starbucks as a study hall don't seem to ever buy anything...

2016 NBA Playoffs Begin Today

The sixteen teams that made the National Basketball Association championship playoffs this 2015-16 season begin their first rounds of play this weekend, with four games today and four tomorrow.  I've already seen the Eastern Conference's 7th-seed Indiana handle 2nd-seed Toronto on the road, on the strength of a strong second half performance from their star Paul George.  The other Eastern Conference game remaining today will start soon, and it should be fun to watch: 4th-seed Atlanta against 5th-seed Boston.  I just finished watching the opening game in the Western Conference series between top-seeded Golden State and 8th-seed Houston, with the Warriors winning easily.  But their MVP guard Steph Curry hurt his foot late in the second quarter...will he fully recover for the next game?  And later tonight will be the 3rd-seed Oklahoma City Thunder, coached by former Florida Gator legend Billy Donovan, against 6th-seed Dallas.  Tomorrow will feature, in the East, #1-seed Cleveland against 8th-seed Detroit and 3rd-seed Miami against 6th-seed Charlotte...while in the West, it'll be 2nd-seed San Antonio against 7th-seed Memphis and 4th-seed Los Angeles Clippers vs. 5th-seed Portland...

I pick Cleveland to eventually face Golden State in a rematch for the league championship, but that's not where my preferences lie.  In numerical order of those preferences, here are how much I like (or dislike) the teams in this year's playoffs:

1-San Antonio
2-Miami
3-Atlanta
4-Dallas
5-Memphis
6-Indiana
7-Boston
8-Oklahoma City
9-Clippers
10-Golden State
11-Toronto
12-Charlotte
13-Portland
14-Detroit
15-Houston
16-Cleveland

Of the above, I highly prefer the Spurs and Heat over everybody else...wouldn't it be great if they shocked the "experts" and won their respective conference titles instead of the Cavaliers and Warriors? Well, at this stage in the playoffs I can hope with reckless abandon...

Alachua County Friends of the Library Sale Begins Tomorrow

Every six months, in April and October, I (and, lately, my son) have been going to the Alachua County Friends of the Library book and media sale here in Gainesville, on the 400 block (west side) of North Main Street.  Tomorrow at 9 am, the doors will once again open and the book hoarders will rush in with their empty boxes, furnishing quite a sight inside this warehouse of used books, records, DVDs, CDs, and puzzles.  Being something of a jigsaw puzzle enthusiast from early childhood, I'm planning to pick up at least a couple of inexpensive puzzles...with the understanding that, being already used by someone else, there's a reasonable chance of there being some missing pieces in them.  As for browsing the enormous collection of books, it is nearly impossible to make one's way through the thick crowd of jostling customers in order to systematically search the tables...the books are separated by genre, but beyond that are displayed in no particular order.  Still, I usually come out of the distasteful experience (I think I'm allergic to crowds) with at least two or three cheap books...although I have yet to read some of the ones I've bought from past sales...

I'll have to ask Will if he wants to go to the sale again.  I dislike getting there when it opens at 9 because there is an extremely long line of prospective customers that goes down Main Street and hooks around the next avenue.  No, if I go tomorrow (and the sale lasts through Wednesday) I'll wait at least until 10 before performing this semiannual ritual...

Sports Story of the Year: Leicester City

How can I say that Leicester City is the sports story of the year, especially when tonight the National Basketball Association's Golden State Warriors can become the single-season winningest regular-season team, achieving a 73-9 record if they can defeat Memphis at home?  Well, first I might explain to you insulated Americans exactly what IS Leicester City and what has transpired in the last three years...

The Leicester City Foxes (Leicester is pronounced "lester") are a soccer team in England's Premier League, widely considered as one of the top three or four leagues in the world.  Each year the 20 teams in this league play each other twice to complete a 38-match regular season, starting in the late summer and concluding the following spring, at which point the team with the best record wins the championship outright, with no playoffs.  Also, the three worst-finishing teams each year are relegated (or demoted) to the next lower league, called the Football League Championship, for the following season while that league's top three finishers are then promoted to the Premier League.  Got all that?

In the 2013-14 season, Leicester City was in that lower-tier Championship league and ran away with the title, looking forward to playing in the Premier League the following year.  But in 2014-15 they got off to a horrendous start and were mired deeply in last (20th) place in April 2015, with just a few games left and little or no hope of escaping relegation back to their previous, lower league.  Then suddenly, out of the blue they caught fire at the end of the season, winning seven games and moving up enough in the standings to be able to stay in the Premier League.  Before this year, many thought that they would continue to improve to the point where they might be good enough to finish in the middle of the standings.  However...

From the start of the 2015-16 Premier League season Leicester City, listed by oddsmakers as a 5000-1 longshot to win the title, shot to the top of the league.  Initially they had a high-powered offense led by the prolific scoring of their striker, forward Jamie Vardy.  But as the season wore on and the offense would sputter from time to time, this team's defense rose to the occasion and have, of late, been impossible to score on...they've won 5 straight matches, all of them shutouts.  Leicester City is currently 7 points ahead of second-place Tottenham (also a surprisingly overachieving team), with only 5 matches left.  Now a team will accrue 3 points for a win, 1 for a draw, and 0 for a loss.  So Tottenham still has a chance to catch up and take the title from the Foxes, which would be a major story in itself.  But should Leicester City hold on to the league's number one spot all the way to the end, it would dwarf in scope what the Mets in baseball did in 1969 when they won the World Series or the Jets winning football's Super Bowl earlier that year...

The Starbucks Encounter Between Governor Scott and the Protester

Last week our Florida governor, Republican Rick Scott, paid a visit with his entourage to the downtown Gainesville Starbucks.  While he was at the counter to place his order, a young woman who was seated facing the counter began to yell at him, complaining that a policy of his had cut needed funding in some area with which she was concerned.  After seeing that this person would not give the governor any peace in this situation, he and his group quietly turned around and left the store.  As it turned out, someone made a video of the incident with their smartphone and it became viral on the Internet.  Facebook even featured it.  Then, a few days later, the governor's office released its own video on YouTube, belittling the protester's position while depicting her as someone with a problem (with negative connotations) and boasting that almost anyone who wanted a job in Gainesville was successful and everybody should be happy...

Well, when I first heard the story on the radio last week, I wondered which Starbucks it was...was it the one at Magnolia Parke I frequent the most?  No, alas, it was the one where it's so doggone difficult to find a parking place...unless you're the governor, of course.  I personally don't care for Rick Scott and dislike his ideologically-based method of governing.  That having been said, he is our (twice) duly-elected governor and, as such, deserves to be treated with respect if for nothing more than for the office he holds.  Were I there at that Starbucks, I would have probably greeted him and been polite...or just minded my own business.  Look, folks, I know many of you despise Scott...but how many of you actually went to the polls to vote for his worthy opponents, Alex Sink and Charlie Crist,  in 2010 and 2014 respectively?  I ask that because of the discrepancy in Florida voter turnout between presidential and off-year elections (Florida elects its governors between presidential elections).  In 2008, when Obama won Florida, the voter turnout was 64%.  Two years later,when Scott won over Sink for his first term, it had diminished to 48% and he won by only 1%.  Then, in 2012 Obama once again won Florida with 64% turnout.  Guess what happened two years later...Scott beat Crist for his second term again by only 1%...and the voter turnout had gone down to 42%...

I have a big problem with the folks in this year's presidential campaign who feel they have to follow a "hero" in order to feel motivated to get off their butts and vote in an election. I'm especially thinking about candidates like Trump and Sanders who have their own fanatical followers.  Obama was like this to an extent as well.  But many of these voters, if their guy isn't on the ballot, won't go and vote in elections that are nearly as important to them as the one which features their idol.  And that's just plain stupid... 

As for Scott's retaliatory video criticizing the protester and playing up his own accomplishments, I would find it difficult to understand the motive for making it with the governor almost midway through his second and final term in office...unless, of course, he was campaigning to be put on Donald Trump's ticket as running mate in the general presidential election.   And putting down women is obviously something that he feels will ingratiate himself with the Donald...

Went Boating With Friends Yesterday

Yesterday our friends Richard and Kelly invited Melissa and me to join them on their boat, going up the St. John's River (which is actually southward).  Their marina, the launch and return point of our excursion, is on the river's east bank in Satsuma, a small community in eastern Putnam County.  We went a few miles up river, with thick forests on its west side and numerous homes, apartments, and docks on the east.  Along the way we encountered several osprey nests, rising high above water in the center of the river, built at the top of man-made markers.  The parent ospreys were very protective of their nests, which at this time of year were full of their young offspring...our passing by didn't exactly please them as they hovered about and threatened to buzz us.  Eventually we made our way to where the Ocklawaha River empties into the St. John's and veered to the right.  At this point we encountered numerous manatees, who seemed naturally curious about our boat and its occupants.  One of them got very close to Melissa as she was leaning over the edge, and it gave her a friendly snort with its muzzle sticking out of the water as it looked at her.  Richard piloted the boat very carefully and skillfully around these gentle and noble beasts...unfortunately, we saw several other crafts that whizzed by without any apparent regard for the wildlife around them.  After hanging around the mouth of the Ocklawaha for a while among the manatees, we made our way up that river, whose flow has been greatly stemmed since the construction of the Rodman Dam in 1971 that created a reservoir behind it.  Going up the Ocklawaha River for a few miles was marked by many sharp meanderings, and we were surrounded by wilderness...much different from our St. John's River experience and probably a lot different from the Ocklawaha on the other side of that dam...

After we made our way back to the marina, we all went to a seafood restaurant, called "Shrimp R Us and More", which is in the small town of Welaka...incidentally, also situated on the St. John's River just opposite of where the Oklawaha empties into it (and where we encountered the manatees).  The food and service there was top-notch, with generous portions of shrimp for the price...and I was happy to be able to order cheesy grits, one of my favorites, as a side dish...

As you can see from the photos, the weather couldn't have been better for our trip...I only regret that during our close encounter with that manatee I got lost in the moment and forgot to take a picture, although in another I've posted you can see a couple of them breaking the water's surface in the distance.  Richard and Kelly were wonderful and thoughtful, and we deeply appreciate having been able to spend some very enjoyable hours with them yesterday...

My Blog Nine Years Old Today

Two thousand eight hundred eighteen posts later, this blog of mine today celebrates nine years of existence.  In it over the years I've discussed items of interest to me, with the topics differing from day to day.  Music, politics, philosophy, language, society, news, sports, weather, running, holidays/anniversaries, history, astronomy, idle speculation, education, health, memories, books I've read, television, movies...these are the general areas I've explored.  But mostly, this blog has served me as a kind of personal discipline to write consistently and make it available for public inspection.  For the first few years of my blog, personal blogs were very popular on the Internet...but then Facebook entered the scene and I noticed that folks were using that application more or less to replace blogging.  In 2013, although I had already been on Facebook without actually participating in it, I finally decided to put links to my blog articles on my Facebook page.  This brought about an increase in my readership, but something was lacking: the random reader, whoever he or she may be and wherever in the world they may happen to live, who might come across an article I wrote by means of a topic-based web search.  That happened often in the early years of this blog, but only rarely after Facebook essentially took over social media...

Twitter is another popular outlet for writing in social media, but it seems to be more useful for me as a tool for following the news and the news-makers than for others to access me and my blog as followers.  Maybe I should conjure up some strategies for getting more Twitter followers...

Musing on Anger After Watching Baseball Game

During Sunday's season-opening game between baseball's Tampa Bay and Toronto, Rays first baseman Logan Morrison was up at bat against Blue Jays pitcher Marcus Stroman.  Morrison hit himself out, and was running back to his team's dugout when he heard Stroman yelling some not very kind words.  Thinking that the Toronto pitcher was aiming his epithets at him, Morrison became very angry and began to yell back.  Then Stroman, realizing what had happened, walked off the mound in Morrison's direction with his arms held wide in an expression of innocence.  You see, Marcus Stroman, who by all accounts is a pretty decent guy...including being a good friend of Tampa Bay ace pitcher Chris Archer (against whom he was pitching Sunday), nevertheless has this habit of angrily and loudly talking to himself when on the pitcher's mound.  Evidently he was unhappy with the pitch he had delivered to Morrison, even though it eventually resulted in a putout.  That having been said...

It is human, very human, to get angry...and with that anger often comes an unpleasant public expression thereof.  The problem with this is twofold: one, as in the case with Stroman and Morrison, the focus of that anger can be misinterpreted, leading to unintended consequences.  Two, experiencing another's anger, even when one intellectually knows that it isn't directed at them, can cause unconscious internal turmoil and reactions.  I experienced this recently during a meeting where the speaker went on and on angrily railing and cursing at a group of people.  Although I was not one of the "targets" of his wrath, I came away from that meeting feeling resentful at that speaker anyway, as if he had been speaking directly to me...

I'm not immune from displaying anger at times...maybe you're better at holding it in than me.  But I also believe that occasional anger can be a symptom of a greater virtue: caring, and such anger is a natural reaction to the times when the people (including myself) or things about which I care disappoint me.  The trick is in anger's expression: it should either remain unheard and unseen by others or appropriately worded and intoned toward the intended party.  Easier said than done, though...

Rereading Lev Grossman's Magician Trilogy

When I discovered a few weeks ago that the television adaptation of Lev Grossman's Magician trilogy would be airing on the Syfy Channel (Cox Gainesville channel 51), I was very interested in seeing, not only how the book's characters and imagery would appear on the screen, but also how faithful the story was to Grossman's writing.  After watching the first three episodes, I couldn't bear it any longer and abandoned the TV series: it diverged so much from the books that I eventually couldn't recognize my all-time favorite written fantasy series.  Along with my rejection of the television version of Magicians, I decided to read, for the third time, this excellent series.  And after just getting through the first book, simply titled The Magicians, my suspicions about the Syfy Channel production were completely confirmed.  If you're watching it and liking it, then that's great...but don't walk away from your boob tube experience thinking that it is the same as the original books...it isn't...

Just Finished Reading The Magician by W. Somerset Maugham

The British fiction writer W. Somerset Maugham, reportedly very popular in his time of the early twentieth century, is probably best known for his novels Of Human Bondage and The Razor's Edge.  He wrote many other stories, and I just finished reading one of them: The Magician, from 1908...

The Magician is the tale of an engaged couple, Arthur Burdon and Margaret Dauncey, who meet a sinister character by the name of Oliver Haddo.  Haddo is reputedly a magician by profession, but our interpretation of that designation most likely diverges greatly from his.  Haddo would more appropriately be called a combination occultist and mad scientist.  He antagonizes both Arthur and Margaret, and after the former punches him out for cruelly kicking their friend's pet dog, the villain plots his revenge, working through the world of the occult to take over Margaret's mind and steal her away from her fiancé.  Haddo,  however, has a much more evil intent with his actions...I did mention, didn't I, that he is also a mad scientist...

The Magician, while starting off harmlessly enough, evolves into a gothic horror story, reminiscent of those later written by H.P. Lovecraft...and one of the scenes reads eerily like one in Stephen King's recent novel Revival.  It isn't terribly long, so even if you don't like it you haven't wasted much of your time.  I didn't especially like any of the characters in this story, and that can be a big problem...at least for me as a reader of fiction.  It wasn't one of my favorite books, but I'm not going to condemn the author...instead I think I'll look into some of his other, more popular works...

Major League Baseball Regular Season Starts Today

The 2016 edition of Major League Baseball begins in earnest today with three opening-day games: St. Louis @ Pittsburgh, Toronto @ Tampa Bay, and New York Mets @ Kansas City (a World Series rematch). The three games are all in the afternoon and will be broadcast on either ESPN or ESPN2.  Interestingly enough, the regular season "day one" overlaps the conclusion of spring training, as the Chicago Cubs will be playing the Los Angeles Angels in an exhibition game today...

It always amazes me how different my two favorite televised sports, soccer and baseball, are from each other.  With soccer, the action is more or less continuous: even with the occasional interruption in play, the game clock continues to run.  If I walk away from the game for even just a few seconds, I carry the risk of missing a crucial play, as I have learned a few times already.  With baseball, on the other hand, it seems that, oh, about 99% of the time, nothing at all is happening...its just the pitcher standing there fidgeting around on the mound while glaring at the hitter and catcher. Ultimately, when the pitch is finally thrown... for maybe a couple of seconds...there is actually some action.  And if the batter then manages to make contact with the ball, we're treated with a few seconds more of play before the inactivity settles back into dominance.  And I'm not even talking about the breaks between innings or the interminable managerial walks to the mound that extend the non-playing time even further.  Yes, with baseball it's very easy for one to go about one's own business without missing very much.  Maybe that's one reason why I like having it on...

As for the teams I follow in Major League Baseball, I predictably support the Florida teams: Miami in the National League and Tampa Bay in the American.  Secondarily, I've also traditionally rooted for the New York Yankees, Atlanta Braves, and San Francisco Giants.  Other than that, though, I'm quite content simply sitting back and watching a game, even if I don't particularly care about the outcome...

I am at a loss to predict which teams will do well this year and which ones will tank.  I do believe that both Florida teams, especially those Marlins down south, have the potential to possibly make the postseason playoffs if they can manage to avoid debilitating injuries to key players.   But win or lose, it's going to be fun following baseball this season...

My March 2016 Running Report

This past month I ran a total of 133 miles, with my longest single run being for the 6.2 miles I ran on March 12 in the Run for Haven 10K held in Tioga, a short distance west of Gainesville.  I felt good in that race, although I deliberately kept the pace slow.  Unfortunately, my right foot has been giving me trouble this month and I had to lay off the running for the following five days.  Since then I've gradually built my running back up...I ended up running on a total of 25 days in March.  As for that Run for Haven event, I had an issue with the timers there and had sent an e-mail to them...getting a prompt acknowledgement of my request and a return request for my patience with its processing.  Since then I've heard nothing from them...I sometimes wonder, with these not-for-profit events that emphasize the altruistic motivations behind them, whether the organizers truly feel accountable toward those, like me, who paid the entry fee and expect a certain standard of quality from them.  I am not at all satisfied with the attitude I'm getting here.  Needless to say, as of this writing I have no intention of ever participating in any future Run for Haven race...

In April there will be numerous opportunities for me to run in local races should I decide to do so.  April 2 has a 5K run in a wooded park off Waldo Road.  On April 9 there is a 5K/10K event that is supposed to help Syrian refugees.  And on the 16th and 24th there will be half-marathons held in the general area.  Whether or not I run in any or all of them depends largely on how well I feel I've recovered from my foot pain...

My New Rule for Hired Political Spin Doctors on TV

General Electric, or G.E., as it is commonly known, has recently been showing a series of interesting and compelling TV commercials.  In them a young man, recently graduated from college, gets himself hired by the company and tries to explain what he'll be doing there to family and friends...with hilarious results.  You see, everyone has an old-fashioned view of G.E. as a twentieth-century manufacturer, but nowadays it is heavily into software and the digital age.  Our new recruit has a fulfilling job with his computer skills, and the latest commercial has him and his colleagues confronted, in their office, with two people rushing in promoting others wanting to work there.  These hired "spin doctors", while reciting their poetic-sounding lines, are costumed and made-up, one as an ogre and the other as an elf or leprechaun.  The message is clear: working at G.E. is now so attractive that people are resorting to all kinds of tactics to get in...including employing others to put on an entertaining show. Which gave me pause...

I don't know about you, but I am tired of watching these cable news channels with their endless political discussions during this 2016 presidential campaign season.  Tired because, whether you're talking CNN, Fox, or MSNBC, the tendency is to get professional spin doctors supporting the various candidates to appear on the air...and then you get the same old packaged nonsense with people talking past each other and continually interrupting.  My proposal is for a "new rule": go ahead and air all of those "spinners" like usual, but with a new provision: they all have to be elaborately dressed up like fantasy characters!  Because, like that G.E. commercial, these people don't provide anything "real" or substantial to the discussion...let their appearance underscore that obvious fact...

Final Four Set in NCAA Men's Basketball

This weekend the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship Tournament finally whittled the field down from the initial 68 teams to the Final Four.  The four games from Saturday and Sunday varied widely in their results, with #1 seed North Carolina pulling away from their fellow ACC opponent (at least in basketball) Notre Dame and #10 seed Syracuse coming back late in their game from way behind to defeat Virginia, also seeded #1 in their respective region.  Some in the sports media had criticized the NCAA tournament selection committee for snubbing other schools in favor of including Syracuse, but it turns out that the Orangemen were a good pick in spite of their relatively mediocre regular season.  In the other regional finals, it was #2 beating #1 in both games: Oklahoma over Oregon and Villanova over Kansas.  So the setup for the Final Four, the semifinals for which will be on Saturday, April 2 and broadcast on TBS,  pairs Oklahoma against Villanova (6 pm start) and North Carolina against Syracuse (40 minutes after the conclusion of the first game).  Game site for the Final Four, which will conclude the following Monday with the championship game, is Houston, Texas...

As for the teams I'm rooting for (or against), here is the order of my preference:

1 North Carolina
2 Villanova
3 Syracuse
4 Oklahoma

I traditionally support the Tarheels, so it's been a treat to see them advance this far...and by all accounts, with Kansas and Virginia eliminated, they should be the strong favorite to win it all...

Now, Subjectively Speaking

In 1976, rock star Steve Miller came out with a song, one of my favorites, called Fly Like an Eagle.  Throughout it he repeats the words "Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping...into the future". From the first time I heard it, it occurred to me that "time" could either be thought of as slipping into the future, the past...or neither...

If you think of the "now" as a point in time...in which all of the living reside...it does seem, in a way, that what we regard as future times are being approached by the "now". So in ol' Steve's hit record, if you replaced "time" with "the now", then his words would ring true...kind of.  Let's say it's 10:00 and I'm looking ahead to 10:05.  It does look like the present is aimed at the future and is approaching it, with the temporal distance decreasing in minutes from 5 to 4,3,2,1...and then passing through the "now" into the past.  In THIS way of looking at it, then, time seems to be moving backward, from the future into the past.  I remember many times in my life, mostly when I was young, looking ahead to future events and wondering what I and the world would be like then.  But those times would come and go, and now they are in the past. And looking at it all yet another way, since we all live in the present "now", this by definition can be neither the past nor the future...the notion of time slipping in any direction is an illusion.  Or is it?

I believe that the common confusion that arises when people think about time, especially the concepts of "past", "now", and "future", is largely due to the two often incongruent realities we live in.  Yes, we live in two realities: subjective reality and objective reality...

Subjective reality is the universe from our own personal, individual viewpoints and objective realty is the composite universe in all of its detail, without any special regard to our own individual place in it. To give a very simple example, one might subjectively look down a long, straight path and see its edges approach until they meet at the horizon while, while objectively speaking it would have been learned that, the path continues to that distance without any narrowing of those essentially parallel edges.  Infants and little children see things overwhelmingly subjectively: brain development, education and upbringing teach them to see things in a more objective light...but it can cause conflicts...

The concept of "now" has no place within objective reality, nor apparently does the "flow" of time.  Physicists have discovered that the so-called "direction" of time makes no difference in any of their formulations about the nature of reality, i.e. "objective" reality...well, that's at least what they told me on the Science Channel!  "Now" is only relevant in terms of subjective reality, which is the world as experienced from one's vantage point. "Past" and "future" likewise are subjective concepts since they are based on events happening either before or after "now", respectively. Furthermore, "now"...since it is subjective and not objective in nature...is a personal concept and isn't the same from one individual to another.  This resonates with established physics as well, as it has been demonstrated that the concept of simultaneity has no absolute meaning, at least scientifically. To think that there is a universal, same "now" would imply that everywhere at that instant a set pattern of event happens throughout the universe...but it all depends on one's perspective in determining simultaneous events...

I fear I might have completely confused you with this metaphysical rant, but these types of ideas...the nature of time and the two types of reality...thoroughly interest me.  And since the whole point of this blog is for me to write about interesting things (from my own subjective viewpoint, of course), it is what it is...  

Just Finished Reading John Hart's The Last Child

I just happened to be browsing through the book section of a local CVS the other day when I came upon an interesting-looking paperback: The Last Child by John Hart.  I picked it up and examined it: good, not part of any series...just a simple, self-contained novel.  And so I went about reading it for the last few days...it was a good investment of my time...

The Last Child, published in 2009, is set in a fictional county in today's north-central North Carolina.  A thirteen-year old boy named Johnny Merrimon is on a personal crusade to find his twin sister Alyssa, abducted the year before.  In the course of his single-minded quest, his personality has become wilder and many around town see him as disturbed, if not actually crazy.  His own family had broken up over the tragedy of his sister and he is now living with his mother, the father having disappeared from the scene.  A rather evil, wealthy man who owns much of the town has her under his control, and he is brutal toward Johnny.  Also looking for lost Alyssa is a local police detective named Clyde Hunt...he is nearly as obsessed about the unsolved case as Johnny.  Throw in Johnny's only remaining friend, Jack Cross...along with Jack's family...and Levi Freemantle, the mysterious giant prison escapee who plays a hidden role in it all as a sort of wild-card character, and the story is set to turn in many different directions until it is all resolved at the end...

The mystery of The Last Child is manifold: one, who is responsible for Alyssa's disappearance a year before?  I thought I figured that one out early in the story...but I was in the end only partially right with my guess.  Two, what happened to Johnny's father?  He had been searching for Alyssa, but suddenly left and never came back.  And of course, the biggest question: where is Alyssa? 

John Hart did a magnificent job balancing all of the numerous plot twists with the character development.  I was left at the end understanding why he included many characters who I didn't think were relevant to the story...but it all eventually comes together.  Moreover, the author...like Stephen King with his focus on small-town Maine...introduced me to his own home of rural North Carolina...

So, you can probably see from all this that I liked The Last Child, and you would be correct.  It's not too long of a book, and the story, a good mystery, is well-told with strong, memorable characters...

Heavy Rain Predicted for This Saturday's 10K Trail Race

In years gone by it seemed to be a recurring problem when, on the morning of a running race I had signed up for, the temperatures would severely spike downward.  Take my first half-marathon in February 2010, for example: for that Sunday morning alone, it got down to about 25 degrees when the race began at 7...very uncomfortable for an almost lifelong Floridian like me.  Over and over this kept happening...until recently.  Now there is a new weather phenomenon affecting races I plan to enter: rain, rain, and more rain (and sometimes lightning and high winds)...

I stayed out of the Ocala Half-Marathon this year because of an unusually strong storm system that just happened to pass through the area on the morning of the race.   Earlier this month I ran a local 10K race with rain threatening at any moment...the downpour luckily held off until I was in my car right afterward, driving home.  And now I am looking to this weekend's race, the 10K Trail of Payne run in Paynes Prairie State Park a few miles south of Gainesville.  The terrain is almost all trail, and the website promises some stretches where it is a bit muddy.  Well, with the weekend's forecast for heavy rains...starting on Friday, the day before the race...not only will I have to run through a lot a precipitation, but the course itself might become so compromised with extremely muddy trails and slippery grass surfaces that just getting through it and finishing, whatever the means and however slowly, would be a great victory.  Part of me wants to just scratch it all...after all, I haven't yet signed up and paid the entry fee.  But part of me wonders whether this might just be a fun adventure to experience.  And yet another part of me is concerned about my healing right foot and whether I'll be ready to run Saturday morning's race.  That's two parts against and one part for...I'll just have to wait and see what I decide to do on Saturday morning, I suppose...

Florida Men's Basketball in NIT Quarterfinals

The University of Florida men's basketball team, which earlier had been considered a viable NCAA Championship Tournament contender before a late regular season slump knocked them out of consideration, has picked up its game and is currently on something of a hot streak.  In the second-tier National Invitation Tournament, the Gators won their first two games 97-68 over North Florida and 74-66 over Ohio State.  The remarkable thing about these wins is that Florida has had to play all of its NIT games on the road in hostile arenas despite being higher-seeded...all because their own home site, the O'Connell Center, is already booked for other events.  Tomorrow they will once again be on the road against a lower-seeded team in the quarterfinal round, this time against George Washington University in Washington, D.C..  Should Florida again prevail, they will make the celebrated NIT "Final Four" and get to play in the semi-final round in Madison Square Garden in New York City...

Game time for Florida vs. George Washington is Wednesday, March 23 at 7 pm.  It will be shown on ESPN2...but I'll be at work.  Still, I should be able to pick it up on the radio.  I'll have to remember to wear my Gator cap...

Just Finished Reading The History of Now by Daniel Klein

Daniel Klein, a writer who has written a few fictional novels as well as a series of humorous books on philosophy, in 2009 came out with a novel that has a philosophical bent to it: The History of Now.  With such an ambitious-sounding title, this book was bound to disappoint...and it did, to some extent.  Not that the story wasn't interesting...it certainly was, and the characters were compelling as well.  It's just that Klein wrote this rather ordinary tale of the passage of generations in a small New England town in such a pretentious manner that it demanded at least a little rejection from me.  It also had a distasteful ring of political correctness about it, something I'll get into a little later...

The (fictional) town of Grandville, Massachusetts goes back centuries, but the story begins at the renovation of a downtown street in the late nineteenth century after an arsonist burned down the old buildings.  Four influential families plan the restoration which includes a beautiful theater for the showing of plays.  The deVries family is behind the theater project, and eventually the tale settles down into the telling of the life of one of their descendants, Wendel, as he finds himself happily living out his life as the projector operator for this theater, now devoted to showing movies.  His daughter Franny and granddaughter Lila also have their own lives, and throwing in Hector, a young man displaced by war and organized crime in his native Colombia, we have the core of the story, primarily presented from the viewpoints of Wendel, Franny, Lila, and Hector...but with the author's pretentiousness hovering over everything...

Trying as hard as I could to get the drift of what Klein was trying to express with this tale of rather ordinary people, I concluded that he was saying that history need not be only about the tumultuous events of rulers, wars, politics, and major trends and innovations, but it is also concerned with the lives and origins of "regular" folks.  If that was what he was after, then I didn't need to read this book: I already know that, as do most of us.  I also got the feeling that he was promoting the life-philosophy of Wendel, who relishes the present moment and seeks to find a sense of connection with others and the world around him.  That I could dig...I sort of liked Wendel and identified with him.  What bugged me a lot about The History of Now was how Klein used it as a political rant against George W. Bush and his Iraq War, not that I approved of that very costly military adventure, either.  That kind of convenient political correctness bothered me a lot.  But his more incidentally politically correct inclusion of African-Americans and Latinos into the story was a brilliant stroke, as it revealed the interconnectedness of humanity, our interdependence, and often entangled origins, in spite of the imaginary walls we sometimes like to employ to artificially divide ourselves from one another...

If you want an interesting story about the lives of people like you or me, than The History of Now is a good book to pick up and read.  But I would be careful and try to avoid reading it as some kind of philosophical treatise: it isn't...

Wanted: A Three-Dimensional Star Map

Tonight, after hearing that the skies will finally be clearing up after days of being overcast, I plan to step outside and do a little late-winter evening star-gazing.  I already know what to expect: the same constellations with their same configurations and the same stars, the brightest of which I know the names.  Yes, there will be Orion, with its famous "Belt" of three stars in the middle and the bright stars of Betelgeuse, Rigel, and Bellatrix.  North and a little to the west a lies the house-shaped (if you "connect" the stars like the old connect-the-dot puzzles) Auriga, with Capella being the standout star.  West of Orion and south of Auriga is Taurus of the Zodiac, Aldebaran its bright star and the famous Pleiades cluster further west.  The Zodiac extends eastward with Gemini (containing the "twin" stars Castor and Pollux), the faint Cancer, then Leo with its bright star Regulus...and then on to Virgo toward the eastern horizon.  The planet Jupiter will be shining bright, just about between Leo and Virgo.  The "dog stars" of Sirius (in Canis Major and the brightest star of the night sky) and Procyon (in Canis Major) will dominate the southern sky...they lie east of Orion.  And the Big Dipper, an asterism that is part of the constellation Ursa Major, will be to the right of the North Star (Polaris), with its handle on the bottom and the dipper on top.  Yes, I know the arrangement of stars in the night sky quite well...I learned it back in 1964 when I was seven years old.  Well, I think it's about time to expand my map into the third dimension...

Stars that appear close together in the sky are in all probability vastly distant from each other...one may be relatively close to us, like Sirius at 8.6 light-years, while "nearby" stars like Betelgeuse and Rigel are each around 1,400 light-years away.  What I want is a three-dimensional map of space that I can step into and see the sky from the point at which I am standing.  So, for example, I might just want to see how different the stars look from the vantage point of Sirius, so I walk to where it is on my 3-D map...and look around me.  Doubtless some stars, like Betelgeuse and Rigel, would be just as bright, but other stars might dim or get brighter.  And some may disappear while others become prominent.  And the constellations themselves might change a bit in their shapes.  Also, I would of course see our own Sun, which would be located at the diametrically opposite part of the sky that we see Sirius in...

A real three-dimensional space map is probably too unwieldy to construct, but with our virtual reality technology on the advance, it should be quite feasible to duplicate it in virtual space.  I wonder whether such maps exist yet...if and when they do, I definitely want to be in on it...

Just Finished Reading James Patterson's 1st to Die

I've known for many years that James Patterson, whose books I've recently begun to read in earnest, has been coming out every couple of years with a new "number" in his Women's Murder Club series.  I actually read one of these a few years ago...but it apparently wasn't the "one" I just read...must have been a "higher" number.  Naturally this time around I decided to start at the beginning of the series and read book number one, appropriately titled 1st to Die...

In 1st to Die San Francisco homicide investigator Lindsay Boxer is confronted with a string of serial killings targeting newlyweds...the crimes are brutal and seemingly random, other than the victims' recent weddings.  In this endeavor she is teamed up with Chris Raleigh, a partner about whom she initially feels distrust and contempt for his relative inexperience and inter-office political role but who demonstrates his integrity and courage over the course of the story.  While working with Chris, Lindsay assembles an informal group of women friends around her: Claire, who works in the coroner's office, Cindy, a newspaper reporter, and Jill, a prosecuting attorney...hence the name Women's Murder Club.  But it isn't just this puzzling multiple-murder case that she shares with them: Lindsay has been recently diagnosed with a rare, but often fatal blood disease...and the prognosis for her survival isn't very good...

Eventually Lindsay and her associates uncover the mystery of the newlywed murders as she crosses paths with a famous fiction writer whose personal life is deplorable with his abuse of women.  Just what is this awful person's role in the murders, if any?  Well, I suppose you're gonna hafta read it to find out...unless, of course, you plan to watch the TV movie version, made in 2003 two years after the novel was released...

I liked 1st to Die...actually, it's been my favorite James Patterson novel so far of the five I've recently read.  Next in this series is 2nd Chance: definitely worth looking into...

Florida Gators Play Today in NCAA Women's Tournament

Last year the University of Florida basketball teams, both men's and women's, faltered from their usual winning ways...the women's team finished 13-17.  This year, however, they staged a complete turnaround, now with a 22-8 record and a berth in this year's NCAA Tournament.  The Gators are seeded #5 in their region and are playing #12 seed Albany (of New York).  Unfortunately for head coach Amanda Butler's team, they are playing in Syracuse...just a few miles from Albany...so their lower-seeded opponent definitely has a home-court advantage here.  And should they manage to win this opening round game today, their Sunday opponent in all likelihood will be 4th-seeded Syracuse.  So the women's hoops team will be playing their first two tournament games on a hostile court...assuming they get past Albany in the first game.  Oh well, at least they made the tournament! And besides, they don't have to play in the same region as Connecticut or Notre Dame, the two schools that have overwhelmingly dominated the sport in recent years...

It is the lack of parity at the top level of play that bothers me about NCAA women's basketball, and it has always been like that.  For many years, it was considered a "slam-dunk" that Tennessee would glide onward each season to an easy championship.  Over time, this sense of predestined fate has transferred to Connecticut, which has won the last three championships and more than half of the titles in this century.  But it isn't just that Connecticut has won many championships: most of the tournament games they play are boring blowouts: do you really want to watch a game (like in last year's tournament) where Connecticut wins, against good teams, 89-33, 91-55, and 105-54? Okay, they finally played it closer in the next two games, winning 91-70 and 81-58...well, not that close, either.  The finale, which was against the one team capable of competing on the same court with them, Notre Dame, was only a 10-point margin.  These ridiculously lopsided games have been the rule and not the exception with the top-teams in women's NCAA basketball...quite a contrast with the men's tournament, which has much more parity...

They are showing the Belmont-Michigan State game on ESPN right now, but I think I'm going to have to listen to the radio (on 95.3 here in Gainesville) to follow the Florida-Albany game, which at this writing (a few minutes past noon) has just begun.  Go Gators!

Wait a minute, they ARE showing the Florida-Albany game on ESPN...either that or they are hopping around from one game to another...

Time for Annual Pollen Outbreak Here in Gainesville

A few weeks ago, I dismally observed a thin coating of green vegetation on my car one morning.  Oh no, I thought...here comes the pollen again to ruin my life as it has recently with the coming of each spring...only it was still winter (and still is, for that matter).   But that portentous green stuff apparently wasn't the worst of it, no, just the start...other plants, more harmful in their effects, have now swung into attack emitting their noxious products into the air, by now a soup of massive annoyance.  I am prone to respiratory allergies, you see, and usually end up taking Zyrtec or Claritin to fight off the symptoms, which involve congested sinuses, headaches, sore throat, and sneezing fits. These pollen waves will go on for the next few weeks until they finally abate...by that time we'll be back into the hot, sweltering dog days of summer...even it is still springtime...

We barely had a winter here in north central Florida...usually, the grass and bushes take at least a couple of months off from growing during this season, but this year they've continued right on through as if we lived down in the tropics.  As a matter of fact, cold weather has been markedly absent most of the time in recent winters.  There is definitely something going on with the warming climate, whether you want to deny it or not...

Voted in Today's Florida Primary and Gainesville Mayoral Race

A couple of hours ago I drove the very short distance...which I could have walked...to my local precinct and voted in today's Florida Presidential Primary and Gainesville mayoral race.  The parking lot at the Senior Recreational Center where I vote was packed...uh-oh, I thought, I'm going to have to stand in a long line and wait a while.  But no, there just happened to be a lot of seniors enjoying the facilities...I entered the building, walked down the hallway, and stepped right up to the table where the volunteer gave me my ballot without any line whatsoever.  I voted, received my "I Voted" sticker, and walked back out into the parking lot.  The entire process, from leaving my house to returning, couldn't have taken more than 20 minutes to accomplish...

Voting sites are designed and located to make it as convenient as possible for residents to be able to vote.  That certainly is the case where I live.  I'm posting this article while there are still six hours left to vote today.  If you read this and haven't voted yet (assuming you live in Florida, of course), why not set aside a few minutes and fulfill your important civic responsibility as a citizen of this great country? 

Just Finished Reading Stephen King's Novella The Sun Dog

I've possessed a hardbound copy of Stephen King's 1990 book Four Past Midnight for several years, but had only gotten around to reading one of its four novellas: The Library Policeman.  Two of the book's stories were adapted into movies: The Langoliers (which I saw) and Secret Window, Secret Garden (of which I only caught a couple of scenes).  I didn't see the point of reading the former after seeing the movie...which is why I've never read King's Misery or Firestarter, either.  As for Secret Window, Secret Garden, there's no reason for me to avoid reading it since I don't know how the story ends.  That leaves the remaining novella: The Sun Dog, which I just finished reading...

Keep in mind, with The Sun Dog, that we are dealing with a story set in the author's time frame of 1990.  Back then Polaroid was a very popular brand of camera with its pictures developing a few seconds after their jettisoning, something that in our time must seem a bit obsolete.  But for protagonist Kevin Delevan, there are few things he wanted more for his fifteenth birthday than the Polaroid Sun 660 he receives.  Immediately he lines up his family for a photo op, but the resulting picture reveals only an ugly, stray-looking dog with its back to the camera, facing a fence in the background.  And no matter how many photos Kevin takes, he gets that dog with the fence.  Although he is inclined to return the obviously defective product, a strange feeling inside him compels him to keep it and investigate the cause of the puzzling photos.  It is then his sister who points out to him that the photos are not all the same...they change very gradually.  Kevin takes the advice of someone to take the camera to "Pop" Merrill, an elderly, miserly loan shark who has a shop full of gadgets and who has built up a reputation for his ability to take apart clocks and other items...including presumably cameras.  Well, that was a bad decision on Kevin's part, because Merrill's greed takes over as he plots to wrest away possession of the camera...

Since I don't give away story endings, this is another one you'll have to read for yourself.  But I will say this: Stephen King likes to take ostensibly innocent looking objects...like cars, for example...and impart something supernatural and sinister to them.  And by choosing a camera, he also explores the idea of a two-dimensional universe interacting with ours of three dimensions.  If that sounds a lot like Edwin Abbott's Flatland, well, King openly acknowledges it in this intriguing story.  Of all the characters in The Sun Dog, I found that of "Pop" Merrill to be by far the most interesting and thought-provoking.  But that's not surprising since I've long thought that Stephen King's greatest attribute as a writer of fiction has been his genius at character development...

I recommend The Sun Dog...now to read Secret Window, Secret Garden...

Florida Men's Basketball Team Misses NCAA Tourney, Accepts NIT Bid

After their three-game skid toward the end of the Southeastern Conference regular season and then only garnering one conference tournament win to finish a 19-14 record (at least so far), the 2015-16 University of Florida men's basketball team was not invited to the NCAA Championship Tournament...a disappointment that I had clearly expected.  You can argue whether or not teams like Syracuse or Tulsa deserved to go to the "Big Dance", but Florida simply wasn't good enough.  That's not saying that they're not a good team...first year Gator coach Mike White, by all accounts, has done a great job with these players and all of them should be proud after the second-tier National Invitation Tournament extended to them a bid to play there.  UF, a number 2 seed in their assigned "quadrant", will play the North Florida Ospreys Tuesday evening at 9 in the first round.  Since the Gators' home site of the O'Connell Center is unavailable, they will have to go on the road for this tournament, unfortunately.  Still, they have a good chance to up their win total past 20.  Should Florida do as expected and beat UNF, they'll face the winner of the Ohio State-Akron game...most likely the Buckeyes.

Florida men's basketball has made a marked improvement from last year, when they finished under .500 and missed both the NCAA and NIT.  But if they want to advance far into this year's NIT, they'll need to figure out how they can shoot three-pointers so well while being abysmal at the foul line.  You simply cannot put together a string of victories without being able to protect a small lead at the end of a game when the other team is fouling your poor-shooting players and expecting them to miss at the line. Coach White will have a simple goal for next year's team: make the NCAA tournament...he can start with improving his players' foul shooting.  But, who knows, maybe UF will surprise everyone and blow all their opponents away in this tournament...and not ever have to worry about protecting a small lead.  Well, at least I can hope...

Congratulations, Gators!

Ran 2016 Run for Haven 10K in Tioga Today

In spite of not feeling in tip-top running form, along with an unwelcome plantar fasciitis flare-up in my right foot, I decided to go ahead anyway and tackle the challenging Tioga course of the Run for Haven 10K for the second straight year.  Unlike almost every other running race, held around 7 to 9 in the morning, this race has the audacity to start at 4:30 p.m., right at the hottest point of the day.  Last year it was hot and humid, and I had some difficulty getting through it all...I saw many runners have to stop and walk for long stretches.  Today was much of the same, with the temperature in the low 80s and the humidity a tolerable but still unpleasant 60%.  But I had learned my lesson from 2015 and changed my tactics...

First of all, I drank plenty of fluids in the two hours before this year's race, preparing for water and salt loss in advance.  I also ran a slower, more reasonable pace: after about 1.5 miles, no one passed me...but I passed many, a large portion of who were once again compelled to walk, apparently unprepared victims of the heat and humidity.  My final time as I clocked it myself was 59:00, a little less than 3 minutes slower than last year's time.  However, due to the crowd of runners in front of me, it took me several seconds to even get to the starting line after the race's beginning...it will be interesting to find out my official finishing time when it is posted (for which I'll provide a link as soon as possible)...

The folks putting on this event combined it with a St. Patrick's Day celebration, which accounts for all of the green you see in the accompanying pictures (I wore green, too).  They had a live band and provided "free" food and drink for the race participants, although I passed up on my allotment due to the impossibly long lines of "customers".  No problem, I wasn't all that thrilled with last year's meal, anyway...

I like this race because it mixes up, in even proportions, road and trail running.  I'm beginning to develop a more realistic default distance running pace that is a bit slower than that I ran with, say, back in 2010-13.  But I'm not getting any younger, with my 60th birthday coming this October, and I need to make reasonable adjustments.  At my newly adopted pace, I feel confident that I can once again run in  longer distance races like half-marathons.  Then again, I still need to overcome this nagging, recurring plantar fasciitis problem...

Nancy Reagan and George Martin, R.I.P.

The past few weeks, in a way, have been especially depressing for me...there seems to be too many people dying, both among those in my personal life and those who are famous.  The personal losses are naturally more severe, but the more public deaths have hit hard as well.  However, it shouldn't have come as much of a surprise that two celebrities who were in their nineties finally passed on: former First Lady Nancy Reagan and renown record producer George Martin...

I have always felt a great degree of respect and admiration for Nancy Reagan, actually much more than for her famous husband "Ronny"...this makes me a bit different from most people who thought more highly of him.  She brought a sense of class to the White House that it needed as the center for the role that the President serves as Head of State.  Her "Just Say No" slogan against drug abuse and the accompanying campaign while she was First Lady and afterwards is a lasting, positive legacy.  I also admire Nancy for rebuking renegade former Reagan staffer Oliver North when he tried to associate himself with her husband during his 1994 Virginia Senate campaign against incumbent Chuck Robb.  And her devotion throughout her marriage to Ronald...especially during the final years after he had become afflicted with Alzheimer's, was beautiful to behold.  Finally, Nancy was a strong, assertive woman who graciously handled what I perceived to be sexist criticism against her character.  When a man displays these traits he is hailed as a great leader, but a woman?  Let's just hope that these gender-based double standards can finally be a thing of the past, although I see much of the same nonsense now being directed at Hillary Clinton...

George Martin was doubtless a musical genius...especially in the recording studio...who is best known for recognizing the potential of the Beatles in their early years and bringing them to a high standard of performance on their records, producing many of the greatest albums ever made.  Although the band wrote most of their songs (although their early covers of other artists were great), they depended on Martin to make things work in the studio.  Two examples: when Penny Lane was being recorded, Paul McCartney, after hearing a French horn play, decided that this orchestral instrument would be a pretty addition to the song...and asked Martin to arrange and include it on the track.  No problem for the "Fifth Beatle".  And when John Lennon, upon hearing two differently paced tracks of the song Strawberry Fields Forever, decided that he wanted BOTH of them for the final recording, he simply gave them to Martin and told him to fix the problem with the differing tempos...which the producer did by adjusting their speeds.  In these and many other instances, George Martin was content to stay in the background and let the Beatles themselves take the "creative genius" credit.  I think that was what makes him special to me: not only his talent and hard work, but also his humility and good will toward those who were so fortunate to be associated with him...

NCAA Post-Season Basketball Tournaments in Full Swing

When it comes down to watching basketball, I prefer college...especially at the end of the season when the big scramble is on as to which teams make the NCAA Championship Tournament and which have to settle for the "second-tier" National Invitation Tournament.  Last year for the University of Florida, at the end of coach Billy Donovan's tenure with the school (before he went on to coach the NBA's Oklahoma City Thunder), the Gators slipped badly and finished, after the Southeastern Conference Tournament, a game under .500, not even getting invited to the NIT.  So with their new coach Mike White, UF stands to at least make the NIT field...although the NCAA tourney at this point is a longshot for this very talented but inconsistent team.  They begin their SEC Tournament tomorrow against Arkansas...a toss-up in my opinion.  Should Florida win that one, they'll go up against ranked Texas A&M...a win in each of these games would give them a 20-13 record which according to some media sports analysts might be good enough to be invited to the "big show".  But going on a hot streak has not been the pattern for the Gators this season: still, it would be a marked improvement from the previous year to play in the NIT should it come down to that...

Although I root for the Gators, my favorite college basketball conference is the Atlantic Coast Conference, home of perennial contenders (and multiple national champions) Duke and North Carolina.  However, in each of the last four seasons, it has been a different team that got hot at the right time and won the ACC Tournament...last year it was Notre Dame, which for some unknown reason gets to play basketball as an ACC "member".  The Fighting Irish sport a good team again this season and would face Duke tomorrow should the Blue Devils get by North Carolina State in today's game.  Yesterday, in the first round, Florida State and NC State won their games against Boston College and Wake Forest, respectively.  I'm about to watch the second-round contest between Pittsburgh and Syracuse on ESPN...

By Sunday evening the different brackets for the NCAA Championship Tournament will have been announced.  Florida will know then if it made the "cut"...and should quickly receive an NIT invitation if it didn't.  Still, Gators or no Gators, I'm going to enjoy this year's March Madness, as they call this great time of the year for college basketball...