1/22 Sermon on the Life of Joseph, Part 2

This past Sunday at The Family Church in Gainesville, Pastor Philip Griffin delivered his second message in the ongoing series about the life of Joseph of the Old Testament, titled Upcycling: Trash to Treasure.  In this message he used two scripture passages from Genesis, 37:12-36 and 39:1-6, appearing below in the New International Version by means of Bible Gateway:

¹² Now his brothers had gone to graze their father’s flocks near Shechem, ¹³ and Israel said to Joseph, “As you know, your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shechem. Come, I am going to send you to them.”
“Very well,” he replied.
¹⁴ So he said to him, “Go and see if all is well with your brothers and with the flocks, and bring word back to me.” Then he sent him off from the Valley of Hebron.
When Joseph arrived at Shechem, ¹⁵ a man found him wandering around in the fields and asked him, “What are you looking for?”
¹⁶ He replied, “I’m looking for my brothers. Can you tell me where they are grazing their flocks?”
¹⁷ “They have moved on from here,” the man answered. “I heard them say, ‘Let’s go to Dothan.’”
So Joseph went after his brothers and found them near Dothan. ¹⁸ But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him.
¹⁹ “Here comes that dreamer!” they said to each other. ²⁰ “Come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams.”
²¹ When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. “Let’s not take his life,” he said. ²² “Don’t shed any blood. Throw him into this cistern here in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him.” Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father.
²³ So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe—the ornate robe he was wearing— ²⁴ and they took him and threw him into the cistern. The cistern was empty; there was no water in it.
²⁵ As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt.
²⁶ Judah said to his brothers, “What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? ²⁷ Come, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.” His brothers agreed.
²⁸ So when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt.
²⁹ When Reuben returned to the cistern and saw that Joseph was not there, he tore his clothes. ³⁰ He went back to his brothers and said, “The boy isn’t there! Where can I turn now?”
³¹ Then they got Joseph’s robe, slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe in the blood. ³² They took the ornate robe back to their father and said, “We found this. Examine it to see whether it is your son’s robe.”
³³ He recognized it and said, “It is my son’s robe! Some ferocious animal has devoured him. Joseph has surely been torn to pieces.”
³⁴ Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and mourned for his son many days. ³⁵ All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. “No,” he said, “I will continue to mourn until I join my son in the grave.” So his father wept for him.
³⁶ Meanwhile, the Midianites sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard.

1 Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there.
² The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. ³ When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, ⁴ Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. ⁵ From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. ⁶ So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph’s care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate.
Now Joseph was well-built and handsome...

Pastor Griffin continued to describe inherited prisons that people find themselves confined to in their lives, prisons that if not recognized and liberated from are in danger of being passed on to the next generation and beyond.  He listed three more types: rejection, betrayal, and deception.  The older brothers of Joseph lived in constant rejection from their father Jacob in favor of Joseph.  They themselves then rejected Joseph as their brother and then went on to betrayal, as they seized him, initially intending to kill him but eventually selling their younger brother off to slavery for a bag of silver. Again, this is generational: Jacob betrayed Esau, the family's first-born, out of his inheritance.  Also, Pastor Philip pointed out the similarity between the brothers' betrayal of Joseph and that of Judas against Jesus...both for some silver coins.  Finally there is deception here: the brothers deceived Jacob that Joseph had been killed by a wild beast...Jacob many years earlier had deceived his father Isaac by pretending he was his brother when the inheritance was given.  So it seems that these "prisons" of rejection, betrayal, and deception are all interrelated and are symptoms of dysfunctionality in relationships...

But Joseph broke free of the bondage of these generational prisons, as the second passage illustrates, by placing his trust in God and not his circumstances...especially those circumstances resulting from rejection, betrayal, and deception.  He chose to be different and not a passive victim of his situation.  We can also choose to be different and break free from our own prisons.  I can relate strongly to this message as I very clearly remember the figurative prisons I was forced to live in as a child and with which I am still in a state of struggle...long after the circumstances and people that defined them have all gone.  I have a feeling that a lot of us are in the same boat, with just the details differing among us...

The Family Church is located at 2022 SW 122nd Street and holds its Sunday morning services at 9:30 and 11.  They also have family and discipleship groups, and the praise music during the services...along with the complimentary coffee they provide...is tops.  If you can't attend but would like to hear the morning message, they have a YouTube video channel...here is a link to it: [link]...

Senate Democrats in a Bind Over 2018 Election

The Democrats in the United States Senate have a problem: already at a 48 to 52-seat disadvantage with the majority Republicans and a new GOP president with a strong conservative agenda, they want to do what the Republicans did to Obama: obstruct, obstruct, obstruct.  But 2009 was a different year from 2017: out of the Senate seats up for election in 2018, 25 are currently held by Democrats...and only 8 by Republicans.  As many as 11 of them could well flip over to the Republicans, according to politico.com: Heitkamp-North Dakota, Tester-Montana, Manchin-West Virginia, Donnelly-Indiana, McCaskill-Missouri, Heller-Nevada, Brown-Ohio, Casey-Pennsylvania, Baldwin-Wisconsin, and Nelson-Florida...only Heller is from a state that went against Donald Trump in 2016.  And many of these are from solidly red states like North Dakota, Montana, West Virginia, Indiana, and Missouri.  If current Florida governor Rick Scott decides to run against Bill Nelson in 2018, the odds for the latter's reelection will dwindle as well.  And the Republicans can win a filibuster-proof 60-seat supermajority if they hold their own seats and win over 8 of the 25 seats held by Democrats...

Now I realize that there is a chance that the Trump administration's actions over the next couple of years may backfire and his popularity nosedive among some of those who had voted for him, putting the Democrats strongly on the offensive, but I'm not counting on it.  Instead, if the Democrats in the Senate hold together as a caucus and prevent the president's agenda from being fully carried out...and that includes his nominees to various posts, including the Supreme Court...those aforementioned vulnerable candidates may have even more difficulty being reelected.  And that's why I'm of the persuasion that some of them will break with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and support more of the Republican issues and nominees than they would have under different circumstances.  Whether I'm right or not should soon become clear, after President Trump announces his choice next week to replace the late Justice Scalia for the U.S. Supreme Court...

Rep. Mulvaney's Senate Hearing for Budget Director

This morning I was watching on C-Span the Senate hearing for Trump's Budget Director nominee, Republican Representative Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina...appropriately conducted by the Budget Committee.  Mulvaney is a Tea Party conservative who entered Congress on that movement's popular momentum in the elections of 2010.  He is described as a hawk on fiscal restraint and has expressed concern about the federal government's ability to financially make ends meet in the not-to-distant future.  These concerns were repeated during today's hearing as Rep. Mulvaney mentioned that the trust funds for Medicare and Social Security would dry up in nine and seventeen years, respectively, if nothing were done about them.  And that, if nothing is done to change our spending practices, the entire federal spending would be going to paying the interest from our accumulated national debt and nothing else by around 2044 or 2054.  So how does one go about fixing things?  The nominee explained that there are five "levers" in Social Security that could be pulled in small degrees that, when done together, would make a major difference in the program's total cost, including things like raising the minimum age and imposing income caps for receiving benefits, to mention a couple.  The panel also asked Rep. Mulvaney about Donald Trump's repeated avowals during the campaign that he would not cut either Medicare and Social Security, and how would that square off against the nominee's views in favor of reform...after all, hadn't he once described the Social Security system as a "ponzi scheme"?  Mulvaney pointed out that the troubles with these programs have intensified because the ratio of people paying into the system to those receiving benefits has drastically gone down...now it's 2:1 and continuing to dwindle...and that is what's making it unsustainable, especially as the massive baby boomer generation ages and goes into retirement.  Also, people's increasing life expectancy, while generally speaking is a great thing, at the same time is placing a much heavier burden on Medicare and Social Security...

I just turned sixty last October and my wife is just a few years behind me, so we are very much concerned with what will happen with Medicare and Social Security during the next few years.  Everyone agrees, both Democrat and Republican, that something needs to be done...but the latter have pretty much forsaken the notion of raising taxes in order to adequately maintain their funding.  I'll continue to follow how these programs are changed over this Republican-controlled Congress and Presidency.  I will say that Mick Mulvaney did an excellent job of presenting and expressing himself...although the committee's ranking member Senator Bernie Sanders described him as being "out of touch" with his views, he also complimented him by calling him a "straight shooter".  With the amount of "alternative facts" being pushed by the new administration, this is refreshing to hear...

Starting to Study About Federal Spending

Now that the new Congress is in session...along with the new administration...they are beginning to get down to crunching numbers and deciding how to spend our dollars...hopefully on our behalf.  Federal spending is an area that I admit to being pretty ignorant about...but that's about to change, for I am embarking on a self-education project over this extremely important subject.  You see, I have watched countless floor speeches over the years (using the C-Span channels) in both the U.S. Senate and House, as well as different committee hearings when they are debating legislation designed to direct money to different areas.  But rhetoric in of itself, while helpful in sorting out our priorities and values, does little to address the actual problem of making the numbers all fit together into a cohesive national fiscal policy that works both for the country at large and its individual citizens.  Therefore, I'm combing the Internet to try to make sense of it all.  One site I found seemed helpful for a novice like me: https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/, which explains basics about our federal budget, distinguishing between discretionary and mandatory spending and showing, in general terms using pie charts, where the money is going...or I should say went, in 2015...

Of course, federal spending is only one half of the process: after all, there must be revenue collection in order to be able to spend all that money, as well as a borrowing process that can account for deficit spending.  I'm going to look into all these areas...because I no longer feel comfortable just sitting there listening to my elected officials twisting around the English language in order to persuade each other...and you and me...to their positions.  I want a solid background and understanding on the topic...and to be able to discern when someone is speaking correctly to the point or is engaging in demagoguery or...using a newly coined term I'm starting to hear lately, employing "alternative facts", which to me just sounds like a fancy way of saying "lies"...

Of course, as I learn more and more about how our government goes about its fiscal policies, I'll share some of it on this blog.  And who knows, maybe some of you out there can help me to better understand this complex matter...

Severe Thunderstorm Sweeping Into Gainesville Area

It has been forecast for days, and finally it looks as if the Gainesville area is in for some severe weather.  A squall line is nearing us as I write, around 6 pm, and should soon pass through.  The above photo has been typical for today: fast-moving low-lying clouds with very gusty winds and sporadic rain.  It should be interesting to see how severe this storm will be...they are predicting more for us this evening as well.  A tornado watch is also in effect and there is supposedly a danger of large hail.  Well, I guess it's about showtime...

Some Sports and Political Comments

I'm currently watching a Mexican Liga MX (premier league) soccer game between my team, the Universidad Autonoma de Nueva Leon Tigres, and Club America...a regular season rematch of the championship finale that took place last month and which gave the Tigres an exciting, come-from-behind win on the penalty shoot-out. Right now the Tigres are in the lead 2-1 at halftime, and I am very impressed by the accurate passing and intensity of play by both teams.  Earlier today I saw the ending to an English Premier League match between Stoke City and Manchester United.  Stoke City was almost assured a 1-0 win when, with only a minute or two to go, they fouled Manchester United, whose star striker Wayne Rooney then directly scored on a distant free kick.  That impressive, improbable goal gave him the all-time record for career goals with that club.  So I've been enjoying this day off watching some good pro soccer.  And then there's what is going on in the news...

All across the country...and the world, for that matter...there are mass demonstrations protesting the beginning of Donald Trump's presidency...most of them are focused on this individual's alleged abusive behavior toward women and his many disparaging, sexist public statements...even during the presidential campaign.  And this Republican Congress has apparently decided to do just what they accused the Democrats in 2009 of doing when they held the Presidency and both Houses of Congress: ram through a whole slew of controversial, divisive legislation without any efforts to reach across the aisle to form a consensus.  As I recall, nationwide there was a strong negative reaction eight years ago...in the form of the Tea Party Movement...and the Republicans took back the House of Representatives in the following year's elections.  I see something similar again happening this time around, with only the party names switched...

On Monday the U.S. Senate should be holding floor confirmation votes for some positions...the most controversial is for Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson, the former Exxon-Mobile CEO who has been called to task for defying American sanctions against Russia and negotiating a lucrative deal with that country for his company.  Republican Florida senator Marco Rubio garnered my respect for pointing out the atrocities committed under the watch of Vladimir Putin and for criticizing Tillerson during the committee hearing last week...I wonder whether he will stick to his principles and vote "no" on Monday...or wimp out and go along with his party, as I suspect he will do in the end...

And I couldn't finish this article without mentioning the two National Football League conference championship games taking place tomorrow.  The National Conference title game pits Green Bay at Atlanta while in the American Conference New England hosts Pittsburgh.   I like both the Falcons and Packers...I just hope it's a close, entertaining game like that great Green Bay win over Dallas last week.  In the other contest, I'm going to figuratively hold my nose for three hours and pull for the Steelers, a team that I almost always oppose...but they're playing the Patriots, featuring the Sith Lord and Darth Vader in the persons of Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, respectively.  Another Patriots Super Bowl win is simply unacceptable to me...

Quote of the Week...from Robert Frost

Always fall in with what you're asked to accept. Take what is given, and make it over your way. My aim in life has always been to hold my own with whatever's going. Not against: with.
                                                                               ---Robert Frost.

Robert Frost was perhaps the best known American poet of the twentieth century...I always appreciated his "road less traveled by" line.  The above quote of his, however, runs against much of the accepted thinking of this day as people are encouraged to be defiant in the face of challenges and resistant to compromise.  I agree with this to the extent that one needs to hold to his or her own beliefs and not dilute them in order to accommodate others.  But there comes a point where I need to accept the circumstances I find myself in whether they are what I would have wanted...or something entirely different...

Take this past presidential election as an example.  I'm sitting here right now watching the inauguration of the winner, Donald Trump.  I did not support him and continue to have strong reservations about him as my president.  But that's what he is now: my president...and as such we are bound together for this season in our respective lives.  I want him to succeed in defending this country and upholding the Constitution, while at the same time will most likely stand in loyal opposition to some of his decisions...and I have every intention of writing about them.  So whatever happens with this president, I for myself plan to "hold my own"...but here we are and I think it's finally about time we need to "take what is given" and make it over our way...

1/15 Sermon on the Life of Joseph, Part 1

The Family Church here in Gainesville has begun a new Sunday morning message series during its services that our pastor, Philip Griffin has titled Upcycling: Trash to Treasure, examining the life of Joseph from the Old Testament book of Genesis and the lessons we can learn from his experiences and example.  Last Sunday's Biblical text of focus was Genesis 37:1-11, shown here in the New International Version via the Bible Gateway website:

37 Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan.

² This is the account of Jacob’s family line. Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them.

³ Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made an ornate robe for him. ⁴ When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.
⁵ Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. ⁶ He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: ⁷ We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.”
⁸ His brothers said to him, “Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?” And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said.
⁹ Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. “Listen,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.”
¹⁰ When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, “What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?” ¹¹ His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.

Pastor Philip used the above passage to illustrate what he presented as three kinds of prisons that can disrupt relationships and subjugate people: abandonment, favoritism, and hatred.  Jacob, who strongly favored Joseph over his many older brothers and had essentially abandoned his own family through his passive withdrawal from his responsibilities as father and husband, himself received favoritism over his brother Esau from his father Isaac...and Isaac himself was preferred by his own father Abraham over his brother Ishmael...so these "prisons" can thus be passed down from one generation to the next.   And when favoritism exists, the favored can form a sense of entitlement while those disfavored can foster resentment...and ultimately, hatred...

How does one break out of dysfunctional prisons from his or her own past...or from ongoing relationships as well?  A clue is given in an earlier passage in Genesis (29:17, 31-35) as it pertains to Leah, Jacob's first wife, whom he treated with contempt...in sharp contrast to his preferred wife Rachel:

¹⁷ Leah had weak eyes, but Rachel had a lovely figure and was beautiful. 

³¹ When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, he enabled her to conceive, but Rachel remained childless. ³² Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Reuben, for she said, “It is because the Lord has seen my misery. Surely my husband will love me now.”
³³ She conceived again, and when she gave birth to a son she said, “Because the Lord heard that I am not loved, he gave me this one too.” So she named him Simeon.
³⁴ Again she conceived, and when she gave birth to a son she said, “Now at last my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons.” So he was named Levi.
³⁵ She conceived again, and when she gave birth to a son she said, “This time I will praise the Lord.” So she named him Judah. Then she stopped having children.

The lesson is clear: Leah eventually stopped depending on approval from others, in this case her husband Jacob, and instead placed her faith and hopes in God...and then she found peace.  It is indeed a rough road to go down in life if you find yourself unfairly treated with disdain in favor of others...I've certainly felt this in a number of contexts over the course of my life...maybe I'll write about this some time in the future in a different article. The road is even rougher, though, if you invest your own sense of worth in whether or not others approve of you...seeking "justice" in this way is bound to be frustrating and can well lead to resentment and hatred as Pastor Griffin pointed out with his Biblical examples.  Instead, place your confidence in the Lord and discover peace in his approval...

Here is a link to this sermon on the church's YouTube video website: [link]...

Neil DeGrasse Tyson's Profound Twitter Post

I was looking at Twitter today and, following the announcement of the death of Gene Cernan, the last human being to stand on the moon, noticed that famous astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson had posted something pretty profound:

In 1927 Lindbergh flew from NY to Paris. 45 yrs later, in 1972 we last walked on the Moon. 45 yrs later, in 2017 we… we… we...

Truth be told, we have done nothing to push back the frontiers of human space exploration since President Nixon had curtailed the Apollo moon program to only six landings...other than low Earth-orbit projects like the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station  or by the use of unmanned, remotely controlled probes.  The irony of all this is that Spiro Agnew, Nixon's vice-president, at the time seemed to be very excited about the space program, once predicting that we would reach Mars by 1989.  But it wasn't until several presidents later, with the administration of George W. Bush, that serious efforts were undertaken to plan and build a return mission to the moon, as an intermediary step to go to Mars and beyond.  Yet soon after Barack Obama became president, he scrapped Bush's moon plans...sarcastically (and foolishly) stating that "we've already been there"...and laid out a different personal vision of where HE wanted the country to go...asteroids and eventually Mars, using private companies and leaning on Russia to help us with space launches for several years.  And I think you're seeing where the main problem regarding NASA and our manned space program lies.  NASA is a government agency in the executive branch, and the president has direct control over its priorities and projects.  So with each new president comes a different emphasis and very little continuity of vision and mission...

Tyson's tweet accurately puts it all out there: from 1927 to 1972 our frontiers went from the first transatlantic plane flight to the last of six moon landings...and in the 45 years since then we haven't even kept what we had accomplished, instead now barely able to even get out of our own atmosphere.  And now here we go again with a new incoming president who, I'm confident, will once again "reset" the agenda for NASA in a different direction from his predecessor's.  I don't see much hope of getting out of this rut as long as our space program remains the private football of the sitting president, to kick around however he or she sees fit.  In the meantime, we can always count on our good, dependable friends the Russians to help us out, right?

Extreme Cynicism Equals Extreme Gullibility

How do you con someone to support you, either by them giving you their money, their vote, or adopting your cause?  I would answer, after having witnessed numerous examples of successful confidence schemes in the media, marketplace, and politics over the years, that first you need to establish that whatever you're promoting is outside the realm of the "establishment"...the forces that be per se...and that "they" not only cannot be trusted, but also are in opposition to your own agenda...which of course is only for the greater good and "truth".  This goes for selling alternative health food/supplements, claims about alien abductions/Roswell/chemtrails/bigfoot/ancient aliens/etcetera, denial of established science about evolution, ecology, and/or climatology, conspiracy theories such as Truthers, Birthers, and those with an anti-Semitic foundation, historical revisionism....and what the current president-elect, a fixture of the financial elite establishment for decades, has managed to accomplish by identifying himself as coming from "outside" that establishment in favor for the ordinary citizen.  To be suckered into following any of the aforementioned requires in advance a cynical rejection of established norms and an accompanying uncritical gullibility in favor of alternatives...as far-fetched and distant from believability and accountability as they may be...

I might also add that this cynicism/gullibility dualism is not just a phenomenon of America or the Western world.  I see this in the Islamic culture as well, where some people raised in the Muslim faith will cynically reject the well-developed, stable social structure within that society in favor of jumping uncritically into violent Jihadism, meekly buying into whatever lies their new masters tell them.  So cynicism and gullibility going hand-in-hand is not culture-centered...it probably spans all of humanity.  But I never hear anyone discussing it...what do you think?

Second Week of Trump Cabinet Nominee Hearings in US Senate

President-elect Donald Trump's picks for his Cabinet continue their confirmation hearings in the United States Senate this week, with the Senate committee appropriate to the Cabinet post conducting each hearing.  Here is the schedule, courtesy of the website http://www.capitolhearings.org/ ...from which you can listen to the live audio for many of the hearings:

Tuesday 1/17

Secretary of the Interior: Ryan Zinke...Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, 10 am
Secretary of Education: Betsy DeVos...Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, 5 pm

Wednesday 1/18 (all hearings at 10 am)

Secretary of Commerce; Wilbur Ross, Jr...Committee on Commerce, Science, and Technology
EPA Administrator: Scott Pruitt...Committee on Environment and Public Works
United Nations Ambassador: Nikki Haley...Committee on Foreign Relations
Secretary of Health and Human Services: Tom Price...Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions

Thursday 1/19

Secretary of Energy: Rick Perry...Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, 10 am

Regarding last week's hearings, I listened to a lot of Jeff Sessions' hearing for Attorney General and a good amount of those for Rex Tillerson, James Mattis, and Mike Pompeo for Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, and CIA Director, respectively...and a little of Ben Carson's hearing for Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.  Except for Tillerson, who has shown a marked lack of loyalty to the United States pertaining to his business relationship with Russian president dictator Vladimir Putin and displayed an attitude of elitist condescension toward the Senators questioning him, I was impressed and encouraged with the nominees. Of course, if ultimately confirmed and installed in their respective posts, they'll still have to answer to Donald Trump, who up until now has showed no signs whatsoever that he is emotionally more mature than a spoiled, vindictive little six-year-old brat whenever he encounters any opposition or criticism.  I want for Trump to be a good and successful president, but he isn't providing me any sense of confidence to support that hope, in spite of some of the people he has nominated to his Cabinet...

NFL Playoffs Not Going Well for Me So Far

Ever since the Miami Dolphins lost miserably to the Steelers last week in the first playoff round...and in miserable 17-degree (1-degree chill factor) conditions at Pittsburgh...I have been scrambling to figure out exactly who to root for among the National Football League teams still in the playoff mix. My favorite team out of gratitude, the New York Giants...who ingratiated themselves to me by twice beating the hated New England Patriots in past Super Bowls, also got thumped under even more frigid conditions at Green Bay.  So the Packers will play at Dallas later this afternoon, the winner facing Atlanta for the National Conference championship next week.  The Falcons surprised visiting Seattle, my "other" favorite team in this conference, by decisively defeating them yesterday...so far "my" teams just aren't doing very well in the playoffs this year.  And what's worse: the Patriots manhandled the Houston Texans in their game last night, making them the home team in the American Conference championship game against the winner of the Steelers/Chiefs game to be played this evening at Kansas City.  Now that all of the teams that traditionally (or recently) have been favorites of mine have dropped out...or never made the playoffs to begin with...I'm left with the defeat of New England being my primary goal.  Yet I know that, of the six teams left in the playoffs, Atlanta and Kansas City are my favorites in their respective conferences...and Dallas is my least favorite in the NFC.  So today I'll be rooting for Green Bay to beat Dallas and Kansas City to advance over Pittsburgh, but as I said before I'm not doing too well so far with the playoffs this season...with the Seahawks' win over Detroit in the first round being the only bright spot...and am waiting for something to get excited about: I mean, none of the games have even been close!

As for the Dolphins, I'm still proud of them for breaking through some barriers (first winning team and playoff qualifier since 2008) and showing some clutch, spirited play in close games and in the second half of the season...a marked departure from the pattern they displayed in the recent past and no doubt due in part to their new head coach Adam Gase.  Now it's time to build upon their success...let's see if they can win in the playoffs next year...

Just Finished Reading 10th Anniversary by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro

James Patterson is a famous crime/mystery writer who discourages others from entering his craft, as it is extremely competitive and difficult to attain a reasonable level of financial success in it.  On the other hand, he has been very active in encouraging reading and literacy...sounds like he's a realist, albeit a self-serving one.  I've been reading through his Women's Murder Club series, each successive installment with a new number in the title, and have just completed 10th Anniversary.  Patterson has been co-writing this series with Maxine Paetro since book #4 and it looks as if their collaboration will remain for a while.  The Women's Murder Club is an informal group of long-time friends: Lindsay Boxer, a homicide investigator working for the San Francisco Police Department, Claire Washburn, a medical examiner also employed there, Cindy Thomas, a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper, and Yuki Castellano, an assistant district attorney.  Each has her own personal life that develops throughout the series...I won't give any details since that would be playing the "spoiler"...but I will say that a major development takes place in the life of main protagonist Lindsay...

In 10th Anniversary, Lindsay and her friends deal with three different stories that are interwoven throughout the book: a 15-year old claims to have mysteriously, at the hands of others, lost the baby she had been secretly carrying and had just given birth to, women are finding themselves waking in a drugged state, near their homes, having been sexually violated...and an eminent heart surgeon is on trial for shooting to death her philandering husband.   While I was reading how Lindsay and her colleagues investigate and solve these mysteries, I had a feeling similar to that of going to a fast food restaurant like McDonald's and eating a meal that, while enjoyable, was nevertheless completely predictable.  Patterson and Paetro churn out these books once a year and this one came out in 2011.  It shouldn't take me too long before I've caught up with them...probably sometime this year after book #16 has come out...

I'm still slowly plodding through Dan Simmons' Hyperion Cantos science fiction series...I probably need to pick up the pace here.  For my next book, I think I'll step up a bit from the level of John Sandford and James Patterson and try a novel of Charles Dickens that I know absolutely nothing about: Barnaby Rudge...

Quote of the Week...from Martin Luther King, Jr.

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
                                                                                      ---Martin Luther King, Jr.

The day after tomorrow Martin Luther King, Jr. would have turned 87 had not an assassin's bullet cut him down in the prime of his life...or any other number of causes like accidents and sickness that shorten all of our lives and make our earthly existence finite.  Although the great American civil rights leader and advocate of non-violent resistance has been gone for more than 48 years, his legacy continues...and a big part of it is the ample collection of wisdom he has left behind.  I had many quotes to choose from as I honor Dr. King on the weekend of this national holiday, but instead decided to "dig deep": this quote has more meaning in today's world than ever before...

Our scientific and technological development has indeed greatly outstripped our own wisdom.  After all, what good is it when scientists collectively come to a conclusion about a course we need to take to protect our environment or health when we then decide to turn a blind eye to it in favor of our own temporary convenience? Look at all of the wars, crime, broken relationships, and despair around us...is any of it decreasing as we find ourselves with smartphones that allow us 24/7 access to media of all sorts and which enable instantaneous, continual communication with others?  Scientists are exploring and pushing back the limits of vast distances and the very small...and are even unlocking the genetic keys of our own biology...but regardless what happens with science and technology, here we are with our own insecurity, resentments, fear, greed, worry, vanity, and sense of personal weakness.  Reverend King would tell us, I'm sure, that our priorities are misplaced and that we would find ourselves empowered...and much more wiser...if we would only allow our love for each other to grow into what he once called "creative altruism" and make others' well-being an important element in our own lives.  And with that comes the willingness to listen respectfully to others...especially to those whose beliefs and experiences diverge greatly from our own...and to be able to put ourselves in their shoes and see them in a more empathetic light...

1/8 Sermon on Matthew 6:24-33

At The Family Church here in far western Gainesville (2022 SW 122nd Street) for the last two weeks, we have had Sunday morning messages not necessarily connected to any series.  In the most recent sermon, titled First, Pastor Philip Griffin takes a passage from the New Testament opening book of Matthew...Chapter 6, Verses 24-33... and expands on it.  Here is that passage in the New International Version, with thanks to Bible Gateway:

²⁴ “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷ Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
²⁸ “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹ Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰ If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? ³¹ So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³ But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

The above are the words of Jesus as he preached during his famous Sermon on the Mount...one of my favorite sections in the Bible.  His point is simple: We will make something first in our lives and will consequently worship it, regardless of our religious beliefs.  As Christians, we should place God above all else...including money...otherwise, as Pastor Philip emphasizes, we serve the wrong things and seek security and satisfaction from them, ultimately leading to worry.  Instead, by placing God in the deservedly preeminent place in our lives, there is no need for worry, for He will provide for all of our needs.  And how does making God first translate into our own lives? In everything we do we first consider the Lord and what He wants from us, whether it be the decisions we make or how we use the money we have been blessed with. 

Being a bit under the weather, I wasn't able to attend this sermon, but instead watched it later from my church's YouTube video website.  You can view it as well: here's a link to it: [link].  The Family Church has a variety of programs available for people of different ages and interests, with much emphasis placed on discipleship and family small groups.  Sunday morning services are at 9:30 and 11 and include great praise music, prayer, and the weekly message...as well as some really nice people.  Its mission statement is "We exist to help all people discover family in Christ by reaching those far from God and making disciples who build God’s kingdom."

A Good Radio App for Smartphones

Along with the advancement of our digital age in technology has arisen a whole slew of words like "cyberpunk" , "cyberespionage", "cybercrime", "cyberterrorism" ,"cyberbullying", etc...I'd like to add a new one to describe myself: cyberklutz.  In my family I am almost always the last...usually by far...to pick up on the latest improvements out there in the...uh...cybersphere.  This is especially true when it comes to the different smartphone apps available.  But I did manage to find one that has proven to be very useful (and free): TuneIn Radio...

With TuneIn Radio, I have been able to daily listen to current news broadcasts in the languages I'm studying, helping me to gradually attune myself to being able to distinguish the words being spoken.  I can also listen to just about any radio station out there, including local ones in my Gainesville vicinity.  A much greater choice of music types is offered here: I've mentioned before that I love old, traditional Christian hymns...well, there's a station here that provides these great old songs.  TuneIn Radio also provides replay broadcasts from different radio and television talk/news shows.  I think that humorist Phil Hendrie is an extraordinary talent as he manipulates his voice to create many different characters as well as the impression that they are all together talking with each other on the air...now I can hear his recent shows.  And the two diametrically opposite political commentators whom I have chosen to follow, the liberal Rachel Maddow and the conservative Mark Levin, can also be heard on TuneIn Radio if I happen to miss one or more of their shows...

The only drawback to this app is that it is a drain on my cell phone's power.  I've heard a radio ad recently for a different free app that is supposed to pick up radio stations without doing this.  I'd like to try it out, but I wonder whether it will provide the great diversity of programming that TuneIn Radio does...

Just Finished Reading John Sandford's Gathering Prey

When I'm browsing the shelves to find an interesting book to read, I am usually careful to find out whether or not it is "down the line" as part of a series.  Unfortunately, I was careless about doing this recently when I checked out the John Sandford novel Gathering Prey from my local public library...I had read into it a bit until it became very clear to me that this book was part of a series...in this case, the 25th installment in Sandford's Prey series that he began in 1989 and consistently has produced new stories almost annually since.  This series has as chief protagonist Lucas Davenport, an unorthodox-but-sympathetic crime investigator who in the book I just read is employed by the state of Minnesota as an investigator/consultant.  He has an young adult daughter (adopted), Letty, the two of them sharing the lead in investigating a group of wandering, sadistic cultists that the author seems to have modeled largely after the Charles Manson gang of the late 1960s.  The phenomenon of the culture of "Travelers", nomadic people who live sparingly as they move from place to place, is also examined, with two of them, Skye and Henry, finding themselves crossing paths with that cult group as they move from California on through Oregon and eventually to South Dakota, where a pivotal confrontation ensues.  The setting continues eastward to Minnesota...where the Davenports live in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area (Letty is home from college)...and then to Wisconsin and finally to Michigan's sparsely-populated Upper Peninsula.  There is a lot of action in this story, and I think I've gone as far as I can to present its background without giving it all away...

I liked Gathering Prey, taking into account that it is popular crime/mystery fiction and that there is a lot of gratuitous violence as well as law enforcement tending to go over the line regarding their handling of suspects and witnesses...especially when it comes to questioning them.  I've already experienced this with the Women's Murder Club series by James Patterson, so I've come to expect it in other series of this genre.  But that having been noted, I did like Lucas and Letty, a good sign that I'll probably be delving back into this series...albeit starting from book #1.  Although Gathering Prey is part of a long series and the personal lives of the characters develop from book to book, the main story is itself self-contained and I could choose to ignore brief references made to earlier stories.  It's good reading entertainment and little more...sometimes that's all I want from a book, though...

Senate Confirmation Hearings Begin Tomorrow for Trump's Cabinet

Tomorrow, Tuesday, January 10th, the United States Senate will commence with its confirmation hearings for the various Cabinet nominations by President-elect Donald Trump, beginning with his pick for Attorney General, Senator Jeff Sessions from Alabama.  Different Senate committees will be holding the hearings as they pertain to the particular nominee's job role: the Judiciary Committee, of which Sessions had been a member for many years until just now, will conduct his hearing.  The hearings for some of the more notable or controversial nominations will most likely be shown on network or cable TV, and I'm sure that the C-Span channels will carry some of them.  I have a special C-Span website, http://www.capitolhearings.org/, that will broadcast live audio of many of the hearings over the next three days, some of which will be going on at the same time.  I also found, on the VOA website, the schedule for the hearings, at least through Thursday...those Cabinet nominations not mentioned on it have yet to be scheduled...

Here is that hearings schedule, listing the Cabinet position, nominee, Senate committee holding the hearing, and its scheduled time:

Tuesday, January 10:

Attorney General: Jeff Sessions...Judiciary Committee, 9:30 am (Day 1)
Homeland Security Secretary: John Kelly...Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, 3:30 pm

Wednesday January 11:

Secretary of State: Rex Tillerson...Foreign Relations Committee, 9 am (Day 1)
Attorney General: Jeff Sessions...Judiciary Committee, 9:30 am (Day 2)
CIA Director: Mike Pompeo...Select Committee on Intelligence, 10 am
Education Secretary: Betsy DeVos...Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, 10 am
Transportation Secretary: Elaine Chao...Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, 10 am

Thursday January 12:

Secretary of State: Rex Tillerson...Foreign Relations Committee, 9 am (Day 2)
Secretary of Defense: James Mattis...Armed Services Committee, 9:30 am
Commerce Secretary: Wilbur Ross...Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, 10 am
Housing and Urban Development Secretary: Ben Carson...Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, 10 am

If you're like me, you'll not only want to hear some of these nominees answer questions of concern from the senators from both parties, but also get a glimpse into how the Republicans and Democrats are strategizing their respective approaches toward the new administration.  Should be interesting...

Practicing Writing in Chinese

我刚才开始写汉字在我的电脑。这些句子都是我自己写的，也许有很多错误。 可是我希望在前途上流利的明白中国话， 或者是听话看书。虽然我是六十岁，我相信有够的时候。如果有机会跟别的中国人谈话，我要慢慢的增加能力。

Clausura Season Begins in Mexican Premier League Soccer

In Mexico, their premier professional soccer league, Liga MX...composed of eighteen teams, splits each year into two seasons: the summer/fall Apertura season and the winter/spring Clausura season.  My favorite team, the UANL Tigres, based in Monterrey, just won the Apertura title for the second straight year in an exciting playoff finale that had them tie up their match against Club America with just a minute to go in overtime and then win it in a penalty shoot-out.  I'm now sitting here watching Tigres play their regular season opener against Santos Laguna, usually a mediocre team, but which won the Clausura championship a couple of years ago with a strong playoff run...

Tigres finished the 2016 Apertura regular season in third place, while Tijuana finished with the best overall record.  Necaxa, which was promoted into Liga MX from the lower-tier Ascenso League this year, surprised all by making the playoffs with a winning record.  It should be interesting to see whether they can maintain their high quality of play in this competitive league.  Eight teams will make the championship playoffs at the end of the 17-match regular season...but even the worst teams have something important to play for: each year the team in the league with the worst three-year record gets demoted to Ascenso to make way for that league's champion.  Right now, Morelia (los Monarcos) are in that unenviable position, but Chiapas and Vera Cruz are also in danger of relegation should they do poorly in this Clausura season...

Univision and Galavision carry Liga MX games and are broadcast here in Gainesville on Cox Cable channels 40 and 89, respectively...the play-by-play is in Spanish.  There is also a UnivisionDeportes channel that shows more Mexican soccer...as well as games from Portugal and the Netherlands...for an extra monthly fee.  I'm going back and forth between the Tigres game on Univison and the NFL Seattle/Detroit playoff game on NBC.  Right now it's halftime in Monterrey, so I'm switching to the NFL...go Seahawks!

Quote of the Week...from John F. Kennedy

Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly.  ---John F. Kennedy.

The above is one of those quotes in circulation on my television's Music Choice Soundscapes channel...and it is also one of the most challenging to me.  For I am a rather tentative soul who likes to carefully test the waters before I jump into them.  I also tend to do things on an incremental basis...running an extra mile, reading ten more pages, spending a tad less money, eating a little better...in other words gradually improving in things without going to excess about it.  Gee, I'm starting to sound like an ordinary, run-of-the-mill hobbit, not that Bilbo Baggins character in Tolkien's classic fantasy tale who went totally against his own instincts to set out on that great adventure to Lonely Mountain.  As for JFK, I recommend you watch the biographical/historical movie PT 109, made while he was president with Cliff Robertson in the lead role, to get a good picture of someone, when faced with imminent catastrophe, boldly stepping out and daring to fail horribly in order to obtain a great result.  A lot has been said and written about how Jack, Bobby, and Teddy Kennedy were so wealthy and groomed for political office by their father Joseph...but on that desolate, remote southern Pacific island where Lieutenant John Kennedy and his crew were shipwrecked in the midst of hostilities against the Japanese during World War II, he had to perform his command alone, risking everything...and much against the odds...to achieve resounding success...

I need to place a caveat on the above quote...well, maybe two.  The first is that we can often, especially in our youth, find ourselves embarking on ambitious quests just because others have "assigned" them to us as they engineer our lives, instead of us as individuals coming to our own independent conclusions as to what we want to accomplish.  Living out someone else's dream is fine, but only if it happens to be our own as well.  And secondly, if we do go out on a limb and end up failing miserably, how do we react to that result?  Through cynicism, blaming others, giving up?  Or by instead analyzing why things fell apart and then get back up to try again...armed with better information, skills, and wisdom and/or more realistic goals?  Sometimes the ultimate goal is attainable, but more manageable intermediate steps are necessary to build up to it.  And finally, there's nothing inherently wrong with going into an endeavor and realizing that your calling is in a completely different field.  But I think the main point of Jack Kennedy's quote is to stress the importance of personal commitment when it comes to wanting to achieve greatness...

New Year's Day Sermon at The Family Church

For the New Year's Day sermon at The Family Church here in Gainesville, Pastor Aaron Read spoke about the "Hope of Glory", based on the following passage from Colossians 1:27 in the New Testament (presented in the New International Version, courtesy of Bible Gateway):

²⁷ To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

As Pastor Aaron explained, the glory here is that of God, as experienced by Moses of the Old Testament, and in the New Testament by three of Jesus's disciples during the Transfiguration as well as with Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus.  He also stressed that Jesus came to reveal God's glory to his creation...Jesus is God's glory in human form.  Well, that's the glory part...how about hope?

Pastor Aaron talked about a young man who recently committed suicide due to a "loss of hope"...and here he made a distinction between what the world commonly means by "hope" and how it is presented Biblically.  In the world, as Aaron continued, hope is often expressed as a feeling, wishful thinking, or blind faith...and is based on people, career, politics, sports, appearance...you name it.  But according to the Bible, the true hope that will provide a firm foundation in one's life is that based on Jesus...this hope is living, strengthening, not disappointing, is an anchor in times of difficulty, and purifying...

I always enjoy hearing Pastor Aaron giving Sunday morning messages...he brings to them a down-to-earth approach that I can identify with.  As for the word "hope", I don't see anything wrong with using it, either in the worldly or Biblical sense.  For we all hope things turn out well in each of our own lives and for those we love, and on many different fronts.  It is instead the use of the expressions "hopeless", "no hope", "loss of hope", or "without hope" that really needs correction...with the living hope as an anchor, they will never need to be used...

You can view this message by clicking on the following link that leads to The Family Church Videos YouTube website: [link]...

A Belated Congratulations to Gators 2016 Football Team

A belated congratulations are in order to the University of Florida football team as they won their Outback Bowl game this past Monday against Iowa, 30-3.  The Gators' defense was crushing, in spite of the fact that they were missing six starters for the game...isn't it interesting how defense has been the hallmark of Florida the past few years, no matter how hard they try to open up the offense?  Well, as second-year head coach Jim McElwain has stated, with a good defense you're usually either ahead at the end of the game or in a position to pull out a victory.  They finished 9-4 this 2016 season and won their Southeastern Conference East Division for the second straight year.  Unfortunately, this is the third straight season that their established starting quarterback has gone down...either through abject incompetence, testing positive for banned substances, or injury...and the backup as been forced to come in and try to salvage what's left of the season.  Florida's offensive line seemed greatly improved this year...that's a good sign, for if you want to create long-term success with a team, it's important to build it up from the inside out.  Just look at Alabama with its imposing lines, both on offense and defense, over the past several years...and McElwain was a protégé of the Tide's head coach Nick Saban...

The Gators showed a lot of character and finished the season strong at the Outback Bowl.  This should help with their recruiting...McElwain's recruits since he came on board will start to fill out the starting rosters beginning next year.  Then we'll begin to truly see how his coaching and recruiting philosophy translates onto the field...

Follow-Up on Yesterday's Senate Article

Yesterday I wrote that the swearing-in ceremony for those elected to the United States Senate would take place starting at noon today and that it would be televised on C-Span2...that was all correct.  However, the installment of these 34 senators on the Senate floor, presided by Vice-President Joe Biden in his Constitutionally-mandated role as Senate President, went in groups of four, each senator accompanied by his or her "other" own state's senator and/or others in the Senate, presently serving or retired.  I had recalled seeing sworn-in senators in the past, accompanied by family and close friends, being photographed in a different ceremony...maybe this will also be shown later on one of the C-Span channels, but today immediately following the swearing-in, the Senate began in earnest, starting with speeches by returning Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, KY) and incoming Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, NY).  After they finished, it was "morning business" with the two parties alternating between speakers like John Cornyn (R, TX), Dick Durbin (D, IL), and Jerry Moran (R, KS).  Eventually I had to turn off the TV and get ready for work...

Speaking of television and politics, last night I watched some of MSNBC's Rachel Maddow show.  Her main feature story was about the many conflicts of interest that President-Elect Donald Trump has, exemplified by his close business relationship with Indonesia's Speaker of Parliament...who in 2015 was tried on charges that he demanded four billion dollars from a U.S.-based copper mining company in order to secure their mining projects in that nation.  The chief stockholder in the company is now Trump's close advisor on many of his appointments.  And that Indonesian politician, acquitted on a technicality, is now back as their parliament's speaker...and oh, by the way, has assured Trump that the construction in Indonesia of his new golf course and resort is going ahead full steam...

That's what Rachel Maddow was headlining yesterday, from the viewpoint of the political left.  On the political right, I haven't heard from radio talk show host Mark Levin lately as he has been on vacation.  He should be back on the air tonight, though, and it will be interesting to hear his take on things...

US Senate Swearing-In Ceremony Tomorrow

Ever since 2001, I have enjoyed watching the floor proceedings of the United States Senate on C-Span2 (Gainesville Cox Cable channel 81).  It has always been illuminating to observe how the senators from each party present their views, either as proponents or opponents of scheduled bills or nominations, or during the "morning business" of the Senate session that allows speakers to talk about topics of interest to them.  One of the earliest senators whom I've enjoyed watching, from back then until now, has been Alabama's Jeff Sessions, a staunch conservative with a flair for soft-spoken, persuasive argumentation.  He is now President-Elect Trump's pick for attorney general, and his Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing is scheduled on January 10-11.  This is the same committee that Senator Sessions himself has been a part of for many years, having participated in Supreme Court confirmation hearings for the nominees of both Presidents Bush and Obama.  I'm looking forward to watching at least some of Sessions' hearing, for the Democratic leaders in the Senate have already indicated that they are determined to slow down Trump's cabinet from being quickly confirmed...but at the same time they have a good deal of respect for Senator Sessions as a colleague and friend with whom they've worked extensively in the past.  I don't always agree with his conservative views, but I think he will perform his job well and with integrity.  And I'm looking forward to seeing how he stands up to the grilling...

But while I'm waiting for the confirmation hearings for Jeff Sessions and other Trump cabinet choices, tomorrow I can watch, on that C-Span2 channel, the swearing-in ceremony for the one-third of the Senate body that just got elected last November, either for the first time or reelected as incumbents.  Each senator is sworn in one-by-one, and they usually have their families with them as well as often having a more senior politician from their state to accompany them.  I love the atmosphere of politeness and good feeling that permeates this ceremony...quite the opposite of the unusually acrimonious kind of politics we've had to undergo of late.  The ceremony, according to my TV schedule, is set to last from noon to 4 pm...so I'll just watch a little of it, having to report to work in mid-afternoon. The Senate will then convene its first session for the new 115th Congress after all have been sworn in.  The new Senate alignment will be 52-48 in favor of the Republicans, who lost only two seats in the last election.  As for the U.S. House of Representatives, also scheduled for swearing-in tomorrow, the Democrats are still clearly in the minority, having gained only six seats to now trail the Republicans 241-194...

Just Finished Reading The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham

W. Somerset Maugham was a noted English author famous in the early part of the twentieth century.  I already read one of his works, the 1908 short novel The Magician (here is a link to my April 2016 review of it [link]).  In 1944 he came out with The Razor's Edge, which turned out to be perhaps his most remembered work.  I just finished reading it and naturally have a few reactions to share with you...

The Razor's Edge spans the historical period from the end of World War I to the start of World War II, as well as the Atlantic Ocean between its American and British characters.  It is told in the first-person narrative by a nameless English writer who keeps in contact with the others and describes their progress with their respective lives over the years.  His main focus is on a young American named Larry Darrell who as an aviator fighter during World War I leaves the conflict changed and challenged as to what is truly important in life...and afterwards decides to walk the seldom-trodden path of a seeker.  He resists all of the social pressures around him to conform to his own society's norms, which involve seeking employment and acceptance into society, instead opting for a life of "loafing" off his stable and generous government pension and reading and traveling abroad in search of life's meaning.  In stark contrast, his fiancé Isabel, his best friend Gray (who happens to be in love with Isabel), and her uncle are all bent in each of their own ways on achieving worldly wealth and status...and naturally stand in opposition to Larry's outlook and plans.  As for himself, the narrator accepts Larry on his own terms and, by so doing, is accepted into the latter's confidence, providing a window into both his travels and his developing philosophical and religious beliefs, many of which ultimately derive from his sojourns through India.  Because of this, some have come to believe that The Razor's Edge went a long way toward the popularization of Eastern religious thought in the United States and the West in general, especially during the 1960s and later.  I will say that many of Larry's notions that he picked up while studying under Indian gurus today sound relatively commonplace, but I imagine that they would have been considered revolutionary and iconoclastic back in the 1940s when this novel first hit the bookstands...

The Razor's Edge is not a mystery or thriller, but rather a study of characters and the way people either compliantly accept what the society they live in tells them is important or instead challenge the status quo and seek their own answers...and perhaps more importantly, their own questions.  It is a very thoughtful novel that anyone interested in philosophy or feeling out of place in their own community and society would benefit by reading.  Am I a seeker?  Not to the extent that Larry is in this story, but compared to the vast majority of people I see around me who either are disinterested in life's meaning or simply allow themselves to be spoon-fed the questions and answers by others, I also share his general outlook if not all of his specific conclusions.  Only, unlike Larry, I don't believe that achieving enlightenment entails shedding my past and the social context I now live in, but rather through them come to a higher level of awareness and understanding.  Why don't you read The Razor's Edge and see what you think?

My December 2016 Running Report

Well, another year has come and gone and I'm still out there hittin' the roads and piling up the mileage...I ran for a total of 113 miles in December.  My longest single run was for 6.7 miles and I ran on 29 of the 31 days.  I didn't take part in any races this month...none were in Gainesville, anyway, and the closest ones would have had me driving a bit just to get to them.  I'm seeing, though, that I may be doing just this on January 15 when Ocala holds its annual marathon/half-marathon...I've run in both events there over the years (marathon in 2011 and half-marathon in 2013).  If I do enter it, of course I'll be going for the shorter distance.  And on January 28, Gainesville has its 15K (9.3 miles) Newnan's Lake race that I've run a couple of times, including earlier this year.

With my current lifestyle and schedule, I wonder whether I shouldn't just concentrate on running in 10K and 15K races instead of half-marathons, of which I managed to go through all of 2016 without running any.  Even if I do downsize my distances, though, I'd still like to get in one more half-marathon in the coming two months...

Quote of the Week...from Vincent van Gogh

Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.
                                                                          ----Vincent van Gogh.

Not that anyone was paying any attention to the now-celebrated Post-Impressionist painter from the Netherlands in the late nineteenth century when he made this statement...van Gogh received no recognition during his lifetime for his artistic accomplishments and committed suicide certain of his own personal failure...not necessarily someone you'd want to take a quote from and live by.  But the above declaration is so obviously true and significant that I couldn't help but include it on my weekly tour through Quotationland...

In 1978, public television showed a series titled Connections in which James Burke explored how technology and innovation worked over history.  Besides delving into people's sometimes quirky motivations for invention, he stressed the concept that new machines and processes depended intimately on earlier-developed, component machines and processes...the automobile, a complex composite machine, is a prime example.  So the small things, brought together, in turn bring about a great thing...

Our educational system, when done right (and I have little personal memory of that having happened for me), will teach in small portions the rudiments of a field to the student, who as he or she develops competency in the area can employ those elementary steps and apply them in more complex and effective ways.  When someone starts out at a new job...even with an advanced degree in the area of concern...the new employer will almost always gradually introduce them to their new situation, emphasizing immediate effectiveness with small things while training them to combine what they have learned into what is hoped will eventually be an advancement of the organization's mission and profits...

Do you want to become a great writer, runner, chess player, widget maker...or even painter?  First you start by doing...you write, run, play chess, make a widget (or part of one), paint, etc.  Then you introduce new improvements to your regimen that advance your skills and progress...imitating others who have enjoyed success is a good idea. If you're not being taught by someone else, than you may need to do your own research into the area you want to become great in.  Adding a decent dose of humility to your personality is a good idea as well, for if you believe you already know everything, you're not likely to be open to learning to bring together those small things to achieve greatness...

My Top Ten Favorite Songs of 2016

For me, music in 2016 was marked by the sad passing of David Bowie in January immediately following the release of his final album Blackstar, and my subsequent exploration into his catalog of works spanning nearly half a century.  Later on in the year Radiohead and Regina Spektor, two of my traditionally favorite acts, released their own new albums as well: A Moon Shaped Pool and Remember Us to Life, respectively...both very worthwhile experiences, containing a treasure of good listening.  Just a few weeks ago I discovered another artist, PJ Harvey, who also released an album this year, The Hope Six Demolition Project, to add to her previous eight...I'm starting to look into those other albums as well. If you ask me what my favorite song of the bunch is this very minute on December 29th, it's that #2 song of hers listed below, a real rocker.  Regina contributes two beautiful ballads to the list, Bowie's Looking for Satellites is the only techno/hard-rock/spaced-out waltz in existence to my knowledge, and his Blackstar is...well, it is what it is, I can say no more.  So this list is dominated by these four excellent acts, with only one entry (#9) being a song I picked up off the radio.  Knowing myself as I do, I'll likely hear some more 2016 songs on the radio in 2017 and assign them to that year...I've done this in the past.  Well, without further ado, here's my top ten list of personal favorite songs of 2016:

1 BLACKSTAR            David Bowie [Blackstar]
2 THE WHEEL             PJ Harvey [The Hope Six Demolition Project]
3 THE LIGHT               Regina Spektor [Remember Us to Life]
4 LOOKING FOR SATELLITES   David Bowie [Earthling, from 1997]
5 THE VISIT                 Regina Spektor [Remember Us to Life]
6 BURN THE WITCH  Radiohead [A Moon Shaped Pool]
7 TIS' A PITY...            David Bowie [Blackstar]
8 THE ORANGE MONKEY   PJ Harvey [The Hope Six Demolition Project]
9 TAKE IT ALL BACK    Judah and the Lion [singles release, album unknown]
10 DAYS                      David Bowie [Reality, from 2003]

Honorable Mention:
From David Bowie: Aladdin Sane, Queen Bitch, Oh You Pretty Things, The Last Thing You Should Do, 5:15 Angels Have Gone
From PJ Harvey: Good Fortune, At the Memorials to Vietnam and Lincoln
From Radiohead: Decks Dark, Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor Rich Man Poor Man Beggar Man Thief
From Regina Spektor: Small Bill$, Tornadoland, Obsolete

2016 was a good year for music...maybe I'll listen more to the radio in 2017...