Weekly Short Story: Armageddon by Frederic Brown

Frederic Brown, who dabbled in both mystery and science fiction and is better known for his short, short stories that carry a big knockout punch line, has been one of my favorite authors from childhood...his Armageddon appeared in the retrospective anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 3 (1941).  Only five pages long, it was a fast read, and had a superficially religious angle to it.  Herbie, a little boy who is a budding amateur magician in his own right, is attending a magic show in Cincinnati with his parents.  The magician onstage keeps performing tricks that the boy understands from his own experience, but there is one he doesn't that requires the presence of a volunteer from the audience...so he has planned to rush up to the stage at the expected moment of the call...this proves successful.  So there they are, the magician, the boy...and a box.  And then a prayer wheel in Tibet gets loose from its owner in a flood and stops spinning...causing an unlikely transformation across the world: the magician turns into the devil, complete with his fiery powers of destruction.  How the boy unwittingly saves the world from Armageddon...well, I'll leave that part for you to read...

We've not literally had the devil to directly deal with to avoid worldwide catastrophe, but like in Armageddon, there have been moments when disaster almost came about in happenstance fashion...and was squelched by a combination of what would appear to be heroism and pure luck.  One example: in September 1983 the Soviets received an erroneous early warning of nuclear missiles being launched against them from Europe.  Only one single Soviet officer was there to make the crucial decision to override the otherwise automatic chain of events that would have left the world in a nuclear holocaust.  For this he received no award or recognition...he had turned into an embarrassment to his superiors. Likewise, in Armageddon, little Herbie gets no respect for his act of heroism...in fact, both he and the Soviet officer end up being punished...

How many times have we dodged the bullet on this planet and avoided the worst kinds of disasters imaginable, with the truth hidden either to cover up for those who may have been negligent or to keep the public from panicking?  The 1983 Soviet incident was only uncovered after that country's dissolution in 1991 and secret files on the subject were revealed...that's not likely to happen very often.  Although Frederic Brown's premise in Armageddon was unrealistic...even silly...there are many real, seriously dangerous scenarios around us today that could bring it all down were events to combine in the "perfect storm" of calamity: will we have a Herbie to step up onstage and save us from it all?

Tuesday's List: Current Standings in English and Mexican Premier League Soccer

The two leagues I follow the most in professional league soccer are the English Premier League and Mexico's Liga MX.  The main reasons are that they are regularly available on television, with the English play broadcast Saturday and Sunday mornings and early afternoons on NBCSports and the Mexican matches on Univision and Galavision Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoons.  We're getting close to the final stretch in both leagues' regular seasons: in England they've finished 30 out of their 38-game schedule, while in Mexico...which uses a split-season system, this winter/spring season called "Clausura", they have gone through 11 out of their scheduled 17.  There are no playoffs in the English Premier League: the regular season winner is the outright champion and Manchester City is running away with it. In the Liga MX the top eight finishers participate in the Liguilla championship playoffs, which according to its rules reward teams for higher regular season finishes.  As for relegation...these are the teams at the bottom of the standings that are demoted to the next lower league...England has three spots reserved for this and Mexico one...in Mexico performance over a three-year period is evaluated, so it's a bit more complicated: Veracruz is currently the team in that league's "hot seat".  On one hand, if the teams are financially strong and viable, relegation is a good system that keeps interest across the league high throughout the season...unlike here where teams are often accused of "tanking" in order to be awarded with a higher draft status for finishing lower.  In leagues with relegation, nobody tanks because finishing at the bottom means you're booted out of the league!  However, especially in Mexico, being relegated has caused on a number of occasions the relegated team to fail financially, as was the case with Chiapas last year and sometimes the teams promoted up from the lower league are financially incapable of assuming a more competitive role in the higher league...so relegation has its pros and cons...

Here are the standings...or "tables", with each team (or "side") followed by its accumulated points (three for wins, one for draws, zero for losses)...


*****English Premier League*****
1 MANCHESTER CITY                        81
2 MANCHESTER UNITED                   65
3 TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR                  61
4 LIVERPOOL                                        60
5 CHELSEA                                            56
6 ARSENAL                                            45
7 BURNLEY                                           43
8 LEICESTER CITY                               40
9 EVERTON                                            37
10 WATFORD                                         36
11 BRIGHTON & HOVE ALBION        34
12 BOURNEMOUTH                              33
13 NEWCASTLE UNITED                     32
14 SWANSEA CITY                               31
15 HUDDERSFIELD TOWN                  31
16 WEST HAM UNITED                        30
17 SOUTHAMPTON                               28
18 CRYSTAL PALACE                          27
19 STOKE CITY                                      27
20 WEST BROMWICH ALBION           20

*****Mexican Premier League (Liga MX)*****
1 SANTOS LAGUNA                             23
2 AMERICA                                            21
3 TOLUCA                                              21
4 UANL TIGRES                                    21
5 MORELIA                                            19
6 PUEBLA                                               17
7 TIJUANA                                              16
8 MONTEREY                                         15
9 UNAM PUMAS                                    15
10 NECAXA                                            14
11 PACHUCA                                          14
12 LEON                                                  14
13 QUERETARO                                     13
14 CRUZ AZUL                                       11
15 GUADALAJARA                               11
16 VERACRUZ                                         9
17 BUAP                                                    8
18 ATLAS                                                  7

About the Upcoming NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament

The NCAA released its selections for the 68-team men's national championship basketball tournament early yesterday evening.   I was happy to see that Florida, Miami, and Florida State all made it...maybe one of them will catch fire and get to the elite rounds.  Unfortunately, many of the schools currently under a cloud of suspicion for violating the rules and paying its players...often with money laundering...are also in the tournament, including Arizona, Kentucky, Duke, North Carolina, Virginia, Seton Hall, NC State, Alabama, Texas, Michigan State, Creighton, Clemson, Wichita State, and Xavier...I probably left out one or two.  The NCAA has an investigation all lined up, headed by Condoleezza Rice, to start AFTER the tournament is over, so we will have a big cloud hanging over this March Madness the entire way.  I predict the NCAA will come down hard on a small number of colleges, even taking away their tournament victories and their championship should one of them win it.  As for me, besides pulling for my Florida teams (especially the Gators, of course), I'm just going to watch the games with the view of enjoying college basketball played on a high level without getting caught up in who's advancing and who isn't.  After all, this tournament is bound to be rewritten in some fashion a few weeks later by outside bureaucrats regardless what happened on the court...

Some Comments on Classical Music Radio

I like having a local station like 102.7/WRUF that plays classical music after many years of not having this accessible on Gainesville broadcast radio when their main station on 89.1 kHz switched from classical to a talk/news format.  Unfortunately, many of the programs on this classical music station are full of tedious talk, which would be fine were I attending a music appreciation class and wanted all sorts of background and historical information on the composers and performers.  But I want to hear classical music, and all this banter keeps the amount of music I'm able to hear during the time I'm listening limited.  I just wish they'd name the composer, the music, and performer for each piece beforehand and afterwards...and if they have some other data they'd like to convey to just provide a website through which I could access it...away from the radio.  I am also becoming increasingly annoyed at the way the music is becoming chopped up and played in bits and pieces, not at all the way the original composer had ever intended for it to be heard.  So some hot-shot announcer with a musical pedigree likes a cello passage from a particular work...why can't I hear the entire work instead of a five-minute extraction?  The answer is self-explanatory: these hosts feel...probably rightly so...that they have to justify their presence and, as such, feel compelled to fill much of the programming with their opinions, interpretations, and anecdotes, as well as emphasizing what they deem to be the more significant parts of various works and ignoring the parts they don't care about...well, maybe the parts they pass up on are the very parts that might convey the greatest personal meaning to me...

When I'm driving, I get broadcast radio and listen to 102.7/WRUF.  But when I'm not on the road and have the chance to listen to classical music, I used my phone app and listen on TuneIn Radio to either the Rhode Island station WCRI or New York's famous WQXR, both of which seem to play more music...including entire pieces...and don't engage in as much chatter as do the programs on WUFT.  The best classic music source is on my Cox Cable TV service, which has Music Choice, featuring on channel 949 complete classical music works...without any interruption.  Now THAT's my choice...

Just Finished Reading The Light of Paris by Eleanor Brown

The Light of Paris is a 2016 novel by Eleanor Brown, who achieved success in 2011 with her debut book The Weird Sisters. I found this story, as I often do with my reading, by randomly browsing my local public library's shelves...maybe I'd be better off being more selective...

Madeleine lives in 1999 as the wife of a wealthy businessman who is constantly berating and belittling her and her artistic interests.  She feels unappreciated and trapped, and her mother is equally critical of her, siding with the jerk of a husband.  One day Madeleine is going through her mother's attic and comes across a journal that her grandmother, Margie, had written about her own outlook and experiences.  Becoming engrossed in it, she feels a bond with her grandmother...who also had her own difficulties with people who refused to respect her as a viable individual with her own aspirations and talents.  The book then toggles with each succeeding chapter back and forth between Margie in 1924 and Madeleine in 1999 as they try to sort out their respective lives in the face of all those mean, selfish people who either don't understand them or don't care about them...or both...

Overall, I didn't have a very positive reaction to Brown's book.  I took in consideration the fact that her story is of two women, separated by two generations and 75 years, and who tend to both be excessively self-absorbed and self-pitying and wondered whether my own gender may account for a built-in bias against it.  But I think not...I am a man, but can remember many times in my life when I was belittled and bullied by others and not given the elemental degree of respect that any intelligent being on this planet deserves.  The problem with the people surrounding Madeleine and Margie is that they imposed their own models of what the two should be like on them, inevitably being repeatedly disappointed when they behaved as only their true selves, unrecognized or denied by others, would naturally behave.  As Madeleine and Margie each finally display their own assertiveness, they discover that there are others in the world who will accept them for who they are, and this revolutionizes their lives.  That's a good message, but the author could well have done without this massive self-pity party of a story in expressing it...

Incidentally, as to the novel's title, Paris is a recurring theme, real or figurative, of a place to escape to discover one's true self and be able to freely engage in creative expression, and it filtered throughout the book...

Quote of the Week...from Albert Einstein

Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.                 ---Albert Einstein.

Arguably the greatest physicist since Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein was also something of a philosopher and had many interesting things to say about the world...and life.  I ran across the above quote of his and thought to myself how counterintuitive it is, especially considering the commonly-held belief nowadays that people are limitless in their potential...all they need to do is believe in their dreams and then work hard to implement them.  But like a similar quote from "Dirty" Harry Callahan in the movie Magnum Force ("A man's got to know his own limitations"), the idea of honestly assessing one's own limits of ability and talent can go a long way toward pointing toward the needed changes that will expand those limiting personal frontiers or cause us to redirect our goals and efforts to more effective ends...but you have to know what needs changing before you can change it...

I know of one limiting factor in many people's lives: they tend to think of things as static, stuck in the present...instead of recognizing the dynamic, ever-changing nature of life and the reality we inhabit.  Self-assessment involves examining ourselves closely and honestly, noting the flaws within that we'd rather not see.  I think this is one reason why so many of us are stuck in this "identity" thing where, instead of individually looking at ourselves, warts and all, in a dispassionate and humble way, we'd rather see ourselves in terms of being a "member" of a self-identifying group, with the accompanying support system and affirmations...and refusing to acknowledge the weakness within us.  But that is a static way to see ourselves, and life demands that we change...why not accept the good professor's advice and get real about who we really are, shortcomings and all...and then advance to a better life?

3/4 Sermon on Philippians, Part 8

Senior pastor Philip Griffin of Gainesville's Family Church continued his series on the Bible's New Testament book of Philippians as he continued in Chapter 3 with a message titled Joyful Victory. You can read the Bible passage of focus through the Bible Gateway website by clicking on it: Philippians 3:12-21...

So how do we as believers attain joyful victory through our walk with Christ?  Pastor Philip breaks it down into three parts: pursue the right prize, embrace God's plan for discipleship, and remember our true identity.  The Philippians passage reminds us to focus on the present, not the past...but Philip also stresses that what we value the most shapes us and will reorder our life, be it money, pleasure, power...or God.  We have the God-given power to choose our course...God will also give us the power to walk with him should that be our choice.  Regarding discipleship, Philip points out that we are all followers at first...as we mature we become models and leaders, while still allowing ourselves to be mentored.  And regarding our true identity, the Bible passage referred to "enemies of the cross"...what does that mean?  Pastor Philip responds this way: if we're enemies of the cross, we don't think we need what Christ died for, we're pursuing the wrong prize, and we live with the appearance but on the inside haven't changed.  He concluded by emphasizing the importance of understanding the truth of what we will be...it will enable us to handle anything now...

You can watch the video of Pastor Philip's presentation through the church's YouTube video website...just click on the following link: [link].  The Family Church is located at 2022 SW 122nd Street and holds its Sunday morning services at 9 and 10:30.  Not exactly the most comfortable person in social environments, I have nevertheless found the folks here to make me feel welcome and valued...and I think you would, too.  The services, along with the weekly message, feature praise and worship music as well as prayer and discipleship opportunities...and a hospitality center before and between services where you can get a cup of coffee, nibble on some treats, and chat with some of those friendly folks...

Weekly Short Story: The Crystal Crypt by Philip K. Dick

The Crystal Crypt is a 1954 science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick.  It is set many years in the future as Earth (now called Terra) and Mars...settled through many generations...are on the brink of interplanetary war.  The last flight to Terra has been launched from the Red Planet, but suddenly it is diverted to the moon Deimos and the passengers are searched and interrogated with a machine that detects lies: it seems that three people...two men and a woman...had destroyed a major Martian city and they are suspected of being on the ship.  They let the ship go, however, and a man named Thacher, also a passenger on the Earth-bound ship, encounters three people...two men and a woman...sitting together.  And the story goes on from there...

The Crystal Crypt is a good example of the limitations that short stories impose on both the writer and reader.  You know that the story will only last a few more pages and that a twisted ending of some sort is waiting at the end...so you're very conscious of any clues that the plot and characters are revealing.  In this tale, the clues are screaming at the reader...I figured out the ending very early on, although there was one mystery that I admit I was a little surprised at its revelation.  As for the Earth vs. Mars scenario, remember that this was written at the height of the Cold War between the West and the Soviet Bloc countries...we had just finished a brutal war against them in Korea.  So I'm sure when it came out, the receptive and conditioned reading public had no problem making analogies.  Since I've always enjoyed Philip K. Dick's writing, I enjoyed The Crystal Crypt as well...although it's definitely not one of his best works...

You can read The Crystal Crypt through the Gutenberg site...here is a link to the story: [link]...

Tueday's List: Past Oscars Best Picture Winners

With last Sunday night's Academy Awards, I decided it would be an appropriate time to list the past winners for Best Film...the Oscars go back into the silent movie era.  While compiling this list and reviewing the nominees, I noticed that in several years more prominent movies were nominated but relative unknowns won the award.   One of the more famous older movies, All Quiet on the Western Front, was a silent film that depicted World War I and its horrible trench combat from the perspective of ordinary German ground soldiers...I managed to see a little of it when TCM showed it last week and have placed it high on my list of movies I need to watch.  Then again, all of the below are most likely good movies...well, most of them I'm sure.  After each movie on the list I indicated whether I saw it in full or in part, followed by a 0-5 rating scale...you can see by the scarcity of "saws" that I'm not exactly what you'd call an avid movie fan.  I noticed something funny on the list: my longest stretch of Academy Award Best Picture winners that I haven't seen is for ten years, and it's the last ten years!  Yet I've watched my share of movies in theaters lately, and some of them had been nominated during this period...go figure.  So, here's that list of Best Picture winners (the year is for when they came out, not that of the actual award presentation)...

1927-28 WINGS
1928-29 THE BROADWAY MELODY
1929-30 ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT...saw in part:5
1930-31 CIMARRON
1931-32 GRAND HOTEL
1932-33 CAVALCADE
1934 IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT
1935 MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY....saw:5
1936 THE GREAT ZIEGFELD
1937 THE LIFE OF EMILE ZOLA
1938 YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU...saw in part:3
1939 GONE WITH THE WIND....saw first half:3
1940 REBECCA
1941 HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY
1942 MRS. MINIVER
1943 CASABLANCA...saw:5
1944 GOING MY WAY
1945 THE LOST WEEKEND
1946 THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES
1947 GENTLEMAN'S AGREEMENT
1948 HAMLET
1949 ALL THE KING'S MEN
1950 ALL ABOUT EVE
1951 AN AMERICAN IN PARIS
1952 THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH
1953 FROM HERE TO ETERNITY...saw:4
1954 ON THE WATERFRONT...saw in part:4
1955 MARTY
1956 AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS
1957 BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI...saw:5
1958 GIGI
1959 BEN-HUR
1960 THE APARTMENT
1961 WEST SIDE STORY...saw in part:3
1962 LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
1963 TOM JONES
1964 MY FAIR LADY...saw:5
1965 THE SOUND OF MUSIC...saw:5
1966 A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS
1967 IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT
1968 OLIVER!
1969 MIDNIGHT COWBOY...saw in part:3
1970 PATTON...saw:5
1971 THE FRENCH CONNECTION
1972 THE GODFATHER...saw:5
1973 THE STING
1974 THE GODFATHER PART II...saw:5
1975 ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST...saw:2
1976 ROCKY...saw:3
1977 ANNIE HALL...saw:2
1978 THE DEER HUNTER
1979 KRAMER VS. KRAMER
1980 ORDINARY PEOPLE...saw:3
1981 CHARIOTS OF FIRE...saw:4
1982 GANDHI
1983 TERMS OF ENDEARMENT
1984 AMADEUS
1985 OUT OF AFRICA...saw:1
1986 PLATOON...saw:5
1987 THE LAST EMPEROR...saw:3
1988 RAIN MAN...saw:4
1989 DRIVING MISS DAISY
1990 DANCES WITH WOLVES
1991 THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS...saw:4
1992 UNFORGIVEN...saw:4
1993 SCHINDLER'S LIST
1994 FORREST GUMP...saw:5
1995 BRAVEHEART
1996 THE ENGLISH PATIENT
1997 TITANIC
1998 SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE
1999 AMERICAN BEAUTY
2000 GLADIATOR
2001 A BEAUTIFUL MIND...saw:5
2002 CHICAGO
2003 THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING...saw:5
2004 MILLION DOLLAR BABY
2005 CRASH
2006 THE DEPARTED
2007 NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN...saw:4
2008 SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
2009 THE HURT LOCKER
2010 THE KING'S SPEECH
2011 THE ARTIST
2012 ARGO
2013 12 YEARS A SLAVE
2014 BIRDMAN
2015 SPOTLIGHT
2016 MOONLIGHT
2017 THE SHAPE OF WATER

Some Music I've Been Listening to Lately

Although the default setting on my car radio is the classical music station on 102.7 in Gainesville (one of the WRUF stations), I usually don't know the title or composer of whatever piece I'm hearing unless the announcer says it...still, I generally love the flow of this music (unless it's operatic singing and then it's just annoying).  As for "popular" music, my main interest is still alternative/indie/rock...the station for this in Gainesville is 100.5/WHHZ "The Buzz".  Usually, though, I haven't lately been finding very much on this station to interest me.  Instead, I have been listening on my smartphone to old songs from ELO, the Rolling Stones, and the Moody Blues...it's no accident that I've recently listed my favorite songs from these great old bands on this blog.  As for individual songs, I've rediscovered Lazy Eye by the Silversun Pickups and listen to it a lot, along with current releases by Arcade Fire and Kasabian titled Creature Comfort and Twentyfourseven, respectively.  And my current favorite musical artist, Regina Spektor, has produced many personal favorites over the years that I also listen to, such as Us, Firewood, 20 Years of Snow, and The Light.  I'm finding that once again that I'm entering a period when I'm not all that interested in what's being played on the radio and instead am focusing on shuffling through old favorites.  But I never know what I'll hear the next time I tune in...maybe it'll be a new, truly spectacular song. Well, at least I can hope...

Just Finshed Reading The Fear Index by Robert Harris

I just finished reading The Fear Index, a 2011 book by Robert Harris.  It is a story about Alex Hoffman, an American mathematical genius who has moved to Geneva, Switzerland, first to work at its CERN Large Hadron Collider and then to settle down, get married...and start his own hedge fund company.  The abrupt change in career direction happens due to his invention of a very, very complex computer algorithm that permeates the Internet and infers patterns of investment behavior and factors, automatically acting upon them.  The rate of return in his company for his investors is staggeringly high, and his algorithm seems to work the best whenever there is any kind of panic in the market, causing fear reactions.  And then Hoffman discovers that someone in his own personal life is trying their hardest to cause him to be afraid for his own self...

The main characters in The Fear Index are Hoffman, his wife Gabrielle, his extroverted business partner Hugo Quarry, and the local police inspector Leclerc...who struck me as a Swiss version of Columbo (he lives across the border in France because it is cheaper there).  Hoffman's algorithm, set into action, is self-educating and as a budding Artificial Intelligence is developing two important traits of living things: a sense of personal survival and a tendency to test the meanings of words it learns...the most important one here being "fear".  The rest of the story flows from this and the ending perfectly describes the state we're plummeting headlong into with our increasing, devil-may-care dependency on computers and the Internet...

As a friend and former colleague...who recommended this book to me...alluded, there seems to be a tendency nowadays to see a lot of manipulation in the mass media...as well as social media...to frighten the population into adopting certain political stances, as well as making them rush to buy the "necessary" things that will protect them.  Fear is a great tool for propaganda as well as advertising, and it is pervasive...as well as running counter to informed, rational reasoning.  Folks terrified out of their senses tend to run in whatever direction the mob is going...and this is how those manipulating them can get what they want.  It seems like with too many people nowadays, their vision of the future is to avoid their artificially-induced nightmare scenarios instead of looking to create a better world for themselves and the society that they and their descendants will inhabit.  I also liked The Fear Index and recommend it...besides the message, the characters in it were well developed and believable while the story was suspenseful...

Sitting in a Starbucks at Noon on a Saturday

I'm sitting here in a very crowded Starbucks (the northernmost one in Gainesville) around noon on a Saturday.  The weather has changed to cooler and dryer conditions...it's about time!  It also looks as if we'll be enjoying a late winter here for at least another week, too.  Somehow I managed to avoid catching the flu this year...maybe I'm just one of those few lucky ones inoculated that the shot actually worked on, who knows.  Then again, it's not over yet...and friendly, well-meaning folks are still going around sneezing, coughing, blowing their noses...and wanting to shake my hand...

There's a college basketball game starting about now between Florida and Kentucky in the O'Connell Center on the UF campus.  Both teams are working hard to get into the NCAA tournament with the 23rd-ranked Wildcats having the edge right now...the Gators won the first game in Lexington earlier but have suffered injuries to center John Egbunu and forward Isaiah Stokes this year.  Still,  Florida seems to have recovered of late after undergoing a tough 2-5 stretch of conference games that included a few close losses...but will they be good enough to stop Kentucky's revamped and formidable scoring offense?  We'll see...the Gators right now have a 19-11 record but to their credit have played a challenging non-conference schedule, something that the NCAA usually takes into account when selecting teams for their championship tournament...

Beginning last Sunday after work I have begun splitting up my training by going at that late hour to my local 24/7 gym.  It was tough at the beginning to make that left turn on University Avenue instead of going straight home as I am usually tired at that time (10 pm)...but it's more of a mental fatigue issue than anything physical.  Getting a little exercise at that time seems to both help with my sleep as well as the following morning.  I tend to focus right now on the elliptical cross-trainer when I'm there.  The place is Gainesville Health and Fitness at 4880 Newberry Road...I'm glad that I am using their facilities more now and the time of day I'm there it's not too crowded...

At my job I have been working a lot of overtime over the past two months, especially in February when I put in at one time seventeen straight full workdays, with many of them having me report there early.  The extra hours are still going on in March, but so far I'm getting back at least one of my off-days: today is one of them, then it's back to work tomorrow.  Not that I'm complaining about the overtime: after all, I signed up for it...

Well, this Starbucks was very crowded when I first entered it, but it's since emptied out considerably.  I guess it's time to go up there and get a refill on my iced coffee...

Quote of the Week...from Frank Herbert

Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.
                                                                                     Frank Herbert.

Frank Hebert was the author of the celebrated Dune science fiction series.  I just finished rereading the first book, simply titled Dune.  The remaining books I haven't read...but I'm getting ready to start on the next one, Dune Messiah.  The interstellar societies in this series, while technologically advanced, are autocratic and steeped in religion, intrigue, and exclusive organizations whose members are obliged to followed their strict discipline and way of thinking.  The protagonist is Paul, a young man who seems to be at the intersection of everyone's prophecies and as such finds himself continually confronted with situations directing his actions and words...he often sees his future as fated, with little freedom to change the tide of history of which he seems to be the center...

Apart from this series, the above quote stands on its own as something pretty profound.  Our true freedom lies in the choices we make...making choices leading to better self-control and positive behavior will lead to more and more opportunities to make further choices...this is the essence of freedom.  When I was a little kid in elementary school, we (and particularly I) would often raise the complaint "This is a free country, isn't it?" whenever one of those annoying grown-ups would come down on us for violating one of their many rules. Well, turns out that those rules serve a purpose: to give a dependable structure to our society where we can better see our options and ultimately have a chance to make good choices with our lives.  But try telling that to a ten-year old as he goes around skipping classes with impunity...

I don't know much about Frank Herbert, and I believe the quote I used is from one of his later Dune novels...so I don't know how he applied his own advice to his own life.  But sound advice is sound advice, no matter where it comes from.  If I consistently make undisciplined choices in the name of personal "freedom", I will eventually find myself more and more in dependency relationships where others have the upper hand over me and my choices will dwindle in degree and quality.  But practicing self-control and understanding the meaning of the word "enough" will engender both a sense of independence from the whims of other people and the ability to live out that true freedom.  I also believe that it is difficult to act in a sincerely loving, generous, merciful, and gracious way toward others while being in the throes of deep dependency that could have been avoided through better life choices.  Of course, we all exist in an interdependent world and I wouldn't want anyone to think I advocate complete independence...and having a personal relationship of dependency on God leads to those better choices, greater true freedom, and the social expression of our higher virtues...

2/25 Sermon on Philippians, Part 7

Our senior pastor at The Family Church here in Gainesville, Philip Griffin, continued his sermon series on the New Testament book of Philippians by beginning Chapter 3 and focusing on Verses 1-11, which you can read by clicking on Bible Gateway. The theme...and message title...was Joyful Confidence. The Biblical text featured Paul's opposition to those within the church who were insisting on physical circumcision on top of receiving Christ's salvation through his crucifixion and resurrection.  Paul insisted that what Jesus did was enough and had some pretty harsh words for those who maintained that it wasn't.  Pastor Philip took this reading to present some helpful ideas about the nature of confidence and how to truly attain and enjoy it...

In refuting those who erroneously were placing their confidence in the flesh, Paul listed several of his own "qualifications" for having confidence in salvation...and quickly dismissed them all as loss.  Pastor Philip listed areas where trust leads to false confidence: in religious rituals, in one's heritage, in one's titles and accomplishments, in one's sincerity, and in one's attempts at goodness.  As for heritage, Philip pointed out that God has no grandchildren, and where one's parents stood with God does not automatically pass down to their children. What leads instead to true, joyful confidence?  No surprise here, as Philip laid it out: it's all about Jesus: his presence in my life, his purity coming though faith, his power for living, his perspective on suffering,, and his promise in my death.  Wow, that's a lot to absorb, both on the positive and negative side.  Keeping my focus on God and not myself can go a very long way toward simplifying things, though...

The Family Church weekly sermons can be viewed through its YouTube video website...just click on the following link to watch the one I just discussed: [link]. I recommend you do so as Philip says so much that I simply cannot fit into the small space of a blog article...watching the message live at church is even better.  The weekly Sunday services there are at 9 and 10:30, and besides the message there is inspiring live praise and worship music along with prayer and discipleship opportunities.  This fellowship is located at 2022 SW 122nd Street, accessible via Newberry Road, SW 24th Avenue, or Archer Road.  A good way to start or end the week, depending on where you're coming from..

My February 2018 Running Report

This past month I ran for a total of 73 miles...not much...but I did manage to scrape through a difficult half-marathon on the 18th.  That event, Gainesville's Five Points of Life Half-Marathon, took place under extraordinarily warm and muggy conditions that burdened me throughout...besides, I wasn't in top condition for it.  I skipped running on 4 days, all in the week after the race...my 61-year old body now feels pretty well recovered from it all and I'm training again.  That 13.1-mile half-marathon also happened to be my single longest run of February...

During the last few days I have been splitting up my daily training into two parts: morning at home and late night at my local 24-hour gym after work.  So far this change seems to be working well for me...if I run in any races in March, I'd like to be in better shape!  Speaking of March races, that Run for Haven 10K race that has been held in March in Tioga (a few miles west of Gainesville) hasn't been canceled as I feared: it's being rescheduled to take place in the fall...I guess they won't be going with the theme of St. Patrick's Day anymore.  There's a 10K race called Trail of Payne that I had been meaning to run for many years but never got around to...the title is self-explanatory: a trail race in Payne's Prairie...should be an adventure if I decide to run it.  And why not, now that I'm now accustomed to running a 10K race every March...

Weekly Short Story: They Don't Make Life Like They Used To by Alfred Bester

Back in October I discussed a short story of Alfred Bester titled Time is the Traitor...click on the title link to read it.  He also wrote a remarkable tale in 1963, They Don't Make Life Like They Used To, which appeared in the anthology Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 25 (1963) (DAW Books)...

From 1963's vantage point it is eighteen years into the future, way off there in 1981.  The location is Midtown Manhattan, more on the East Side and Central Park area...but that's where any sense of reality quickly departs.  A young woman lives there and has been convinced for the last five years...following the worldwide nuclear holocaust...that she is the only remaining human alive.  She makes use of all the stores around and always leaves IOU notes whenever she takes something.  In spite of her isolation she seems to have survival down to an art...that is, until one day she runs into a man.  The two of them, both likeable folks, engage in a lot of sidebar banter that reminded me of Bogart and Hepburn in the movie The African Queen and is equally endearing.  In the background they hear buildings collapsing from time to time, and the birds seems to be mimicking in their songs something harsh and metallic sounding.  What this means comes down on them in a terrifying ending...one that might cause nightmares for the squeamish...

When I was a little kid I always equated science fiction with "scary movies"...yet I rarely come across a short story or novel from this genre that inspires any degree of fright.  Not so with They Don't Make Life Like They Used To: it jolted me, to say the least.  Oh, one other thing about this and many other apocalyptic stories from this time: there is a tendency, when people are wandering around in isolation like in this tale of Alfred Bester or in that Twilight Zone episode when Burgess Meredith stumbles around the ruins of the big city, to never run across any of the myriad dead bodies that in a real apocalypse would be lying around all over the place. It's as if in dying in such a catastrophe, your body simply vanishes...well, in a direct nuclear hit, it just might...

I looked around the Internet and couldn't find any public domain access to this story...but if you have the chance to read it, by all means do so.  Unless, that is, you're prone to nightmares...
     

Tuesday's List: My Favorite Electric Light Orchestra Songs

Lately I have been listening to the thirteen studio albums (fourteen if you count the Xanadu soundtrack) of the great classical/rock fusion band Electric Light Orchestra.  Initially a creative collaboration of Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne out of Birmingham, England, Wood left following the first album and the music has pretty much been the work of Lynne ever since...along with the accompanying band that has tended to alternately swell and diminish in membership over the years.  Ever since I first heard Can't Get It Out of My Head in December 1974, I have followed their music...although their quality seemed to plummet a bit when they went "disco" in 1979.  My favorite album is A New World Record, which I played to death after I bought it late in 1976.  Jeff Lynne still has ELO as "his" band, goes on concert tours, and even recorded a short album in 2015.  Since it's one of my all-time favorite musical acts, I thought it was about time to compile a couple of lists, first of my overall top ten favorite Electric Light Orchestra songs and then an album-by-album listing of tracks I liked from each of them. Well, here goes...

1 LIVIN' THING..........................................A New World Record
2 CAN'T GET IT OUT OF MY HEAD.......Eldorado
3 SECRET MESSAGES..............................Secret Messages
4 TURN TO STONE....................................Out of the Blue
5 BOY BLUE...............................................Eldorado
6 MR. BLUE SKY.......................................Out of the Blue
7 TIGHTROPE.............................................A New World Record
8 DON'T BRING ME DOWN......................Discovery
9 ROLL OVER BEETHOVEN....................ELO 2
10 SO FINE...................................................A New World Record

And here are the songs I particularly liked from each album, listed of course in order of preference...

****No Answer (1972)****
QUEEN OF THE HOURS
LOOK AT ME NOW
10538 OVERTURE

****ELO 2 (1973)****
ROLL OVER BEETHOVEN
MOMMA

****On the Third Day (1973)****
SHOWDOWN
DAYBREAKER
OCEAN BREAKUP/KING OF THE UNIVERSE

****Eldorado (1974)****
CAN'T GET IT OUT OF MY HEAD
BOY BLUE

****Face the Music (1975)****
FIRE ON HIGH
STRANGE MAGIC
POKER
ONE SUMMER DREAM
EVIL WOMAN

****A New World Record (1976)****
LIVIN' THING
TIGHTROPE
SO FINE
DO YA
SHANGRILA
ROCKARIA!
MISSION (A WORLD RECORD)
ABOVE THE CLOUDS

****Out of the Blue (1977)****
TURN TO STONE
MR. BLUE SKY
BIRMINGHAM BLUES
STANDIN' IN THE RAIN
JUNGLE
NIGHT IN THE CITY
SWEET TALKIN' WOMAN
SUMMER AND LIGHTNING

****Discovery  (1979)****
DON'T BRING ME DOWN
SHINE A LITTLE LOVE
LAST TRAIN TO LONDON

****Xanadu Soundtrack (1980)****
XANADU (with Olivia Newton-John)
I'M ALIVE

****Time (1981)****
HANG ON TIGHT
ANOTHER HEART BREAKS
TWILIGHT
YOURS TRULY, 2095

****Secret Messages (1983)****
SECRET MESSAGES
BUILDINGS HAVE EYES
ROCK 'N ROLL IS KING
FOUR LITTLE DIAMONDS

****Balance of Power (1986)****
SECRET LIVES
SEND IT
SO SERIOUS

****Zoom (2001)****
STATE OF MIND

****Alone in the Universe (2015)****
AIN'T IT A DRAG
ONE STEP AT A TIME

About Robert Mueller's Investigation

I admit I don't know very much about the Robert Mueller investigation into the degree of how much Russia interfered with our 2016 presidential election and to what extent there may have been collusion on the part of any campaigns here, especially that of Donald Trump.  It does seem clear to me that Vladimir Putin wanted to avoid Hillary Clinton getting elected first and foremost...Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders would have been the preferred candidates for him.  Was Trump some kind of "Manchurian candidate" with secret, special obligations to the Russians?  I don't know.  Did he cooperate with Putin by enabling their propaganda machine to plant false news stories derogatory to Clinton?  I don't know, but Trump during the campaign was very vocal in promoting the WikiLeaks release of stolen emails from her campaign...something that has been tied to hackers working for the Russians.  Seeing how Mueller is keeping everything in his investigation close to the vest, it's hard to know exactly how much has been revealed and who all it is pointing to.  Yet the president keeps going on and on about how the inquiry into Russian meddling is all a big hoax...

I've tried to suspend any judgment of Trump and his campaign until substantial results from the investigation have been produced.  So far there are some indictments...they seem to be focusing on false statements and money laundering...and there are some guilty pleas, implying that these people are now cooperating with Mueller's probe.  Personally, I suspect that Donald Trump is involved with Russian election interference on some level, but that's just my unsubstantiated hunch...you're entitled to your own opinion about this.  I am hoping that Robert Mueller won't do what Kenneth Starr did during the Clinton administration in the 1990s when he was initially commissioned to look into any possible improprieties of the Clintons involving Whitewater...and then stuck around after that investigation was fruitless, trying to dig up anything to damage the president and finally hitting pay dirt with the Monica Lewinsky revelations on a completely different matter.  Trump was on the Clintons' side back then and obviously knows how independent special counsels can widely stray from the original missions they were assigned: to this extent I sympathize with Trump.  But then again, he has behaved in an arrogant, interfering, and obstructive manner with this investigation...I can't see how Nixon behaved much worse with Watergate in this regard.  The main difference is that during Watergate the opposition party controlled Congress: Trump has his own party in there, and they don't seem very enthusiastic about holding him an any way accountable for anything he might have done...

Until this Mueller investigation issues its final report...assuming the president doesn't fire him first...neither I nor others around me will really know what happened in 2016.  Those who have allowed themselves to become overly emotional about Donald Trump...both those who idolize and despise him...may have already formed their respective opinions about his connection to the Russians: just listen to their own narratives on this subject.  As for myself, I think the country would be better off if one of the houses of Congress...either the Senate or House of Representatives...were under Democratic control in order to better ensure to the public-at-large that the president's own party isn't complicit in obstructing the flow of the investigation...

Will Colleges on the FBI List Play in the NCAA Basketball Tournament?

I was watching college basketball on TV for much of yesterday.  I saw teams like Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisville, and Vanderbilt play...the first four are thick in the running for NCAA tournament spots.  All are among the many schools that the FBI had been investigating for paying out money to out-recruit star players over other institutions and have been put on the list of those suspected of this cheating.  And then there's Arizona, whose coach had reportedly been wiretapped as offering $100,000 to obtain a freshman standout.  The question I have is what will the NCAA do about this information as we approach the time when the NCAA championship tournament will be seeded and begin?  Will they say they need more time and let the tournament go on, even if many of the teams are tainted by scandal?  Or will they quickly act and, according to the case-by-case severity of the charges, hand out appropriate punishments even if they involve banning certain schools from post-season play?  I suspect that the first option is the one they'll take: the NCAA loves to rewrite their own history and if some of these teams are found culpable enough, they will simply go back and take away their tournament victories...as if they never happened...

I was listening to sports talk radio yesterday and heard the argument that college basketball players should be paid anyway.  But by violating the current rules, the cheating schools are gaining an unfair advantage over those who are following them...and that is unacceptable.  If they want to change the rules later to allow for paid athletes, then fine...but for now they should be punished if this is a part of their strategy to beat out other colleges when they are recruiting for the top talent...

Just Finished Reading Intruder in the Dust by William Faulkner

I just finished reading William Faulkner's 1948 novel Intruder in the Dust.  It's a small town in Mississippi around that same time.  An elderly black man, Lucas Beauchamp, has been arrested for the murder of a white man...Lucas was discovered holding a smoking gun at the site of the killing.  He is in jail and there are fears of a lynching.  A white boy, Chick, who remembers (with resentment) how Lucas had once saved him from drowning in a creek after he had broken through the ice, wants to finally settle the score by saving him from this murder rap.  An elaborate plot ensues with Chick's uncle Gavin being hired by Lucas to legally represent him...and then Lucas hints to Chick that his gun wasn't the murder weapon.  But they'd have to go out in the country several miles in the dead of night to dig up the victim's body...Chick, a black teenager, and an elderly white woman make up the unlikely team for this adventure.  How does it all end? Will our heroes succeed or be thwarted along the way?  Or will the angry racist mob first lynch proud Lucas?  And what about Uncle Gavin, who possesses a fatalism about the racist attitudes in 1948 of too many Mississippi whites with regard to the blacks living among them...will he step out boldly and do what is right and just for Lucas Beauchamp?

In spite of the underlying racism depicted in Intruder in the Dust, it is also a pretty darn good mystery story...as well as containing many funny sections.  The dialogue reflected that used by the people back then, and as such would not withstand the scrutiny of the political correctness police of today's world as they self-righteously try to retroactively rewrite history.  In spite of this, the novel sounded a theme of hope and progress for the South and that whites and blacks could be eventually reconciled...without having that reconciliation imposed on them from the North.  This last hope didn't exactly turn out the way Faulkner wanted as the ensuing decades would show...

My biggest problem with this book was how the author would suddenly descend into long sections of intricate analysis that, to me, went way over the heads of its characters.  It was if there was an extra character in the story: the collective subconscious that defined this society, and it was making its own case as much as any of the individual people were.  I'm not sure that any writer other than one with the stature of William Faulkner could have gotten away with this technique: I'm sure I would have been laughed straight out of the editor's office had I used it.  Nevertheless, Intruder in the Dust is a good book that mixes well its characters, setting, mystery, and social commentary.  And no doubt it's waiting for you at your local public library!

Quote of the Week...from Dean Karnazes

Somewhere along the line we seem to have confused comfort with happiness.
                                                        ---Dean Karnazes

Dean Karnazes is one of the world's most renowned ultra-distance runners...a simple 26.2-mile marathon for him is just a warm-up to his kind of race, with 100 miles being a typical distance for him.  Well, not only don't I ever intend to run for 100 miles at a time, but I also doubt I'll be attempting a "simple" marathon anymore, either (I pulled off this feat a couple of times in 2011).  No, my kind of running has me trying to complete distances from the 10K (6.2 miles) to half-marathon (13.1 miles).  Last Sunday morning I somehow got through one of those half-marathons under very uncomfortably warm and humid conditions, and I'm happy I stuck it out and finished it.  But on a day-to-day basis, I have been allowing myself to yield to the desire for comfort over progress and haven't trained as well as I should...this doubtless contributed to my adversities during that race. Karnazes, informally called "Karno" by his friends, wasn't just narrowly referring to running with the above quote, though: it applies to just about anything we approach in our lives.  For me, it's important to discipline myself into daily routines which, while uncomfortable while performing them, together contribute to an overall happier existence.  It's important to always have personal goals to tackle, and tackling them should involve getting out of one's comfort zone.  If you're not growing, then you're stagnating or, worse, fading.  Not that rest and play aren't appropriate in their proper places...I have been working a lot of late on my job and plan to take the opportunity with this day off to rest...

Dean Karnazes' book Ultramarathon Man has been an inspiration to me for many years and helped me motivate myself to run long distances during the last eight years.  I feel that I'm at a place right now in which I need to decide what direction I want to take with this running activity.  My gut instinct says that a daily jog/run for about three miles through my neighborhood is a good goal (and definitely not comfortable), but those grueling longer distance races just might not be where I need to be going for the indefinite future.  Well, first some rest and then we'll see...

2/18 Sermon on Philippians, Part 6

I missed church this past Sunday morning as I was running in the local half-marathon then and soon afterwards had to go to work.  No problem, I watched the sermon later on The Family Church YouTube video website...here's a link to it: [link].  The message was a continuation of senior pastor Philip Griffin's series about the New Testament book of Philippians, focusing on Chapter 2 Verses 19-30...you can read it for yourself through the following link via Bible Gateway: [link]...

In Sunday's message, Pastor Philip presented three choices that believers need to make in order achieve joy and majority in their lives as they reflect the light of Christ on a dark world: choosing service over self, growth over comfort, and sacrifice over security.  What defines us: our hurts and hurdles or our acceptance by Christ?  The passage referred to Timothy as someone who had proved himself...the Greek work for "proved" can also be read as "refined", such as gold being refined to a pure state with the impurities taken out...in Timothy's case, through his service.  As for growth, Philip listed three truths: (1) growth happens when we make maturity, not comfort, our goal, (2) growth never happens overnight: time plus discipline equals growth, and (3) growth happens through mentoring...both by others and to others.  Discussing sacrifice, our pastor gave as an example the brave, heroic high school coach in Parkland last week who sacrificed his own life by putting his own body between students and the murderous gunman.  God wants us to be living sacrifices as well, putting Christ ahead of all things...

Pastor Philip concluded this message by saying that each and every believer needs three special relationships in their walk with Christ: a mentor to speak truth to them, a brother or sister alongside them in the faith, and someone...like how Timothy was to Paul...to mentor and for whom to be a source of wisdom, knowledge, and encouragement...

The Family Church meets each Sunday at 9 and 10:30 for its services, which include praise music, the weekly message, prayer and discipleship opportunities, lots of friendly folks, and a hospitality center with coffee and other assorted goodies.  It's located at 2022 SW 122nd Street...I'm planning on being there this Sunday...

Weekly Short Story: The Snowball Effect by Katherine MacLean

Why do some social and political movements snowball in their growth and effect over the population while others briefly sprout and then wither away?  Katherine MacLean, in her 1952 short story appropriately titled The Snowball Effect...from the anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 14 (1952)...examined this question, with some implications for our present age...

A newly-hired dean at a university is visiting a sociology professor, skeptical that his department merits the funding that it claims to deserve...after all, the college needs money from businesses and what practical use is sociology, anyway? In response to the dean's questioning, the professor proposes a project: to demonstrate his mathematically-constructed theory of the snowball effect on society, they will arbitrarily take a small women's sewing club tucked away in a small town and start a snowballing movement within it, using the professor's principles.  The dean agrees, very conscious of higher applications (and more money for the university) should the experiment bear fruit.  And does it ever bear fruit...

In our present age of instant social media messages and images multiplied any number of times across the country and the world, the concept of something snowballing has been replaced by another designation: going viral.  Look at the movements Black Lives Matter and Me Too in the last two or three years...and then look at how the Russians under their pseudo-president Putin were able to easily plant false news stories into social media to influence the 2016 presidential election against Clinton and in favor of Trump.  There is one element of today's world that tends to retard the full fruition of a snowball effect, keeping it from taking over the entire society: people nowadays tend to be attention-deficit, holding to whatever happens to be in vogue at the time and then suddenly disposing of it in favor of the next "big thing".  On the other hand, our media sources...while I acknowledge that some actually try to be objective...tend to favor a particular political orientation, inducing people of that same philosophy to tune in to reinforce their already held views instead of actually learning the facts and trying to see things from the other side's perspective...this trend I believe contributes to the snowball effect.  Now the question is: can all of this be set up mathematically to the point where someone with the inside knowledge of the snowball effect can, behind the scenes, anonymously manipulate the world to make it to their own liking?  Don't you get the feeling at times that this is precisely what is going on now?  I know of someone who has already expressed exactly this sentiment to me...

The Snowball Effect is now in public domain...you can read it online via Gutenberg through the following link: [link]...

Tuesday's List: 2018 Names for Atlantic Tropical Storms and Hurricanes

I know it's a little early in the year, but I might as well now list the names for the upcoming 2018  tropical storms and hurricanes that will either be dithering about aimlessly in the open Atlantic or hounding us and sending Weather Channel meteorologists scurrying about on various coastlines...unless they strike Mexico or Central America, in which case the media will mostly ignore them.  We all know how bad it was in 2017 with Harvey, Irma, and Maria strewing their mayhem across Texas, Louisiana, Florida, and the West Indies...the prediction is for a more active-than-usual season in 2018. But as much as I would like a welcome break from the tomfoolery going on in Washington with our national politics during this election year, I think I'll be very, very satisfied to see that kind of crap on television instead of around-the-clock coverage of the ongoing disastrous hurricane as I did last year (didn't I say something to that effect back then?)...

And here's the list, which incidentally is almost completely recycled from that of  2012.  I say "almost" because in that otherwise subdued hurricane season six years ago, Sandy caused a catastrophic level of damage in the Northeast, which caused the name to be retired...

ALBERTO
BERYL
CHRIS
DEBBY
ERNESTO
FLORENCE
GORDON
HELENE
ISAAC
JOYCE
KIRK
LESLIE
MICHAEL
NADINE
OSCAR
PATTY
RAFAEL
SARA
TONY
VALERIE
WILLIAM 

Just Finished Reading Watership Down by Richard Adams

For a long time I had heard of Watership Down, a 1972 children's story by Richard Adams about a group of rabbits in rural England looking for a homeland...but it wasn't until last week that I managed to check out a copy from my local public library. I also remember that they made it into an animated movie a few years later but never saw it, either.  Well, after just finishing the book, I was suitably impressed...

Wild rabbits are social creatures, forming societies called warrens.  The characters in Watership Down (a "down" is a hill...there is actually a place called Watership Down in Hampshire) speak a language called "lapine" and organize their society like humans.  Adams originally conceived of Watership Down as a story he told his two young daughters during a long trip.  After their prodding, he wrote it as a book and sought the input of an expert on rabbits as to how they behaved in the wild...the result was an interesting composite of rabbit and humanity.   Hazel and Fiver are two ordinary rabbits living in a warren when the latter, a small rabbit with the gift of intuition, one day suddenly implores the others to quickly leave the warren to avoid destruction.  The warren's leader rejects Fiver's plea, and he, along with Hazel and a few others, manage to escape from the other rabbits.  It is their quest for a new home and the adventures, new friends...as well as foes...that they experience along the way that comprise this compelling tale, along with their folklore exemplified by stories told about their mythical spiritual leader El-ahrairah...

There is a temptation, when reading Watership Down, to draw analogies from it with human society and history...I saw a couple: Britain and America with their traditions of freedom standing up to the militarist dictatorships in World War II, as well as a disparaging look at socialist societies.  But the author denied any attempt at analogy...he was simply telling a story.  And I believe him, although a good writer will often unconsciously reveal much of his or her beliefs through the characters and their behavior.  If you haven't yet read Watership Down, I urge you to do so.  On one level, it's a story for kids about rabbits.  But on another, the text is written in a language for more mature readers.  Makes me want to read some of Adams' other stories.  By the way, Richard Adams passed away very recently...in December 2016...at the age of 96...

Ran Gainesville's Five Points of Life Half-Marathon Earlier Today

This morning I got up very early to get ready for my fifth Five Points of Life Half-Marathon race here in Gainesville...and my fourth one out of the past five years.  Last year's run for me was a comedy of errors...I had misjudged the starting time and had to sprint a half mile just to get to the starting line in time...and I was hampered by problems with gagging.  Not this time around, on both accounts.  I prepared myself well and was ready to go at 7:00 when the race began.  However, the temperature during the race was 64-67 degrees, not necessarily a problem until you realize that the humidity was an oppressive 90-96 %...not a good combination at all.  I felt as if a blanket were on me the whole race, dragging me down and interfering with my performance.  Still, I got through it all and managed to substantially improve on last year's finishing time: my unofficial time was 2 hours 19 minutes 37 seconds, far slower than my best. But considering the conditions...the worst weather I ever ran a half-marathon in...I was very satisfied with the result.  Still I didn't at all enjoy the race while it was going on...it was a struggle for me not to just give up and walk away.  I would have much rather shivered uncomfortably before the race with colder weather than deal with this unseasonably warm and extremely muggy morning...

So now that I'm done with that, I can relax for a few days and recover from the experience.  By the way, the above photo I took near the start of the race...I'm running north on SW 34th Street and just topped the hill where that graffiti wall is: you can see a tiny section of it on the right...

Oh, I'd also like to mention what a great job the police did patrolling the streets we ran down and regulating the traffic so skillfully.  Also the many volunteers...especially those handing out water and Gatorade...were wonderful.  In spite of the adverse weather, I came away from the race with an overall positive feeling, and these good people had a lot to do with that...

Just Finished Rereading Final Two Books in Tad Williams' Otherland Series

Several years ago I went with my family to Walt Disney World near Orlando, specifically the Magic Kingdom.  One of the attractions there was a show called Carousel of Progress, which through their famous robotic doll/actors portrayed the advance of technology and living standards over the years...and a glimpse into the future.  That rosy future showed grandma sitting in the living room with the kids playing a virtual reality space video game...as she called out her increasing score the voice-sensitive oven in the kitchen kept heating up correspondingly, to a smoky ending...

The kind of virtual reality that causes its participants to react to what's going on in a manner that can be seen by outside observers is also exemplified by the commercial showing another VR video game player falling all over his furniture while getting caught up in the "action".  In Tad Williams' four-part science fiction Otherland series...for which I just finished rereading the final two books...you can't tell at all what's going on in virtual reality for their users (the story is set a hundred years into our future): the connection goes straight to their brains, bypassing their physical bodies.  I find this notion of such disconnectedness with the outside world more than a little problematic.  On the other hand, although I've not yet experienced virtual reality, I wonder whether it might be a bit hazardous should my own physical reactions to what's digitally going on, like with grandma or the stumbling young man, possibly result in damage or injury.  Well, I guess I'll never know until I try it out...

I liked Otherland, which is kind of like a "Jurassic Park" for virtual reality: there are many great wonders for the visitors, but they soon find that they are trapped in an artificial alternate reality that is ominously changing in a way that increasingly threatens their very existence.  My favorite book in the series was the first one, in which the novelty of the world of virtual reality is presented.  Too soon, though, I was getting tired of the characters traveling from one "world" to the next, each time having to get accustomed to each new setting with its rules and new characters.  There were several important mysteries that needed solving, and the author kept teasing me, the reader, with them until the very end of the final book...Sea of Silver Light...when one of the characters finally lays it all out for everyone to understand...

To Otherland's credit I do think that the characters in this series were memorable and thoughtfully crafted.  There's a lot of dialogue in here and you get to know each of them (and there are quite a few) very well...in a way that you might not know the "real" folks around you.  Ultimately, it was the novelty of the virtual reality experience at the beginning and then characters like Renie, !Xabbu, Long Joseph, Orlando, Fredericks, Olga, Mr. Sellars, Cristabel, Paul Jonas, "Dread", and Matrine...to name just some of the standouts...that sustained me through to the end.  I think there is a problem with all series in that they tend to be longer than necessary, with that final volume often loaded with explanations at the expense of action.  Otherland was like this, but I nevertheless highly recommend it as a peek into one of our many possible futures...

Here's a list of the Otherland books:

#1 City of Golden Shadow
#2 River of Blue Light
#3 Mountain of Black Glass
#4 Sea of Silver Light

Quote of the Week...from John Nash

The best result will come from everyone in the group doing what's best for themselves...AND the group.                                              ---John Nash.

One of my all-time favorite movies is A Beautiful Mind, directed by Ron Howard and starring Russell Crowe as the brilliant-but-troubled mathematician John Nash...it's a part of my DVD collection.  Although the cinematic version parallels the true life story of Nobel Prize winner Nash, Howard tended to sensationalize his mental illness (schizophrenia) in order to enhance the movie's visual effect and create more suspense.  The above quote is from the movie...I don't know whether the real John Nash ever spoke these words.  But I chose it because more and more I believe it has a nearly universal application in our lives...and especially when looking at those who seem disaffected and alienated within our society...

John Nash had just experienced a "eureka" moment when he suddenly understood the economic principle of duality, which is a refutation of Adam Smith's previously held tenet of "everyone out for themselves" being the optimal driving force for economic development.  But I believe there is a broader application of this duality sentiment, and it has a lot to do with how adjusted people can function around others.  If somebody has grown to feel that they belong nowhere and that the people in their lives care little about them, the notion can easily arise that they, likewise, are in no way accountable to others for their own outlook and behavior.  Alienation prevents the principle of duality...or as I call it, enlightened self-interest, from coming to fruition.  Instead, the isolated individual creates for himself a self-contained moral system that does not rely on anyone else...and consequently nothing he does to anyone else has any effect on his sense of guilt or conscience.  It's important for us as social creatures to feel a group connection...or as my pastor says, a sense of community.  Not having this connection, I have sadly noticed, seems to be a common characteristic of those involved in the too-many mass shootings we have been experiencing over the recent years...and the trend seems to be ominously accelerating...

Wednesday there was yet another school shooting massacre, this time at a high school in Parkland, Florida.  Almost instantly after the news first came out, the same old tired political talking point battle lines were being drawn with each side blaming the other.  I recognize that it's true that in many other countries with strict gun laws, the murder rate is much lower than here in the United States.  But I think that there may be another, possibly more important factor that inhibits this senseless violence: people in those other societies may be more closely-knit and inclusive than ours here in America, which can often be brutally cold about emphasizing individualism and independence as ideals.  When someone...especially when they are young...cannot find any sense of social orientation and already has a history of unchecked violent behavior, we're talking about a powder keg ready to go off.  Even the more reclusive of us can and should feel a sense of belonging to their community...but that community has a responsibility of outreach as well...and those on the social margins tend to be shunned, further aggravating matters.  In the meantime, we'd damned well better be willing to invest in providing better protection for our children in their schools...whatever it takes!

2/11 Sermon on Philippians, Part 5

Last Sunday at The Family Church here in Gainesville, our senior pastor, Philip Griffin, continued his series about the book of Philippians with its fifth installment, titled Joy in Salvation. The Bible passage of focus was Chapter 2, Verses 12-18, which you can read through the following link to Bible Gateway: [link].  Contained within it is the admonition that Paul, its author, gives believers to work out their salvation with fear and trembling...something that is problematic with some readers.  But Pastor Philip pointed out that "working out" carries the meaning of "bringing out", as if from a mine: see this as an exhortation to bring out the gold God has already given us...

How does one find joy in salvation? Pastor Philip listed five facets: come under God's authority, rely on God's power, trust in God's plan, reflect God's light, and count on God's joy.  As for his authority, Bob Dylan once wrote "gotta serve somebody"...we will make something our authority regardless...choosing God builds a foundation that will never be washed away in storms.  Philip reiterated that we are powerless in of ourselves to even obey God...we must rely on his power to empower us.  Focusing on God to get us through difficult circumstances instead of grumbling about them will give us joy.  As our pastor continued, living with fellow believers united in Christ will be reflected to the world and to his glory instead of conforming ourselves to a warped and crooked generation.  And finally, God's joy will persevere with us through hard times if we stick with him (and remember to rely on him and not our own strength)...

It's all too easy for me to allow myself to be tripped up over the course of my day as little annoyances and setbacks present themselves as obstacles.  Seeing the bigger picture and God's role in my life forces me to step back and put things in perspective.  Pastor Philip's message was a timely one for this often hectic period in my life...

You can watch this message of Philip's on the church's YouTube video website...here's a link to it: [link]...The Family Church, at 2022 SW 122nd Street, holds its Sunday morning services at 9:30 and 11.  Along with the weekly message are praise and worship music, fellowship, and opportunities for prayer and discipleship.  The series continues next Sunday...

Weekly Short Story: Hunting Machine by Carol Emshwiller

A while back I used to be strongly anti-hunting, but over the years as I discussed the activity with different friends who were enthusiasts, I came to respect their viewpoints without feeling the remotest desire to engage in it myself. When I first read Carol Emshiller's 1957 short, short story titled Hunting Machine...which appeared in the anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 19 (1957) (DAW Books) more than 25 years ago, I saw it only in terms of condemning the sport.  Now upon rereading it, I see a much broader application to what I believe the author was trying to express...

Joe and Ruthie McAlister are city folks a little to the future of our time.  They're out in the country, determined to have a hunting adventure...but how much of an adventure can it really be with an advanced robotic hunting dog that far surpasses the sensory capabilities of the animals it is pursuing.  And the couple's guns are nearly self-operating, presupposing little to no skill on the part of their users.  They have taken the conveniences of home with them and are letting "Rover" find and chase down their final target: a 1,500 lb. bear.  As this short story approaches its ending, the author describes in gory, graphic detail what happens when they catch up with the bear...and then the reactions of Joe and Ruthie to it all afterwards...

Whether it's fishing or bicycling or bowling...or hunting, or any other activity, it seems that many of those engaging in them are being pressured to buy high-tech equipment to enhance their conquests or scores...doesn't that kind of defeat the whole point of "sport"?  I used to ride a bicycle around town...I made the 16-mile round trip to and from work on bikes that I picked up from Wal-Mart or Target for less than a hundred bucks...nothing special.  One morning I was riding home...almost there...from my graveyard shift when I stopped at a red light and three other bicyclists pulled up beside me.  Two were grown men and one was a teenage girl...they were all dressed up like bicycle club members and their bicycles looked like they'd invested an enormous amount of money to get them.  The girl looked over at me and derisively sneered, "Nice bike".  I answered, "Have a nice day" as the light changed and the three went off ahead of me, all most assuredly very self-satisfied with their bicycling superiority.  I thought that if this arrogant pride (or is it insecurity?) is what motivates people to spend so much money to enhance their activities and make them look better to others, then I want no part in it.  Joe and Ruthie McAlister seemed to have similar motivations in Carol Emshiller's brutal, eye-opening tale...