Quote of the Week...from Senator Bill Nelson

One of the great privileges of being a part of the Senate, it being the greatest deliberative body in the world, is out of the discussions of ideas, hopefully truth can ultimately be achieved.
                                              ---Bill Nelson.

Bill Nelson is one of the two United States senators from my home state of Florida.  Originally a Democratic congressman who once flew on the Space Shuttle back in the 1980s, he is a staunch advocate for our space program and for Florida's future role in it.  He also is very strong on national defense, the environment, the rights of seniors...and above everything, the interests of the state he represents.  Although Nelson's speech mannerisms can be at times a little irritating, their content is almost always spot on, making him one of the few politicians on Capitol Hill that I consistently agree with.  He's up for reelection next year, and most Floridians are anticipating that Republican lame duck governor Rick Scott will run against him, making the contest a most difficult one to win.  The above quote, reflective of Nelson's three terms of service in the United States Senate, is once again totally true...and you can test its validity out as C-Span 2 shows its floor proceedings live...

If you're like me and sick and tired of the talking media heads spinning the issues out of control...both from the "left" and "right"...then maybe you'd appreciate a more dispassionate setting where those same issues can be discussed and debated in a civil manner, and without the participants interrupting each other and flying off the handle.  In the Senate there is a deliberate atmosphere of comity, and the senators are constantly referring within their speeches to the opposition party as "our friends across the aisle".  That doesn't mean that they aren't fully committed to promoting their own viewpoints and criticizing the others': it means that within this setting, at least, personalities are deemphasized while the issues at hand, with their various ramifications, get the deserved center stage...

I have been following the Senate on C-Span 2 since 2001...one of my first experiences was of an eloquent and persuasive speech by Senator Jeff Sessions, now our attorney general.  Over the last sixteen years there has been a lot of turnover in this body, but I have made it a point to know all of the senators by name, state, and appearance...and a little about each one's politics and speaking styles.  I was a little distressed by the recent Republican primary loss in Alabama by Luther Strange to Judge Roy Moore...I got to like "Big Luther"...as the president accurately depicts him...for his gentle politeness as well as when he would preside over the Senate.  So in a way, the personalities are still there...but on the floor the talk is all about the issues, which is the way I wish the media in general covered politics.  Notice that in this article I've praised both Democratic and Republican senators...that's because, my political leanings notwithstanding, I've come to greatly respect...and even like...these people.  I'm a firm believer that gentle, reasonable persuasion can change hearts much better than can smears and hyperbole...although the last presidential election didn't exactly bear that out, did it...

9/24 Sermon on David, Part 2

Last Sunday at The Family Church here in Gainesville, senior pastor Philip Griffin continued his series on David, king of Israel.  This message's title was Life's Battlefields and focused on the Old Testament book of 1 Samuel, particularly chapter 17, verses 26-50...you can read it in the New International Version (or a different translation if you prefer) via the following link to Bible Gateway: [link].  The setting is the confrontation between the Israelites, led by King Saul, and the Philistines, championed by the arrogant giant Goliath...who is challenging anyone to face him: no one wants to.  David steps up, however...much to the consternation of his brothers...and tells Saul that it was God who rescued him from the bear and lion when he was herding his sheep, and that same God will protect him from the Philistine... 

Pastor Philip drew four important principles from this passage: listen to the right voice, use what God has already given me, focus on the size of God and not the size of the problem, and rely on God's power and not my own.  The setting in 1 Samuel was literally a battleground, but our lives have times in which we must either take a stand...or retreat.  Sometimes prudence is called for, especially when it involves discerning the significance of the "battle", e.g. someone out in traffic is overcome with road rage against me...discerning God's wisdom through the Holy Spirit will lead me away from any conflict of that sort.  But other times God will direct and empower me to stand up and face the adversary, be it human or situational...with the emphasis, of course, on God being the one in charge.   He will not ask of me anything that he hasn't already equipped me for: David was equipped with his life experience of fighting predators while shepherding, his sling, and stones....and more than anything, his faith in God...

You can watch the video for this message by clicking on the following link to the church's YouTube video website: [link]. The Family Church, located at 2022 SW 122nd Street, holds its Sunday morning services at 9:30 and 11 and invites you to attend.  There's the weekly sermon, inspiring praise music, friendly folks all around, and prayer and discipleship opportunities...and, of course, that delicious complimentary coffee...

Wednesday's Short Story: The Big Front Yard by Clifford Simak

Back in May I discussed another of the great twentieth century science fiction writer Clifford Simak's short stories: Huddling Place, from 1944.  But one of the first sci-fi stories I ever read was his 1958 The Big Front Yard, which I found while thumbing through one of my father's old paperback anthologies.  It also appears in Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 20 (1958), published by DAW Books in 1990.  Unlike many other stories I have read over the years, it has strongly stuck with me to this day...and for good reason...

Hiram Taine is a solitary handyman living on the edge of the woods outside a New England village with his dog Towser.  The folks from the village like and respect him, and bring in their broken down televisions and other contraptions for him to repair.  One day he notices that Towser is acting as if he is smelling a rat or woodchuck...and it seems to be coming from the basement.  Later he discovers that the ceiling of the basement has been replaced by an impermeable smooth glassy barrier.  Not freaking out as I (and most people) would have done, Taine with his "Yankee sensibility" continues to go about his own business in town and returns home to find his house's front closed in on itself, completely impassable.  Going in from the back, he sees that the front windows and door open out to a very sunny desert scene...while it's still nighttime and New England in the back!  Whatever "rats" had built the basement ceiling had also transformed his house into a gateway to another planet.  Taine knows they came from outer space because Towser had picked up their buried spaceship's scent.  And the story continues from there...

When I first read The Big Front Yard as a kid, the idea of just walking through a door and instantly traversing enormous distances greatly intrigued me...even now I often joke about wanting to be able to step into a closet and come out at some distant destination, saving me the time, expense, and hassle of going through all that tedious travel.  But when I reread it the other day, I picked up on something else: there is a character named Beasly, a man whose features you might recognize in a few others you know in your own life.  He does odd jobs around town to earn his frugal lifestyle and is generally regarded as somewhat slow-witted, consequently commonly being jeered at by some of the town's kids and shown disrespect by those he works for...except for Taine, who treats him as an equal.  But as it turns out, Beasly has a special talent that has gone undiscovered for his entire life, a talent that is crucial to the story's successful outcome.  I wonder how many of us regard ourselves as superior to others whose mental faculties we deem to make them not quite "complete", when the truth is that each and every one of us are complete in our own right and deserve an opportunity for a dignified life within our society...

Tuesday's List: Fundamental Units of Physics and Derived Formulas

A few decades ago I was studying basic college physics when I tired of having to remember all of the formulas in mechanics and electricity...and decided to develop numerical strings for each type of quantity that, for me at least, were easier to retain.  Now in physics there are seven fundamental units, of which everything else can be derived (back then I only used four):

1 mass.......................kilogram (kg)  
2 length.....................meter (m)
3 electric current........ampere (A)
4 time........................second (s)    
5 thermodynamic temperature...degree Kelvin scale, or kelvin (K)
6 amount of substance...mole (mol)
7 luminous intensity.....candela (cd)

For the purposes of this article, I'll leave off the last three units, although you might find it interesting that thermodynamic temperature does not figure into the formula for energy...heat energy or otherwise.  What I did was to write out four-number strings, each number representing the exponential powers for the units or combinations thereof.  So...

mass:          1  0  0  0  kg
length:        0  1  0  0  m
current:      0  0  1  0  A
time:           0  0  0  1  s

From this we can derive more strings:

area             0  2  0  0   length-squared
volume        0  3  0  0   length-cubed
velocity       0  1  0 -1   length per time
acceleration 0  1  0 -2  length per time-squared
density         1 -3 0   0  mass per length-cubed
force            1  1  0 -2   mass multiplied by length per time-squared
energy         1  2  0 -2   mass mult. by length-squared per time-squared
power          1  2  0 -3   mass mult. by length-squared per time-cubed
pressure       1 -1 0 -2   mass per length per time-squared
charge          0  0  1  1  current mult. by time
voltage         1  2 -1 -3  mass mult. by length-squared per current per time-cubed

Each number of the string represents the exponential power of that fundamental unit within the formula...and you multiply across the string.  A unit represented by "0" simply isn't present within that formula.  I found this numerical mnemonic system, once learned, to be easier to remember...

And it's also easier to see relationships between the different formulas, for example:

We're taught that force=mass x acceleration...or:

      1   0   0   0    mass
      0   1   0  -2    acceleration
      1   1   0  -2   force     (note that when multiplying exponents you add the powers)

If you're interested, you can go through the whole physics textbook like this and the formula derivations can get to be almost a matter of second nature after a while...

The Ongoing NFL Kneeling-at-the-National Anthem Controversy

I wrote early on in the 2016 National Football League season that I strongly disagreed with the tactics taken by then-San Francisco 49er quarterback Colin Kaepernick as he remained seated during the pregame playing of the National Anthem as a protest against how he perceived blacks and other minorities were being treated in this country.  Several players on his team and others joined him in this silent but ostentatious action, and at the time I stated that since the league was not going to take any disciplinary action against them then I would boycott the season.  And I did, until I noticed that that same league was making sure that the police and our brave soldiers were being honored during different halftime shows and decided that in an imperfect world, they were probably doing the best they thought they could.  Still, I objected to the protests...and multimillionaire Kaepernick, a sympathizer of brutal communist totalitarian dictator Fidel Castro, should have been the last person to emulate or be called "courageous" for taking his stand...or should I say "seat".   But it seemed that the furor over all this had finally died down until it looked as if all of the teams were blacklisting Kaepernick, a capable pro quarterback who was an available free agent but not being considered...and believe me, some teams desperately need a quarterback who doesn't totally suck.  As this 2017 season has begun and progressed, more and more players were seen kneeling during the anthem, and the league offices once again averted their eyes.  Then President Trump went off on one of his spontaneous rants the other day at a rally aimed at his whopping 35% base of supporters and angrily urged fans to walk out of stadiums and for the teams to fire players who refuse to honor our national symbols.  I thought it was interesting that during the Charlottesville incident when white supremacist racists demonstrated against the removal of a Confederate statue, his off-the-cuff reaction was that they had a legal permit to do so and then equated their actions with the counter-demonstrators.  But with these NFL protestors Trump decided to make a "moral statement" instead and come down harshly against them.  So let me see...when it's white racists protesting, our prez says there are some very good people among them and takes great pains to emphasize that it's their legal right...when it's blacks protesting against white racism, he says "Fire them!"  H-m-m, I think I'm beginning to understand where Mr. Trump stands on race...

In spite of disliking the protests at the playing of the National Anthem, I do respect and agree to a great extent with the reasons for them...blacks and other minorities really don't get a fair shake in this society, especially with regard to their treatment by police and how the justice system more severely prosecutes them.  But I'm standing back and watching how it's all being spun on TV and I have to wonder whether I'm the only one who discerns that the issue is being twisted around a bit.  To disrupt an assembly through protest is in of itself a deliberate act of disunity...to stand together at the playing of the anthem would have been the act of unity.  Instead, different teams are all pretending to be "united" by holding arms and doing other sorts of symbolic acts...but the unity is among themselves only, not with the fans or the people at large.  And Trump is consequently being portrayed as a "divider"...which I agree he most assuredly is, but not for the reason they're all giving over the air...and it's a shame, because I find myself at times agreeing with the president's positions on different issues: if he only didn't act as a wrecking ball in promoting his viewpoint.  The protesters most certainly are ALSO dividers, not unifiers, and it might be argued that their divisiveness is for a good cause...you're not going to hear me disagree on that one.  But I think that all of this symbolic stuff going on isn't going to make anyone's life better...if anything it will just entrench those whose mindsets need the most change.  In any event, our bumbling, blustering president has turned the protests from a social statement into a political one: if you're against Trump, then kneel, if you support him, stand...never mind how you feel about the honor and privilege of being an American anymore...

Just Finished Rereading Stephen King's 11/22/63

Back in April of 2012 I read for the first time Stephen King's time travel novel 11/22/63...here is a link to my article about it: [link].  Since I'd be simply repeating from I wrote about this outstanding piece of speculative science fiction, I thought I'd go off in a (very) slightly different direction today...

Time travel has always been a popular theme in fiction and its prospects appeal to a wide swath of the population...at least to that part that is capable of reflection and isn't constantly surrendering itself to pleasure-seeking and ego gratification.  I think I might have an answer as to why the idea of venturing into the past or future appeals to a lot of us: time is the dimension of space-time in which we can't travel other than the steady, second-by-second pace with which we live it out.  I can imagine what the beach is like and I can also physically go there.  And I can imagine the past or future...but my brain and body are trapped in the now.  What time travel fiction accomplishes is to make the now a totally personal and portable concept, with the travelers toting it around with them "whenever" they go.  And once you can separate now from the notion that we're all locked into the present, where we dwell with our earlier life...and even earlier nonexistence...trailing back on one side, and our future life...and death and beyond...projected ahead on the other...then immortality sounds a bit more achievable, even if this is only felt unconsciously.  But even if time travel were possible, we still live within our own physical bodies, subject to wear and tear by aging and vulnerable to injury and disease.  But it does seem exciting to some people to be able to escape the confines of our own lifespans and experience other times...as if they were getting away with something much more meaningful and transcendent than traveling cross-country or abroad...

In the 2012 article I wrote about 11/22/63, I alluded to the movie Groundhog Day, which was a different kind of time travel story...one with impenetrable temporal walls confining Bill Murray's character to a single, repeating day.  There's another time-themed story, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, that has as its protagonist Billy Pilgrim, who has become "unstuck" in time and goes back and forth through different points within his lifespan and experiences.  His time travel, like that in Groundhog Day, while in many ways different, is also based on subjective, experiential reality and not on scientifically provable objective reality.  I imagine that if there is truly anything to time travel, it will be as a subjective and not an objectively demonstrable experience...

The Gustav Mahler Test

No, this isn't an examination about the late 19th/early 20th-century Austrian composer Gustav Mahler...not that the works of this important link between romantic and modern classical music aren't worth examining.  Instead, this is more like a litmus test than an academic one...and it indirectly concerns my driving...

I am one of those people who can't keep their hands off the radio dial when on the road...don't worry, I'm looking where I'm going.  My favorite stations are few in number: WUFT/Classical on 102.7, WUFT/NPR News-Talk on 89.1, WHHZ on 100.5 (alternative rock)...and occasionally WIND on 92.5 (classic rock)...I've pretty much given up on WSKY/97.3 with its extremely biased right-wing political talk format. Sometimes I find myself riveted to one station...more often, I'm surfing around on the dial for something interesting.  But for the last couple of weeks, I have been listening to a CD that my friend Rob from work gave me a while back: Mahler's Ninth Symphony in D-Minor, which he composed shortly before his death and was consequently never performed in his lifetime.  But it is widely considered to be one of his best symphonies, and the symphony is the form that he excelled in.  Although Mahler's Ninth is difficult to get my arms around...it seems much less structured to my untrained classical music ears than a symphony by Mozart or Beethoven...I have come to sense more and more that its mood matches mine, almost as if a kind of synchronicity is going on.  As a result, this CD has become a test of sorts regarding whatever is on the radio.  When I'm on the radio the question comes up: does any of this stand up to Mahler's Ninth?  Usually it doesn't and I switch over to the CD, which picks up on the symphony at the point when I left off the previous time.  But lately, I haven't even bothered to listen to the radio and just keep the Ninth playing in the background as I drive...

Quote of the Week...from Brooks Atkinson

People everywhere enjoy believing things that they know are not true. It spares them the ordeal of thinking for themselves and taking responsibility for what they know.
                                                                      ---Brooks Atkinson

In his heyday from the early to mid-twentieth century, Brooks Atkinson was a famous figure, writing influential theatrical reviews for more than three decades for the New York Times and serving as an overseas correspondent in China during World War II and afterwards in Moscow.  I don't know the context and origin of the above quote (nor do I know Brooks Atkinson for that matter), but I know where I found it: a book of cryptograms!  But whatever Brooks Atkinson may have originally meant by this saying, I thought it had a very broad application to myself, others around me...and the way the world in general works. That having been noted, though, I'm going to specifically apply it to something that's been eating at me for years: "parrot politics"...

Parrot politics is a term I coined myself, although it should already be a commonly used expression.  It's meaning is self-evident: the ever-increasing tendency for people to "parrot" whatever they hear or read from others they are following in the media, be it talk radio, the Internet, television, printed media, etc., as if it were something they had thought up for themselves.  I see a lot of this phenomenon on Facebook, and from BOTH sides of the political spectrum.  It's easy to detect: somebody around you suddenly goes off on a detailed rant that they obviously couldn't have reasoned out for themselves but is rather a repeat of what they got from another source.  The content is usually like this: "our" side is ever-so highly principled with its advocates being people of honor, wisdom, and good intentions who deserve respect while the "other" side is slimy and deceitful with its advocates being full of ulterior motives, selfish, stupid, and corrupt, half of whom belong in jail and none of whom should be in politics.  It's not the media people who formulate and present these opinions that I have the major problem with (although they should know better)...no, it's the unquestioning "believers" among the general population who may not even understand what they are passionately regurgitating to others but choose to do it because they know it promotes "their" side and slams the other.  It's kind of like watching a game and your team just got away with a penalty but you expediently claim there was no foul committed. Wouldn't it be ultimately more productive to take each issue and discuss it on its pros and cons...and leave out the personalities?

I have my own political perspectives and tend to lean toward one party over the other...I've made no secret of that here on this blog.  But when I'm listening to the opinions of others, regardless of their political orientation, I do try to think for myself and discern the difference between what is true and what is just a rehash of twisted propaganda. Unfortunately, the trend, with some folks at least, seems to be going in the opposite direction...

9/17 Sermon on David, Part 1

In embarking on a new series about the important Old Testament figure of David, The Family Church's senior pastor Philip Griffin delivered a message titled The Heart That God Chooses and, relying primarily on passages from the book of 1 Samuel, Chapters 10-17 as well as from Acts 13:22 and Psalms 51:10, contrasted the responses of Saul and David to God's calling upon them to be the first king of Israel...

As 1 Samuel 17:7 explains, God looks at the hearts of people, not their outward appearance.  And how does one's heart manifest itself to the Lord?  Pastor Philip delineated fours ways: a willingness to wait, a desire to obey, a bold faith, and genuine repentance.  Saul wouldn't wait a day or two for Samuel to make the required sacrifice to God, but David was willing to wait many years after his anointing to finally become king.  Saul's disobedience in this matter is contrasted with how God saw David, testifying that "he will do everything I want him to do".  When the Philistines presented the giant Goliath as their champion, Saul shrank back in fear caused by lack of faith, but David stepped forward and proclaimed God...not himself...as the champion on his side.  And as for repentance, Saul would often back down in sorrow from his wrongful actions...but only temporarily.  David, himself flawed, however was true in his repentance...particularly in the affair of Bathsheba and Uriah...

No, it's not like it was three thousand years ago and I doubt that anyone reading this is dealing with their proper role as a warrior/king on a brutal battlefield.  But in our daily lives we are confronted constantly with situations that can challenge our patience, our obedience to God, and our faith...while calling us to humbly repent whenever we transgress.  Let us be people whose hearts speak to God!

For the Biblical passages used in Philip's message, I invite you to use the search engine on the Bible Gateway site through the following link: [link].  And you can view this sermon off the church's YouTube video website...here's a link to it: [link].  The Family Church, at 2022 SW 122nd Street in western Gainesville, holds its Sunday morning services at 9:30 and 11...

Weekly Short Story: Barrier by Anthony Boucher

During the past few days I have been rereading my all-time favorite Stephen King novel 11/22/63, an odyssey about time travel.  In line with this theme I picked another time travel "special", the 1942 short story Barrier by Anthony Boucher, which appeared in the collection Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 4 (1942) published by DAW Books in 1980.  You may be familiar with this book, for I've already discussed two tales from it, Mimic by Donald A. Wollheim and Nerves by Lester del Rey...it contains a few other gems as well...

Once you overcome the impossible physics of time travel...at least into the past...the way is open for wild speculation and the paradoxes that can occur.  Neither King in 11/22/63 nor Boucher in Barrier disappoint in this respect.  In Boucher's story, a time machine built in the "advanced" time (from 1942's perspective) of 1973 propels John Trent...hired by the inventor for the trip...500 years into the future.  He finds himself in a stagnant and totalitarian society...science and free thought are prohibited and everything "legal" derives from that time's scriptures and their interpreters, an apparent dig by the author against organized religion.  Everything in this society is run by the principle of Stasis...no societal change, no scientific development...and definitely no time travel...are allowed.  They have gone so far as to construct a barrier to time travel...Trent manages to get through because his machine is from the past.  The Stasis builds another, more effective barrier and at the instant it is activated, many time travelers from the future collide with it...and the conflict between the totalitarian status quo and the future full of inevitable change ensues in earnest, with our hero in the middle of it all...

Change and growth are indispensable to a healthy society, and Anthony Boucher is by no means alone in emphasizing this.  And while principles and precepts can be important guidelines in structuring a society, it is also crucial that people rely on what they can see going on before them with their own eyes and not practice denial of reality in favor of dogma...I see too much of that denial going on in the world around me.  But what I liked the most about Barrier was the time travel speculation...and the ingenious way how Bokor, one of the time travelers from the future, is able to circumvent the Stasis and "beat the system"...

Tuesday's List: Miami Dolphins and Florida Gators Football Win-Loss Records Since 1966

The first football game I ever watched on TV was early during the 1967 season, in other words 50 years ago...and it was between the San Francisco 49ers and the Los Angeles Rams, two teams that will face each other this Thursday night.  But although I successfully rooted for the Rams in that bygone game, I came to be an ardent fan of the Miami Dolphins, beginning with their third season in 1968.  That year I also started to follow college football and pulled equally for Florida, Florida State, and the University of Miami.  After moving to Gainesville in 1977, my allegiances focused on the Gators, but I still supported the Dolphins.  Over the years, Miami and UF have had their glory seasons and some not-so-good times.  Below I've listed each team's win-loss record, starting with 1966, the first year of the Miami Dolphins as well as the year that Gator quarterback Steve Spurrier won the Heisman Trophy.  I've marked with an asterisk (*) the years that the respective teams made the postseason.  Those times Miami made it to the Super Bowl and lost I highlighted with blue and their Super Bowl championship years I highlighted with red.  Similarly, the years Florida won the Southeastern Conference championship I highlighted with blue, their National Championship seasons with red (they naturally won the SEC those years as well).  So here's that list, which I admit to putting on this blog in order that I can easily refer to it:

       DOLPHINS      GATORS

1966      3-11            9-2*
1967      4-10            6-4
1968      5-8-1           6-3-1
1969      3-10-1         9-1-1*
1970     10-4*           7-4
1971     10-3-1*        4-7
1972     14-0*           5-5-1
1973     12-2*           7-5*
1974     11-3*           8-4*
1975     10-4             9-3*

1976     6-8               8-4*

1977     10-4             6-4-1

1978     11-5*           4-7

1979     10-6*           0-10-1

1980     8-8               8-4*

1981     11-4-1*        7-5*

1982    7-2*              8-4*

1983    12-4*            9-2*

1984    14-2*            9-1-1

1985    12-4*            9-1-1

1986    8-8                6-5

1987    8-7                6-6*

1988    6-10              7-5*

1989    8-8                7-5*

1990    12-4*            9-2

1991    8-8               10-2*

1992    11-5*            9-4*

1993    9-7               11-2*

1994    10-6*           10-2-1*

1995    9-7*             12-1*

1996    8-8               12-1*

1997    9-7*             10-2*

1998    10-6*           10-2*

1999     9-7*             9-4*

2000    11-5*           10-3*

2001    11-5*           10-2*

2002     9-7               8-5*

2003    10-6              8-5*

2004    4-12              7-5*

2005    9-7                9-3*

2006    6-10             13-1*

2007    1-15              9-4*

2008    11-5*           13-1*

2009    7-9               13-1*

2010    7-9               8-5*

2011    6-10             7-6*

2012    7-9               11-2*

2013    8-8               4-8

2014    8-8               7-5*

2015    6-10            10-4*

2016    10-6*           9-4*

2017    1-0               1-1

Just Finished Reading Stephen King's Secret Window, Secret Garden

Although I've possessed a copy of Stephen King's 1990 book Four Past Midnight for several years, for much of that time I had only gotten around to reading one of its four novellas: The Library Policeman.  With The Langoliers, I saw the television movie version in its entirety, so I wasn't motivated to read it...at least yet.  A little while back I did get around to reading The Sun Dog, which depends on the obsolete Polaroid camera process for it to have its full intended effect on the reader.  Which leaves Secret Window, Secret Garden, a story that I had put off for a long time because I had seen a short section of the film version starring Johnny Depp.  As it turns out, nothing was given away during that brief viewing, so when I read it for the first time last week the story was fresh, including the ending...although at a certain point I suspected what was "really" going on...after all, King had already written a variation on this same theme in an earlier novel...and no, I'm not telling you its name because that would give away the story...

Mort Rainey is a novelist with writer's block as he struggles to cope with his traumatic recent divorce.  He is staying alone at his (and ex-wife Amy's) vacation home in the woods...once again way out in rural Maine, near a small town once again a product of Stephen King's imagination.  A rustic man from Mississippi, identifying himself as John Shooter, knocks on his door one day and claims that Rainey stole his story, which he had titled Secret Window, Secret Garden and Mort as Sowing Season.  Mort denies this and offers proof...but the original Ellery Queen Mystery magazine in which it appeared many years earlier will take time to get there.  In the meantime, Shooter ratchets up the pressure...and, increasingly, the terror as he threatens and acts...

As sadly is the case with too many film adaptations to Stephen King's stories, the movie Secret Window, Secret Garden has an entirely different ending to it...why do they do that, whether you're talking about The Mist, The Shining, Pet Sematary, or others when the book's ending was so good and integral to the story?  And for some reason, the movie reverses the titles of Rainey's and Shooter's stories.  All this notwithstanding, I enjoyed Secret Window, Secret Garden...although in the final analysis it was a pretty gloomy tale...

My Music Listening Drastically Switches to Classical

Although the late Polish classical music composer Henryk Górecki usually doesn't make anyone's list for the greatest composers of all time, it comes down to the fact that it was he who sparked an epic change in my musical preferences over the past few weeks.  Although I liked to listen casually to classical music on my drives to and from work, when my local classical radio station on 102.7 played the second movement of Górecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs I realized that I had been letting musical treasures slip by me unnoticed.  Coupled with the doleful shape of things in the alternative rock genre of late, I drastically switched my listening to classical music.  A few weeks ago I listed my top thirty favorite classical music pieces...since then the list would need a bit of revision as I keep hearing more and more incredible music.  But although I can listen to this music easily on the radio, I've found myself wanting to hear the most highly regarded pieces from the most beloved and respected composers.  To this end I found a website that lists forty of these giants of musical history, along with ten of each one's greatest works.  Here is a link to that site: [link]...

So now I'm intentionally setting out to explore some of the greatest music of all time instead of just passively taking in whatever the radio programmers decide to play.  Yesterday I listened to Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, a stunning orchestral work intended as a ballet.  Yes, I can see how some may have gotten a little riled up at its premier performance in 1913...it was like nothing ever done before...or since, for that matter.  And right now I'm listening to Béla Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra...who knows where this will all lead...

Just Finished Reading Dennis Lehane's Live By Night

When I checked out Dennis Lehane's 2012 gangster novel Live By Night from my library, I foolishly didn't first see whether it was in the middle of a series...well, turns out it's the second book in his Coughlin crime series.  Fortunately, though, this story was very well-contained and I feel that I didn't miss too much by skipping book #1, which is titled The Given Day...

The setting for Live By Night changes from Boston to Tampa to Cuba, during the Prohibition-era '20s and '30s and then the first few years following its repeal.  The protagonist is Joe Coughlin, the youngest son of a Boston police captain who from early on has chosen the life of organized crime, much to his father's dismay.  Joe finds himself caught in the middle of a war between booze-smuggling crime families while at the same time he has fallen for the mistress of his chief enemy.  In a heist, someone double-crosses him, he is arrested, and sent to prison...where he comes under the influence of Maso Pescatore, a powerful crime boss.  Joe eventually gets released and Pescatore employs him as the head of his Tampa operations.  But maybe I've already said too much...after all, part of the enjoyment of reading a book of this type is all of its plot twists and turns: you never know what will happen next when you turn the page...

Joe Coughlin could best be described as a gangster with a conscience, which is a concept I find difficult to accept.  Yet somehow Lehane makes him a sympathetic character all the way through the story, believable or not.  I honestly didn't enjoy Live By Night all that much, but it did give me a better sense about what all was going on during the brief Prohibition period in our country's history.  After finishing it, I discovered that it was adapted to film last year, the movie starring Ben Affleck.  The third book in this series has been out for a couple of years...

Dennis Lehane also wrote Mystic River and Shutter Island, two more stories with movie counterparts.  Maybe I'll try one or both of these sometime in the near future...

Quote of the Week...from Neil deGrasseTyson

No one is dumb who is curious. The people who don't ask questions remain clueless throughout their lives.                                                                ---Neil deGrasse Tyson.

I wonder how different my life might have turned out if, from the first days of elementary school through the end of high school, at least one teacher had shown the patience, attention, and respect toward me, an individual student, that their profession calls from them and about which their union likes to boast on television ads.  Eventually, I did begin to encounter good teachers, but only after I had entered college...my freshman year chemistry teacher exemplified the above quote from renowned astrophysicist and popularizer of science Neil deGrasse Tyson, a man who I'm sure would be an excellent teacher, regardless of the grade level.  Mr. Hill was slow, methodical, and careful, taking great pains to try to elicit questions from the students in his classes...his mantra was that the only dumb question is the one not asked.  But Neil's quote has a much broader application than a formal education setting: being curious and seeking answers flies in the face of the tendency of our popular culture...

No one wants to be seen as an ignoramus...after all, that would be a sign of "weakness" and if there is one overriding theme to how people are expected to behave, it is that they must show to others that they are strong.  Just look at all the sit-coms on television, where the "dummy" character is the one who asks questions...and by this supposedly reveals his or her utter stupidity to the roar of the laugh track.  And as far as curiosity about the world around us being an obstacle to relationships, there are those people out there who amazingly have no concept as to what being curious means...they tend to define everything up front in uncompromising black & white, good & bad terms and if anything, regard folks regularly showing general interest and curiosity in what's going on around them as being wasteful and selfish...after all, they could be doing something more "useful" instead...

I am currently reading Neil deGrasse Tyson's latest book, titled Astrophysics for People in a Hurry.  It doesn't contain complicated mathematical equations, and it neither babies the reader by overgeneralizing the concepts expressed within it nor does it unduly tax one's mind.  For the generally curious soul, I recommend this book...but if you think you've already got everything figured out, why bother learning anything new?

Hurricane Irma Cancelled Last Sunday's Church Service

Last Sunday's services at The Family Church here in Gainesville, Florida were cancelled due to Hurricane Irma, and thus I have no sermon here to summarize as I have been regularly doing on Thursdays for nearly a year.  I'm looking forward to this coming Sunday's message, but in the meantime permit me to ramble on a bit...

These Thursday blog articles are qualitatively different from the others that I write in that I am not, for the most part, writing my own original thoughts, but rather...with varying degrees of success...those from whomever is behind the pulpit from week to week.  Now to be sure, each sermon has its own structure, and part of the experience of receiving it is to reflect on the message and determine its application to my own life and how I should respond.  The way I see it, these personal reflections are just that: personal, and each of us is going to receive the message in the special way that God intends for us...

This coming Sunday should see things at the church resume as usual.  The Family Church is located at 2022 SW 122nd Street and holds its Sunday morning services at 9:30 and 11.  There is the weekly message, praise music, prayer and discipleship opportunities, very friendly people...and some good complimentary coffee.  Looking forward to being there again...

Weekly Short Story: The Malted Milk Monster by William Tenn

The Malted Milk Monster is a short story written by William Tenn and which appeared in the retrospective anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 21 (1959), published by DAW Books in 1990.  Although listed as science fiction, it really belongs to Stephen King's brand of horror fiction...I could easily see this tale being in one of his short story collections.  The author's real name was Philip Klass and he wrote quite of lot of science fiction before he "retired" from the craft into a cushy English professor job at Penn State University.  This particular story of his is one of my favorites and delves into the mind of a typically irrational and emotion-driven child...but one with a frightening secret power...

Dorothy, an unpopular little girl, has a very vivid and all-encompassing imaginary fantasy world in which she spends a great amount of her time.  She also has a crush on Carter Broun, a young man who is her teacher's husband.  After sitting in a soda shop watching, with his wife, the girl in the corner going through malted milkshake after malted milkshake, he wonders what's in her mind as the two walk on back home.  The next thing he knows, he is in a strange world...deep in Dorothy's mind and trapped.  Whatever happened to Carter's body, he doesn't know...all he does know is that his consciousness, along with others whom she ensnared into her mind, cannot escape.  Or can he?  Carter embarks on a strategy...but what it is and how well it works is something that you, the prospective reader of this remarkable tale, will need to discover for yourself...

Like many good stories, The Malted Milk Monster carries analogies for our real world.  There are people like Dorothy, not necessarily endowed with supernatural powers, but with an unhealthy combination of narcissism and the desire to dominate others...and they aren't just children.  A lot of us have tendencies to be narcissistic or domineering...but together within one person, this can be extremely toxic...

Tuesday's List: My Favorite Monkees Songs

The Monkees, an American pop/rock band manufactured for a television series designed to capitalize on the blockbuster 1965 Beatles film Help!, unwittingly outstripped that TV show in popularity with their music.  Don Kirschner, who was in charge of the recording process, employed songwriters Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart to pen their songs while professional musicians came in to provide the instrumentation.  Two of the Monkees...Micky Dolenz and Davy Jones...were just professional actors, but the other two...Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork...were musicians in their own right.  It was Nesmith who began to demand that the Monkees themselves provide the music and not just the vocals, causing controversy as well as Kirschner angrily leaving his job after only the second album.  As it turned out, their music continued to be good and they produced a phenomenal SIX studio albums in a little more than two years, two of them after the television series was cancelled in early 1968 after just two seasons and 107 episodes...

The Monkees were wildly popular, outselling the Beatles during their "glory" days in 1967.  But the Fab Four weren't upset: they supported the Monkees and praised them, wondering how they could combine their arduous acting routine for the series with recording, promotional appearances...and even concert tours.  And I wonder, too...could it be that all those highbrows who put down this very likeable group were wrong and there was a lot more to the Monkees than suspected?  All I know is that, in the winter, spring, and summer of 1967 I was a diehard fan, watching their show, listening to their music, and even collecting their bubblegum cards (let me insert here that I was ten years old)...

At the end of 1968, the movie Head came out, which was a very cynical look at the Monkees...I didn't like it at all.  But the soundtrack album...that's an entirely different matter, with it being their crowning achievement (Tork and Nesmith were fantastic).  Following Head, Peter Tork left the group, they made two more albums, and then Michael Nesmith left.  They disbanded in 1970, but every decade or so since they've reunited, made a new album, and toured.  But I'm not at all a fan of their later works, and I'm sad that Davy Jones passed away five years ago... 

Below is a list of my thirty favorite Monkees songs...you really should check them out...

1 PLEASANT VALLEY SUNDAY.....Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones (1967)
2 SOMETIME IN THE MORNING.....More of the Monkees (1967)
3 CIRCLE SKY....................................Head (1968)
4 DAYDREAM BELIEVER................The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees (1968)
5 THE PORPOISE SONG....................Head (1968)
6 CAN YOU DIG IT.............................Head (1968)
7 LOOK OUT (HERE COMES TOMORROW)....More of the Monkees (1967)
8 SATURDAY'S CHILD.......................The Monkees (1966)
9 TAKE A GIANT STEP.......................The Monkees (1966)
10 A LITTLE BIT ME, A LITTLE BIT YOU......Single (1967)
11 YOU JUST MIGHT BE THE ONE.....Headquarters (1967)
12 THE GIRL THAT I KNEW SOMEWHERE....B-Side of #10 Single (1967)
13 WRITING WRONGS........................The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees (1968)
14 THE DOOR INTO SUMMER...........Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones (1967)
15 FOR PETE'S SAKE...........................Headquarters (1967)
16 I'M  A BELIEVER..............................More of the Monkees (1967)
17 DADDY'S SONG..............................Head (1968)
18 SHADES OF GRAY..........................Headquarters (1967)
19 VALLERI...........................................The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees (1968)
20 SHE....................................................More of the Monkees (1967).
21 LAST TRAIN TO CLARKSVILLE.......The Monkees (1966)
22 (I'M NOT YOUR) STEPPIN' STONE.....More of the Monkees (1967)
23 MONKEE'S THEME...........................The Monkees (1966)
24 WORDS..............................................Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones (1967)
25 LOVE IS ONLY SLEEPING..............Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones (1967)
26 AUNTIE'S MUNICIPAL COURT......The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees (1968)
27 I WON'T BE THE SAME WITHOUT HER......Instant Replay (1969)
28 EARLY MORNING BLUES AND GREENS.....Headquarters (1967)
29 I'LL BE BACK UPON MY FEET.......The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees (1968)
30 GONNA BUY ME A DOG.................The Monkees (1966)

Just Got Power Restored After Hurricane Irma

By yesterday, my family and I were prepared for Hurricane Irma as it approached from the south, and then it was just a matter of staying put at home and "hunkering down", as we brave Floridians like to put it.  And everything was fine throughout the day and evening: we spent much of it watching The Weather Channel and amusing ourselves over the meteorologists out "in the field" in places like Naples, Fort Myers and Tampa.  The Naples dude was standing out there in the middle of it all, enduring this ferocious storm's eyewall no less, and then suddenly in the background you could see a car start up and drive on by!  Jim Cantore was further up the road in Fort Myers: right as the "dirty" eye of Irma reached his position, once again there was activity in the background: folks chatting it up and walking their dogs like it was any other ordinary day...don't these people know what "hunker down" means?  In any event, Hurricane Irma defied predictions and remained inland long enough to weaken...and then slightly veered west from its northward path, passing us here in Gainesville to the west.  At this writing...around 2:30 pm...its center is on the Fla-Ga state line and it has only maximum sustained winds of 60 mph...

Irma was another of those hurricanes whose impact was strongly felt quite a distance from its eye.  Miami, Orlando, and Jacksonville all suffered flooding and damage from strong storm bands, and in Gainesville the worst effects seemed to come just after midnight.  We lost electricity at 1:03 am as strong gusts hit us and the surrounding area...we finally got our power back more than 12 hours later at 1:20 pm.  Our home was spared damage, but one of the metal posts in our chain link fence broke.  And there were plenty of tree limbs lying around...

There is nothing quite like the feeling you get after losing electricity for 12 hours and then it suddenly comes back on.  There's no doubt about it: some of us, myself included, are strongly conditioned by modern civilization with all of its technological benefits.  Break the circuit and we're suddenly back in survival mode...

Just Finished Rereading Insomnia by Stephen King

As I'm sitting here at home waiting for Hurricane Irma to make its unwelcome presence fully felt in northern Florida and relishing that so far we still have our electric power, I decided to write about something different: the 1994 Stephen King novel Insomnia, which is one of my favorites of his and which I just finished rereading...

As in the extremely scary novel It, Insomnia takes place of the setting of one of King's most sinister imaginary Maine towns: Derry.  It (Insomnia, not It) is about the life of a 70-year old man, Ralph Roberts, who has just lost his beloved, long-time wife from cancer and is just beginning to come out of his mourning, only to discover that, night-by-night, he finds himself waking up a few minutes earlier in the morning until, eventually, all of his sleep disappears.  Ralph is a likable man with his share of good friends like Bill McGovern, Ed Deepneau, Lois Chasse, and numerous fellow senior citizens.  But one day he discovers that Ed has inexplicably undergone a tumultuous personality change and is now a violent, vengeful soul who beats his wife and is on a campaign against local women's advocate groups and their leaders.  There is an underlying reason for his transformation, but maybe I'd better let you discover it for yourself...after all, Insomnia is full of mysteries that gradually reveal themselves over the course of the narrative.   Instead, I'll just discuss a couple of impressions I got from it...

Stephen King showed in Insomnia that he truly has a heart for the elderly and depicted people in this stage of life as complete and complex, full of their own vitality and struggling not only against sickness, increasing feebleness, and eventually death, but also against that element within society that would prefer to institutionalize them whether they wanted it or not.  To me, Ralph Roberts is the quintessential senior superhero, as worthy of his own cape and insignia as Superman or Batman.  And if you read on in the story, my analogy between him and characters endowed with superhuman powers isn't really off at all...

The other thing I got from this tale was the notion that each and every one of us, because of our physical nature in time and space, are incapable of sensing that there is much, much more to the reality that surrounds us that we cannot sense or understand.  Stephen King integrated this "hyper-reality", as he dubbed it, with other stories in his fictional universe and yes, there are references to characters in other novels...notably It, Pet Sematary, and that "dark" series that he used to tie everything together...

So I'm still all on board with Insomnia as being one of Stephen King's best novels; in addition to the horrors and scariness typifying his works, there is also a profound sweetness of spirit here...read it and see if you don't agree with this seeming paradox... 

Hurricane Irma Poised to Strike Florida

Tomorrow and Monday are set as the main impact days for Florida as major hurricane Irma now begins to move away from the Cuban coast and head through the Florida Straits.  Over the last couple of days, the computer projections have shifted Irma's trajectory from the eastern part of the state to its western side...and now the Gulf coast from the Keys on northward is in peril of bearing the brunt of this dangerous storm.  Although the maximum sustained winds, once at 185 mph, have been recently reduced to 125 mph after its interaction with land on Cuba, Irma is expected to reintensify as it approaches Florida.  Gainesville will in all likelihood suffer hurricane-force winds when the worst part of it passes us Monday morning...that is, if Irma goes where the computers think it will. But tropical storm force winds will be already affecting us here for much of Sunday.  My hope is that it will travel quickly through and be gone as soon as possible.  Doubtless there will be widespread property damage and some loss of electricity and water...as well as localized flooding...

Right behind Irma and following close to its path is Hurricane Jose, now a strong Category 4 storm, which is now passing slightly to the north of the same Leeward Islands that Irma just devastated.  But one monster hurricane at a time, please...

Quote of the Week...from Carl Hiaasen

The first rule of hurricane coverage is that every broadcast must begin with palm trees bending in the wind.                                                                   ---Carl Hiaasen

Carl Hiaasen is a journalist and novelist, having spent most of his life in south Florida...and is thoroughly well-versed concerning hurricanes and the media's coverage of them.  I've read that he still writes a regular column for the Miami Herald...I wonder what's he's been saying of late about the media's coverage of Hurricane Irma...

The other day Florida's governor, Rick Scott, declared a statewide emergency after it became clear that very dangerous Hurricane Irma would in all likelihood strike Florida head-on and affect the entire state.  When I discovered this I turned the channel to the Weather Channel for the latest information, only to discover that they were airing an hour-long prerecorded show about tornadoes.  So let me get this straight: a terrible hurricane (that is "weather", right?) is intensifying to unheard of levels for one coming in from across the Atlantic, and it is about to strike populated areas in the West Indies and Puerto Rico before severely affecting the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba...and eventually the heavily-populated Miami area of Florida...and the Weather Channel is floating around in la-la land.  Okay, I got it...and switched to a mainstream cable news channel to get my update on Irma.  Eventually, the Weather Channel got the message and now seems to be seriously covering Irma...but the weekend draws near and I wonder whether they'll go back to their unwelcome and untimely prerecorded programs...

As for Mr. Hiaasen's quote, I've noticed how eagerly different "weather" reporters go out on their assignments, especially on the beach, and pretend to be roughing it up for the sake of us viewers.  In almost every case, there is at least one instance of such a reporter acting as if he or she is in some kind of dire peril just standing there...and then behind them you see people carrying on as usual, like a mother pushing her baby in a stroller or a couple of kids playing Frisbee.  Last year when Hurricane Matthew threatened the Florida east coast it was almost comical turning on the TV seeing different reports strategically stationed up and down the coast, putting on the "struggling against the elements" act.  But this can get to be foolhardy as well: I've seen one such on-the-scene reporter standing out in the midst of an ongoing tropical storm get blown off her feet one time while flying debris hit a correspondent in another incident.  So I'd like to add a second rule to Carl Hiaasen's first rule of hurricane coverage: string out reporters on various beaches and show them wallowing around in the turmoil, real or imagined...oh yeah, and when it's the Weather Channel, expect to be continually reminded that the folks out there are all official meteorologists...

9/3 Sermon: No One is an Island, Pt. 5

Last Sunday my church's missions coordinator Jeff Moody delivered the fifth installment in the ongoing series No One is an Island, titled Who Will Rise Up?  Jeff used a variety of passages from the New Testament as Biblical source material and broke his message down to four aspects of the church...and by "church" he means the collective body of believers and followers of Christ...

The church is thriving, struggling, expanding, and not yet complete. Jeff encouraged us to take each section and think of specific examples pertaining to them...and then ask ourselves how we are contributing to that particular state, for better or for worse.  In this respect, this sermon was more of an open-ended one...

For the thriving church, Jeff cited 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10: work produced by faith, labor prompted by love, endurance inspired by hope in Jesus Christ...

For the struggling church: 1 Corinthians 3:1-3: jealousy and quarreling reveals worldliness and spiritual immaturity...

For the expanding church: Acts 6:7, 9:31, 13:2-3: the Holy Spirit encouraged growth of the early church...

And for the church not yet complete: Matthew 24:14, Revelation 7:9-12: first the gospel of the kingdom of God is to be witnessed to all nations, then "shall the end come"...

You can go to Bible Gateway and look up these passages through their search engine...here's a link to this site: [link].  Jeff's message can be accessed through The Family Church's YouTube video website, available through this link: [link].  The Family Church, located at 2022 SW 122nd Street in far western Gainesville, holds its Sunday morning services at 9:30 and 11...

Weekly Short Story...Seven Types of Ambiguity by Shirley Jackson

Shirley Jackson was an acclaimed novelist and short story writer of the mid-twentieth century, probably best known for The Lottery, a short story about a small American town with a sinister ritual.  I happened to pick up a collection of some her short fiction, appropriately titled The Lottery and Other Stories.  One tale that stuck with me over the years wasn't at all scary in the way many of Jackson's stories were: Seven Types of Ambiguity, from 1948...

Maybe you've heard of the literary poetic criticism book Seven Types of Ambiguity, written by William Empson and published back in 1930.  It's not the content of this book that figures into Shirley Jackson's short eight-page story, but one of its fans, a young college student scrimping and saving his way through school and life, and who happens upon this work in an old bookstore.  It's a rare book and costs more than he can afford, so instead he stops by and reads a little of it at a time.  The bookseller allows this, but warns him that someone else could buy it at any time.  One day a man, accompanied by his wife, enters the store in search of "good" books...like some Dickens or Jane Eyre, for example.  He isn't given to reading and values the appearance of books decorating his home more than their content.   The college student eagerly helps him to find several books to buy in the store, and they discuss the book the boy is reading but can't buy.  It's all a pleasant scene, with folks from different backgrounds and perspectives interacting with each another in a constructive, positive way.  And then there is that surprise ending that changes everything...

I've said it before: the shorter the short story the greater impact is the ending, which is often completely unexpected and turns everything on its head: Seven Types of Ambiguity is no exception.  There are three major players here: the young financially-strapped college student, the older self-made man who wants to give the appearance of being well-read, and the shop owner, whose primary concern is the financial bottom line for his business.  How these three interact shows how money and the arts, while in many ways interdependent, are ultimately incompatible...a seeming paradox.  And also, when a person gets into the mindset that they are of a higher social level than another, then the common rules of courtesy and mutual respect can break down.  But to know how this story revealed this to me, you'll have to read it yourself.  By the way, there is both a novel and a television series titled Seven Types of Ambiguity, each one totally unrelated to Shirley Jackson's story...

Tuesday's List: Florida's Governors and Senators in My Lifetime

I was born in 1956 and my family moved to Florida sometime in 1958...naturally, at the time I had no concept who "my" elected governor and senators were.  The first time I became aware of the Florida governor happened during the 1966 Democratic primary campaign, which was wide open between incumbent Haydon Burns, Scott Kelly, and Miami mayor Robert King High.  High defeated Burns in the runoff, but Burns wouldn't support High in the general election against Claude Kirk.  Although High was popular in South Florida with his "Integrity is the Issue" slogan, it didn't transfer statewide and he lost.  I remember the morning right after that election going to school at Nova Elementary and hearing some classmates with Republican parents whooping it up in victory...as if they had any idea what they were talking about.  With the U.S. Senate, my first memory was of Lawton Chiles' populist campaign against GOP candidate Bill Cramer...Lawton used the gimmick of walking across the state ("Walkin' Lawton") and captured the popular appeal.  Then, during the Senate Watergate hearings in 1973, the other Florida senator, Edward Gurney, was the only member of the panel who wholeheartedly defended Richard Nixon...

If you look at the governors list, you'll see two of them, Wayne Mixson and Buddy MacKay, who served very short stints.  Mixson took over from Bob Graham for the overlapping four days of the latter's conclusion of his governorship and the start of his newly-elected term in the U.S. Senate.  As for MacKay, although he lost the governor's race in 1998 to Jeb Bush, the sitting governor, Lawton Chiles, passed away that December and Mackay, then the lieutenant governor, succeeded him for the remaining weeks of his term...

With the senators lists, you'll notice the division into classes.  This is because only a third of the nation's Senate seats are up for election in any given even-numbered year and Florida has Classes 1 and 3: the Class 3 election, which Marco Rubio won, was held last year and Class 1, to which Bill Nelson belongs, stands up for election in 2018...

The following lists show the names in capitals, preceded by their years of service, and followed by party affiliation...

******GOVERNORS******

1955-61 LEROY COLLINS (D)
1961-65 C. FARRIS BRYANT (D)
1965-67 W. HAYDON BURNS (D)
1967-71 CLAUDE KIRK, JR. (R)
1971-79 REUBEN ASKEW (D)
1979-87 BOB GRAHAM (D)
1987      WAYNE MIXSON (D) [Jan. 3-6]
1987-91 BOB MARTINEZ (R)
1991-98 LAWTON CHILES (D)
1998-99 BUDDY MACKAY (D) [Dec. 12-Jan. 5]
1999-2007 JEB BUSH (R)
2007-11 CHARLIE CRIST (R)
2111-now RICK SCOTT (R)

******U.S. SENATORS*****

-----------CLASS 1-------------

1946-71 SPESSARD HOLLAND (D)
1971-89 LAWTON CHILES (D)
1989-2001 CONNIE MACK (R)
2001-now BILL NELSON (D)

-----------CLASS 3-------------

1951-69 GEORGE SMATHERS (D)
1969-74 EDWARD J. GURNEY (R)
1975-80 RICHARD STONE (D)
1981-87 PAULA HAWKINS (R)
1987-2005 BOB GRAHAM (D)
2005-09 MEL MARTINEZ (R)
2009-11 GEORGE LEMIEUX (R)
2011-now MARCO RUBIO (R)

Hurricane Irma Ominously Heads Toward Florida

In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, which inundated Houston and surrounding areas to an unprecedented degree, another monster storm has been brewing in the eastern Atlantic and is now approaching the West Indies.  Hurricane Irma, currently with 120 mph sustained winds, is now predicted to strike the Leeward Islands and then continue in a generally west-northwest direction as it strikes glancing blows at Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, and Cuba.  These three major Caribbean islands, while probably being spared the wrath of this storm's most powerful winds...now predicted to reach as high as 145 mph...will still undoubtedly suffer great damage and, regrettably, casualties as it heads for a showdown with my home state of Florida.  The projected computer models as they now stand all seem to have Irma reaching the eastern Florida Straits between south Florida and Cuba sometime next Saturday...and then they diverge from each other.  Some models have it then turning abruptly northward just east of the Florida peninsular and some show it entering the Gulf of Mexico before coming at Florida from the west...but most of them seem to have Irma directly striking Florida with Monroe, Dade, and Broward Counties being the most in peril.  I live in Alachua County, in the northern part of the state, inland to the west of St. Augustine and northeast of Cedar Key.  We've been fortunate so far here in Gainesville with hurricanes over the years, but my fear is that one of the strong ones will enter the Gulf and hit Gainesville via Cedar Key: Irma ominously is showing the potential to do this.  But it's still early and I've seen these predictions of hurricanes and their projected paths stray far and wide from what eventually happens.  Still, it's best to be prepared for the worst...

Just Finished Rereading Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot

I first read Stephen King's second blockbuster novel 'Salem's Lot many years ago...later, when I was reading his Dark Tower fantasy series, one of the characters made a surprising appearance, rekindling my interest in this tribute to Bram Stoker's Dracula.  So yes, 'Salem's Lot is about vampires and, naturally, the setting is another one of those rural, peculiar Maine towns in King's fertile and sometimes rather dark imagination...

The setting is the autumn of 1975, which for Stephen King was also the publication of this book.  An established fiction novelist Ben Mears, who lived for a short spell during his childhood in the town of Jerusalem's Lot, moves back to collect research material and inspiration for a new book he is writing...as well as to confront a traumatic experience he had back then at the Marsten House, the town's haunted house that towers over everything else from the top of a hill.  Failing in his attempt to rent it out for himself, he discovers that a reclusive pair of men, Straker and Barlow, have recently purchased it...just what is their game in Jerusalem's Lot, people wonder.  Soon thereafter the two Glick boys are attacked while walking through a wooded shortcut to a friend's house...Ralphie is found murdered while Danny returns in an amnesiac daze, sickens, and dies of anemia.  The local police immediately suspect the newcomers Straker and Barlow...as well as Ben.  Meanwhile, Ben has befriended Susan Orton, with whom he establishes a romantic relationship.  As the town's population gradually disappears, a dread is growing that something evil has taken root.  Well, we know what that "root" problem is: vampires!  Other characters like the boy Mike Petrie, physician Jim Cody, English teacher Mark Burke, and Father Callahan join Ben in the mortal struggle against their adversaries...

In 'Salem's Lot, Stephen King established a pattern in his novels that he rarely deviated from: believable, ordinary people like you and me are put into a situation that not only places them and their loved ones in peril and makes them question their own moral strength and courage, but also strongly challenges their sense of what is real and what isn't.  And also as often is the case with his other works, the influence of an all-powerful and all-knowing...and jealous and vengeful...God is there...

Although I enjoyed the entirety of 'Salem's Lot, it really won me over by its ending: perfect!  There seemed to be room given for a sequel, although other than in the Dark Tower series, no further reference has been made to it.  There was a miniseries based on this novel a few years back, but seeing how generally skeptical I am about screen adaptations of Stephen King's stories, I've felt no desire to watch it.  But the book was very good...

2017 Football Season Commences

The 2017 college football season, which technically began with a few games last week, starts in earnest today with a full slate.  The Florida-Michigan and Florida State-Alabama games headline the action, and I'm rooting for both home-state teams...although they're solid underdogs.  The Gators have traditionally begun their season with one or two small college opponents, so facing the Wolverines, to which they lost badly in their bowl matchup a couple of years ago, is going to be an uphill battle.  But maybe, even if they lose, this challenging game will better tell coach Jim McElwain who will be their regular starting quarterback.  As for the other game, my wrath at Tide coach Nick Saban for having deserted the Miami Dolphins the way he did nearly eleven years ago is long gone, but is now replaced by my astonishment at how utterly arrogant and self-important this individual is.  Nothing against Alabama per se, but with Saban in charge I doubt I'll ever pull for them in a game...

I'm thinking of doing something different this year: following a conference on the other side of the country, such as the Mountain West or Pac-12.  The reason is simple: to be able to step back and more dispassionately enjoy watching the game without getting all worked up about how well (or poorly) "my" team is performing.  These two conferences almost always have weekly televised games and the teams have their own interesting rivalries...

The National Football League regular season begins this Thursday with Kansas City playing New England...the Dolphins will be at home three days later against Tampa Bay.  And Jacksonville, the team I'm probably "supposed to be" rooting for because of its proximity to Gainesville, will play Houston.   But my preferences are (1) Miami Dolphins, (2) Tampa Bay Buccaneers, (3) New York Giants, (4) Denver Broncos, (5) Seattle Seahawks...and then (6) Jacksonville Jaguars.  Understand, I'm not predicting how well these teams will do, but rather listing the ones I like the most.  And the ones I oppose the most?  That's easy...the Dolphins' divisional rivals New England Patriots, Buffalo Bills, and New York Jets, in that order...

Quote of the Week...from Keith Ellison

Not voting is not a protest. It is a surrender.                    ---Keith Ellison

Keith Ellison is a Democratic congressman from Minnesota, a very articulate and discerning progressive who is one of my favorites in the House of Representatives.  Recently he failed in his attempt to be elected as the current Democratic National Committee chair and is serving now as deputy chair.  Ellison's quote addresses a problem I have with voters, particularly those in the Democratic Party's camp.  With presidential campaigns, getting angry because your candidate didn't win your party's nomination and sitting on your hands in November to protest your unhappiness is only going to contribute to the other party's victory...there's no point in afterwards wailing that the winner's  "not my president".  But I have a beef to make that goes beyond folks not voting as a protest (or voting for a third-party candidate instead) during presidential elections and also involves a kind of political surrender...

I know some who bemoan Donald Trump as president nearly every day I'm around them, and I tend to agree that there's a lot to criticize in this individual.  But the other day I observed a couple of such people, while viewing a news broadcast showing our Democratic senator Bill Nelson, say that they didn't even know who he was, much less his party affiliation. Yet Nelson has been one of Florida's two senators since 2001 and is nearing the end of his third six-year term, being up for reelection in 2018.  Besides standing up for Florida's interests by promoting the space program and opposing offshore drilling, his presence in the Senate has recently been crucial: his one "no" vote represented the difference between "Obamacare" surviving and being repealed in the last vote taken on the issue there...and in the near future he may well represent the difference between a Senate completely controlled by the Republicans and one in which the Democrats can exist as a viable opposition party.  Will my friends, though, even bother to show up at the polls in 2018 since, after all, it isn't about electing a president?  I doubt it: voter turnout in off-years (like 2010 and 2014) drops from presidential election years by about 20-25 %...and it seems that liberal voters taper off more than the conservatives, so it doesn't look good from the left side of the political aisle even if the president is generally unpopular.  In these cases, not voting isn't a protest...it's just plain foolish.  Too many of us seem to think that whoever gets elected president becomes the all-powerful supreme ruler, but national political power is spread among both the president and Congress...and even state legislatures, which draw up the districts for the House of Representatives.  It's time for voters to wise up and pay more attention to these offices as well...

Coretta Scott King once said, "If American women would increase their voting turnout by ten percent, I think we would see an end to all of the budget cuts in programs benefiting women and children."  She's right: it is apathy among the American voting populace that is contributing to many of the wrong-headed political decisions being made by our current elected officials...

My August 2017 Running Report

In August I ran for a total of 84 miles, with my longest single run still a rather short one at 3.8 miles...well, at least that's up from July's max of 2.7.  I skipped running on  four days...probably should have taken off more.  Getting myself motivated to run during this extremely hot, humid, and rainy summer has been an almost insurmountable task...I'm just running on momentum and routine habit.  In order to increase my endurance, I've been riding an exercise bike on high resistance as well as occasionally using the elliptical cross-trainer machine at my local gym.  Both are excellence cardio exercises that are no-impact, saving wear and tear on my legs and feet...

In September I plan to do more of the same while gradually getting my weight down with more prudent eating.  I would like to experience some occasionally longer runs, but until the weather begins to cool down and get dryer, I doubt that will happen.  If a 5K race suddenly presents itself in the Gainesville area, I might run it just to keep a public aspect to my running...but so far none seem to be in store anytime soon...

8/27 Sermon: No One is an Island, Pt. 4

Continuing in the current message series No One is an Island, which stresses the importance of community within the church, senior pastor Philip Griffin of The Family Church here in Gainesville last Sunday again discussed the importance of service, the talk appropriately titled Why Serve? and focusing in scripture on Mark 10-33-45, available in the New International Version through Bible Gateway by the following link: [link].  In this passage, Jesus has revealed his impending death and resurrection...but two of his disciples, James and John, seem only interested in being elevated to the top of the disciples' pecking order.  Jesus gently rebukes them and states that whosoever among his followers seeks to be great must also be a servant...as he himself had come on Earth to be...

Pastor Philip gave four reasons to serve: it breaks the grip of pride, it gives meaning to one's life, it builds up the church family, and it makes one more like Christ.  With pride, service in itself is an attitude of humility and tempers the arrogance that too many of us are burdened with.  Pecking orders may work for chickens, but not members of the family of God.  By serving, life is more purposeful as one interconnects with others and God's love and grace spreads both within and outside the church.  It builds the church family: the mission statement of The Family Church 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."  And, as Jesus pointed out to James and John, he who is the greatest deliberately and voluntarily took onto himself the role of servant.  To be Christ-like is to serve...

The Family Church weekly messages can be seen on YouTube...here's a link to this sermon: [link].  This fellowship meets each Sunday morning at 9:30 and 11.  The church is located at 2022 SW 122nd Street and the services feature the weekly sermon, praise music, prayer, and opportunities for fellowship...

Weekly Short Story: Beyond the Wall of Sleep by H.P. Lovecraft

After Edgar Allen Poe in the nineteenth century and before Stephen King and a plethora of successful horror fiction writers in the past one, there was H.P. Lovecraft, who in the early twentieth century wrote a number of short stories and novellas in this genre.  His tales were marked by an extraordinarily detailed and diverse imagination, with his descriptions of bizarre places and entities reading as if from one who experienced it all firsthand. One of my favorite short stories of his is Beyond the Wall of Sleep...

In 1901 there is a man incarcerated in a mental institution who had killed several people on a violent rampage.  It seems that this man, who is uneducated and ignorant, has recurring dreams of vivid and bright intensity in which he is flying among the stars and pursuing his enemy who had wronged him...although in his waking life on Earth he has no such adversary.  Upon awakening from these disturbing dreams, Joe Slater is extremely violent and speaks incoherently of the wonders he has experienced.  An intern there, interested in knowing exactly what Slater is experiencing but unclearly expressing, has invented an untested telepathic device and decides one night to surreptitiously connect his mind to the dreamer's...

Beyond the Wall of Sleep brings up a common theme in fiction of different genres: that dreams contain aspects of objective reality and truth, and are not just one's own subjective mental constructions.  And in our time we're accustomed to the notion of "hitching a ride" on another's dreams through the movie Inception.  The author combined these two ideas to create a window to an interstellar battle, although his scientific knowledge was sorely lacking: at one point an observer from Earth notes a simultaneous event near the star Algol, which happens to be 90 light-years distant...

H.P. Lovecraft writes in a highly ornate literary language, but his stories in essence are more like ghost tales told around a campfire...it's in this sense that I read his literature.  He can get a bit carried away with his descriptive language and can also be somewhat frantic about his storytelling, but it does have the effect of riveting the reader's attention.  Also, reading Lovecraft stories isn't a very big investment of time due to their brevity. And they are all now available in the public domain...here's a link to Beyond the Wall of Sleep: [link]...

Tuesday's List: Hurricanes Striking Florida Since 1960

In light of the ongoing disaster in coastal Texas because of Hurricane Harvey, I thought I'd be a little reflective and list the hurricanes striking Florida since I began to "follow" them. 

Oh, I suppose I could have made the following list more comprehensive and list all of the Atlantic hurricanes and/or tropical storms hitting land in the United States...or in any other country for that matter...as well as going back further in time.  But this happens to be a personal blog and so I decided to list those hurricanes that struck somewhere in my home state of Florida since 1960, when I was three years old and experienced my first hurricane while living with my family in Opa-Locka, a suburb of Miami.  And I left out tropical storms as well...let's face it, they're just nowhere near as memorable as hurricanes.  On the list I capitalized the names of the hurricanes that directly affected me where I lived at the time (1960-76: South Florida, 1977-Present: Gainesville).  As for my Gainesville encounters with these storms, none of them were technically hurricane "experiences", but they affected us here anyway...even if they only, like David, Elena, Charley, and Matthew, at times seemed to have us directly in their "sights"...

Which of the below affected me the most?  I'd have to say it was Cleo in 1964: the eye passed directly over us in West Hollywood and the winds nearly blew in our front door...pretty scary stuff, especially when you're just seven years old...

1960 DONNA...only a toddler when it hit, I just remember a big storm with others worried
1964 CLEO...house boarded up, door almost lost, eye passed over us
1964 Dora...much damage in Jacksonville and Lake City
1964 ISBELL...not a direct hit, but plenty of wind and rain
1965 BETSY...fortunately turned south of us and hit mainly in southern Dade county
1966 Alma...passed in Gulf parallel to coast, caused damage upstate, hit Apalachicola
1966 INEZ...threatened us from SW but just grazed south Florida
1968 Gladys...hit from Gulf north of Tampa, passed through Ocala
1972 Agnes...didn't directly hit us but merging with front caused much rain, hit Panhandle
1975 Eloise...Category 3 impact at Panama City
1979 DAVID...looked like it would hit on the NE Fla coast, but steered by us
1985 ELENA...was poised to come inland at G'ville from Cedar Key, but did an about-face
1985 Juan...although it technically hit Louisiana, spin-off bands soaked us for days
1985 Kate...rare well-organized November hurricane hit around Pensacola
1987 Floyd...grazed south Florida from SW
1992 Andrew...this Category 4 storm spared my parents' Hollywood home when it veered to south Dade
1995 Erin...crossed state from Vero Beach, then hit west Panhandle
1995 Opal...Category 4 impact near Pensacola
1998 Earl...hit Panama City from SW
1998 Georges...passed through Keys, extensive flooding in Panhandle
1999 Floyd...mass evacuations, but eye stayed off NE Fla coast, bands hit inland
1999 Irene....hit Keys, then south Florida
2004 CHARLIE...originally projected to hit Gainesville, missed us but devastated Punta Gorda
2004 FRANCES...lots of wind and rain, we escaped widespread power outages
2004 Ivan...hit hard in Mobile, Ala/Pensacola area
2004 JEANNE...we lost power for 3 hrs, tropical storm winds tore off trim on side of house
2005 Dennis...June storm hit Pensacola/Mobile, Ala area
2005 Katrina...passed though S. Florida on way to New Orleans and Mississippi
2005 Rita...passed through Fla. Keys on way to eastern Texas, western Louisiana
2005 Wilma...slammed into south Florida with high winds from SW, moved fast
2016 HERMINE...hit just north of us from Gulf but feeder bands caused widespread damage in state
2016 MATTHEW...flirted with hitting northern Fla before passing east in Atlantic

This list isn't truly complete without me mentioning the terrible Storm of the Century that hit the eastern United States on March 12, 1993. Although technically a winter cyclone and not a hurricane, it had the same devastating effects and caused a lot of damage in Gainesville...including essentially finishing off our privacy fence...

Some of these storms, like Katrina and Rita, made their biggest impact elsewhere in the country while others devastated the Caribbean area, causing many casualties and much damage before approaching Florida.  And considering what is going on right now in eastern coastal Texas, I feel that we have been extremely fortunate and blessed over the years to have escaped such disaster...

Just Finished Reading Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow

After having recently read Chicago-area literary great Saul Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March, I thought I'd continue right along and read another of his works.  To this end I checked out the 1975 novel Humboldt's Gift...and just finished reading it.  The characters are all different, of course...yet I sensed that once again Bellow has put much of his own personality and life into his main character and first-person narrator, in this case Charlie Citrine, a famous writer out of Chicago.  The "Humboldt" is a once-esteemed poet, Von Humboldt Fleisher, whom Charlie idolizes and befriends early in his own career as a writer.  The two, once close, have an acrimonious falling-out: just before Humbolt's death Charlie sees him living in poverty in Manhattan...but regrettably flees the opportunity for reconciliation...

Although Humboldt is the title character, Humboldt's Gift is about Charlie Citrine and how he is trying to come to grips with his life as he approaches 60...he has writer's block and has fallen behind with his commitments to publishers.  His ex-wife continues to take him to court to extract more and more money as his own funds dwindle.  A pseudo-gangster named Rinaldo Cantabile relentlessly hounds him, first to claim payment on a spurious gambling debt and then to get Charlie to help his wife with her literary thesis.  Charlie's girlfriend Renata wants to be his wife, but his cynicism about marriage stands in his way in spite of his clear affection for her.  And then there is Humboldt: it seems that the late poet had left some papers behind for Charlie: his "gift"...

Humboldt's Gift is not exactly driven by its plot, but rather by the various different situations and people that Charlie finds himself stumbling into.  People almost without exception are telling him to his face what's wrong with his thinking and behavior and giving him unsolicited advice as to how to change for the better.  Through it all, Charlie reacts with grace and equanimity...except for that ornery Cantabile, whom he treats with deserved contempt.  Charlie Citrine loves people and their company, but really wants to have peace in his personal life to develop his "higher thoughts".  He has been on a long-term, unfulfilled project to explore the concept of "boredom" and its effect on modern Western society.  And he is starting to come around to a faddish new philosophy dealing in metaphysics that others belittle him for...as well as for his continued interest in Humboldt...

I liked Humboldt's Gift because it deeply explored the thoughts and motivations of the protagonist...and by inference Saul Bellow himself.  As in The Adventures of Augie March, there is an overbearing and very materialistic older brother who disparages and openly criticizes the main character, in this case Charlie...Bellow had such a sibling in his life.  And as I discovered after finishing the book, Humboldt Fleisher was also based on a real poet whom the author knew.  But I also got a great kick out of Rinaldo Cantabile...what a character!  And there was a lot of good material here about philosophy, society, and relationships.  So Humboldt's Gift was another book of Saul Bellow's that I enjoyed...and recommend...