Dreary Excursion to News on TV

I'm sitting here on a Tuesday morning in my nearby Dunkin' Donuts...sometimes I feel the need to get out a little bit in public in order to focus my mind on writing, which in the case of this blog is a personal discipline of habit more than anything else.  Sometimes it's hard for me to arrive at a topic...I just have to turn on the news on TV, though, to come up with stuff.  Okay, let's see, mass shootings sprinkled across the country, allegation of police brutality against a young black man, nutty, fascist election-denying politicians gaining seats of power in Congress, fascist warmonger Putin continuing to bomb apartments in Ukraine (by the way, most of those fascist American politicians seem to support him),..where do I stop?  I've already held from early on that the Russian president's decision to invade Ukraine (and continue this conflict) was more a matter of internal political conflict than from any beef with the neighboring nation, which voluntarily gave up its nuclear arsenal following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in exchange for assurances against a later Russian invasion.  H-m-m... Raising the dubious banner of nationalist patriotism against enemies abroad...real or imagined...is a time-tested way of generating political support among the population, especially the unquestioning rabble.  Let's see how supportive they remain in Putinland when he demands young men be forcibly conscripted into the war...oh, wait, that's already happening.  I wonder how I can do anything about all this...it seems that when I watch the news...on any channel...I get the feeling that I am being manipulated to generate an emotional response...usually fear and/or anger...to whatever the topic is and how it is being presented.  I think I'll go back to printed news or, better yet, store up some extra blog articles to publish on days like this when I'm at a loss for something to write about...

Podcast about Other People's Opinions

Today's Mindset Mentor podcast, with Rob Dial as its host, has as the topic Other People's Opinions.  I pretty much assumed at the start that he would be discussing other people's opinions about oneself, not necessarily what they thought about the Dallas Cowboys blowing another playoff game or their loony notions about the world of politics.  And of course, that was the theme as Dial makes two substantive points about opinions and advice...which he unfortunately tends to blur together: they're not one and the same.  He emphasizes that we should sit down and write the names of those in our lives whose opinions of us really matter, stressing that the list should be short (he said "three" for himself).  For me, there are four: those in my childhood and adult nuclear families who are still here among us.  Yet to varying degrees, others' views of me matter as well...but only up to a point.  As for advice, Dial confirms what I already knew: just because someone may be on that short list, if he or she does not have the background or knowledge appropriate to their advice, then don't necessarily accept it...while being polite just the same.  This is a timely episode in our age of social media and the desire to be "liked" and popular.  Dial explains that the desire to fit in with a group goes back to our human origins when being accepted by the tribe was necessary for survival...rejection back then could be tantamount to a death sentence in the unforgiving wilds.  But today it's different and both the host and I are in agreement that while being a discerning individual can be challenging, especially when one feels he or she is isolated or an outsider, the reward of confidence in one's own ability to reason and act correspondingly far outweighs the negatives...

Achy Body Orders Me to Take It Easy This Weekend and Watch Sports on TV

From time to time in my aging life, my poor old body just gets a little too strained...this weekend my achy back had a conversation with me, telling me to take it easy and rest for the two days.  Sounded good to me...I've been watching TV, particularly the National Football League divisional playoffs, the Australian Open tennis tournament, and assorted soccer leagues matches in the Mexican and English Premier Leagues.  While resting my body I thought I'd give my brain a break as well...hence, another sports article!  Out of the four NFL contests, "my" teams won three...sadly, Jacksonville bowed out to the Kansas City Chiefs although they played them proud and tough.  Philadelphia thoroughly dominated the NY Giants in the other Saturday game and earlier today Cincinnati ended another Buffalo season with an impressive performance.  That game was played in the middle of a driving snowstorm at Buffalo...the Bengals (and myself) felt that the NFL offices were unfair in not holding the game at a neutral site since the two teams' earlier regular season game was cancelled because a Bills player suffered cardiac arrest on the field.  Had Buffalo won the cancelled game they would have had the home field advantage over Kansas City, so the league officials decreed that should those two meet in the conference championship, then the game would be held at a neutral site.  But likewise, had Cincinnati beat Buffalo in that cancelled game, they would have had a better seeding than the Bills...but the officials made them play on the road, anyway...NOT FAIR.  And just now, the San Francisco 49ers held off Dallas...ha, ha, ha...I can't wait to hear what Cowboys-basher Stephen A. Smith has to say about the losers tomorrow morning on his ESPN show!  As for the tennis, I found it all kind of boring, sad to say...ditto with the soccer.  Oh well, there have been plenty of sleeping opportunities for me this weekend...

Rainy Day Hunkering Down with NFL Playoffs on TV

Today I'm hunkering down at home on this miserably rainy, cool day in Gainesville, sleeping in late and watching sports on TV.  Later this afternoon and evening will be two NFL playoffs games: Jacksonville at Kansas City and the New York Giants at Philadelphia.  It bugged me a little that the Jags and Chiefs will be playing each other at this stage since they happen to be my favorites out of the remaining teams...oh well, that means that at least one of them (probably KC) will survive until next week's conference championship game.  Tomorrow the Buffalo Bills will host last year's AFC champion Cincinnati Bengals while my current pick to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl, the San Francisco 49ers, will be at home against the Dallas Cowboys.  Who do I want to win these four games? Jax, Philly, Cincy and San Fran.  A few years ago, when Lamar Jackson began his stellar career as the running quarterback for the Baltimore Ravens, I wondered how long that career would last before injuries caused by that aspect of his game caught up with him like it has done with others such as Robert Griffin III and, this season, "my" Miami Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa.  Well, it seems that Lamar has become something of a fragile athlete like these, dooming his team to an early playoff exit and raising doubts about his future effectiveness in the league.  It's no accident that Tom Brady has made it to the ancient age of 45 in premier-level sports by adhering to a more traditional drop-back-or-hand-off quarterbacking style, with his running almost exclusively focused on scrambling from tacklers in passing situations or short yardage sneaks behind his offensive line.  It seems, though, that the trend is more for the young quarterbacks of this era to have a few short, explosive seasons before they soon become too hobbled to be effective...so sad.  Are you getting this, Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes?  I didn't think so...but at least these two aren't quite as run-crazy as Lamar has been... 

Quote of the Week...from Fareed Zakaria

I enjoy writing but I much prefer the experience of having written.          ---Fareed Zakaria

Fareed Zakaria is a CNN weekend host whose programs delve more deeply into international events and trends, placing his own stamp of perspective and opinions about his chosen topics...he is perhaps the best of his profession in this regard, in my opinion.  He also has had columns writing for the Washington Post and Newsweek. Since today happens to be his birthday, I thought I'd do a little delving of my own, checking out some of his past quotes...and found the above admission.  For some of us, writing is a blissful, wonderful experience...if there were more hours in the day then they'd just see it as more writing opportunity.  For others, there is no writing, just as there is no reading, either...that's true even so for a high percentage of the college-educated population.  And then there is the middle of the two extremes: people like me who like to write once I'm actually into writing something, but sometimes find it difficult getting started with a task or project.  Oh, and I suppose there's a fourth group as well: people, usually celebrities, who take credit for writing books that others have written for them...we'll just leave these phonies out of the discussion.  One thing I like about this concept of blogging, besides it being freely provided (thank you, Google), is that I can write about anything (although I try to be discreet and respectful in some areas) and not only express my opinions, but also explain them and elaborate.  I've written this blog almost daily since April 2007, with some 5,300 total articles...and they're all still there, for you or anyone else in the world who has free access to the Internet.  I know that blog writing is something that I like a lot, yet there still is that resistance to sitting down and starting...some days I don't know what I will write about until I open up a new, blank page.  Fareed Zakaria, on the other hand, as a renowned journalist probably feels that he must adhere to much higher standards with his writing and use impeccable research, knowing that pretty much anything he says will be scrutinized to small detail by not only his colleagues (especially those in disagreement with his views) and those whom he features, but by millions of his general readers...that's bound to throw a damper on anyone's enjoyment of writing.  But the finished product? Pretty good, Fareed...

Podcaster's Suggestion of Misogi Method Interesting But Incomplete

According to podcaster Rob Dial on a recent Mindset Mentor episode of his, the Misogi Method derives from a traditional Japanese spiritual ritual involving purification by immersing oneself...for as long as possible...in very cold water.  Dial says he does this regularly, and then expanded upon the ritual to encompass anything that one doesn't think possible...like climbing a long, steep elevation or running a long distance, for example.  It's not something to be done regularly...no, maybe once a year or, as the host suggests, once a month. The point here is that doing something beyond one's perceived abilities serves as a breakthrough of possibilities and self-awareness...as well as bringing out a lot of self-imposed negative beliefs and attitudes.  I dig this idea, but Dial seems to have forgotten his repeatedly expressed philosophy of gradual, incremental change over stretches of time, even belittling it in this podcast.  Truth be told, here is where the concept of duality...combining two seemingly contradictory ideas...comes into play.  Gradually changing habits, combined with the abrupt "big feats" of Misogi, do not conflict...if anything, they should build upon one another.  Each person has a different body as well as mind with their respective life histories building unique tapestries of both skills and flaws, with widely differing physical and mental limitations.  I've had a few "Misogi's" in my life without recognizing them as such...I suppose tackling half-marathon races in sub-freezing temperature during a time of the day when I'm usually in the last stages of morning sleep is one.  But I wouldn't have done it had I not, over a span of months and years, established a daily workout routine and healthier lifestyle habits.   And you have to be careful what you select if you try this method of facing acute, demanding challenges...the point is to be able to WALK away from them with a greatly improved perspective on things...

Weekly Shortly Stories: 1989 Science Fiction, Part 1

Today I begin reviewing science fiction short stories from the year 1989 as they appeared in the annual anthology The 1990 Annual World's Best SF, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and representing his picks from the previous year.  It would be Wollheim's final anthology as he sadly passed away at the end of 1990.  For the years 1983-88 I have been reviewing stories from both Wollheim's "year's best" anthologies and those of Gardner Dozois...after I finish with this book that I'm currently on, it'll just be Gardner for the ensuing years, at least through 2018 if I get that far.  But for now, how about those first four tales in Wollheim's book...

ALPHAS by Gregory Benford

Set in the not-so-distant future, first contact is made with aliens whose flippant attitudes about terrestrial humans reminded me of the Vogons in Douglas Adams' hilarious Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy...at least these dudes aren't building an intergalactic highway through our solar system!  No, instead they've set their sights on our neighboring world Venus and seem to be drastically changing it to be able to host their own kind of life.  Being territorial as we tend to be, a miffed humanity sends a ship to check them out...one of the crew becomes an unwitting hero in what must be the ultimate ride for anyone to experience...

THE MAGIC BULLET by Brian Stableford

This is a short sci-fi mystery tale, where a scientist experimenting with mice and viruses is attacked and his lab burned down.  A former friend is the sleuth here...she learns of a special "magic bullet" virus that eventually inserts itself into the host's genome, with drastic consequences for humanity. Great story...

NORTH OF THE ABYSS by Brian W. Aldiss

I look at the lives of the protagonist, a successful businessman, and his wife, and wonder why they're both so miserable...I guess happiness does come from within.  Oscar North, totally discontent with his life, finds a source of enlightenment when they visit Egypt and he learns of that land's ancient religion centered around Isis, Osiris, and other gods.  A story that leaves you wondering what is real, what isn't, and how much of our "reality" is captive to our own beliefs...

CHIPRUNNER by Robert Silverberg

A brilliant young man is wasting away in anorexia while his therapist struggles to understand his motives, which seem to revolve around making himself small enough to be among the very atoms themselves. Complicating it all is that the therapist himself is starting to dream of the same things. I understood the story without getting the premise...

Next week: more of Donald A. Wollheim's sci-fi short story picks from 1989...

Constellation of the Month: Taurus (the Bull)

 

If you're looking at the above star map of the evening wintertime Zodiac constellation Taurus, representing a bull, the planet Mars stands out sharply.  But it's only in that position in the night sky if you happen to go outside and view it tonight or in the next few days...don't expect to see it there if you're reading this in, say, 2024...or even just a few weeks from now, for that matter.  Aldebaran is the standout first magnitude star in Taurus, in proximity to the open star cluster Hyades, represented by some of the constellation's fainter stars.  The famous cluster Pleiades is situated on the constellation's western end, at first glance a smudge in the night sky. But with more intense inspection the brightest stars within it can be visually detected...if you have 20/20 eyesight, that is.  Near the tip of the "lower horn" lies M1, aka the Crab Nebula, remnant of a renowned supernova explosion in 1054...you need a good pair of binoculars or a telescope to view it.  Taurus is one of the more prominent constellations in the winter evening sky as well as being one of the northernmost in the Zodiac, passing the meridian around 9 pm local standard time.  But to its immediate south is easily the most brilliant constellation of all, Orion, and sometimes Taurus gets unfairly passed over.  If the sky is clear, why not step outside and see if you can see the Bull?  My suggestion is twofold: either look for the "smudge" (the Pleiades) and go eastward from that or identify Orion and go northward.  Oh, and right now Mars is pretty prominent and red: that's a good "skymark" as well...

Happy Martin Luther King Day

Today is officially Martin Luther King Day, although the late American civil rights leader had his 94th birthday yesterday.  When I was a kid growing up in the 1960s, the popular perception of him was that he was a controversial figure, always challenging the established order and stirring things up.  By the time I was earnestly paying attention to the news...when Lyndon Johnson was president...Dr. King was active on a host of social issues besides civil rights for blacks, and he adamantly opposed U.S. military involvement in Vietnam.  I've learned since then that the FBI had an extensive file on him, and he was suspected by some on the conservative right of being aligned with the Soviets.  I tend to dismiss this kind of allegation, especially considering the kind of scurrilous defamatory garbage currently floating around social and mass media about different people that others have chosen to hate.  Martin Luther King has been extensively quoted in this blog because his message has been one of equal opportunity, inclusion, the dignity of all work, tolerance, and, above all, love.  Everyone has a better nature to them, and may I suggest that we take a few minutes today to reflect on our own and how we can make it a more encompassing part of our lives...

Ran the Florida Track Club Mary Andrews Half-Marathon This Morning

 

Mary Andrews grew up in Gainesville and was a long-time running enthusiast, ably tackling the difficult marathon distance races.  She ran the Florida Track Club's first marathon held from Hawthorne in early 2021, but she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer and died the same year at the tragically young age of 44...FTC now names this event in her honor.  Along with the marathon, originating and ending at the Hawthorne Trailhead right next to Hawthorne Middle/High School, they offered a half-marathon (13.1 miles)...more to my abilities.  This morning I ran that half-marathon, hoping to have a better race than last November's Tom Walker Memorial half-marathon, which I ended up walking the final three miles under unseasonably warm and humid conditions.  This morning the weather wouldn't be a hindrance, with the temperature dipping below 30 at race time and the humidity much lower.  I wore a warm zip-up jacket that I could open up as the race progressed and slide it down over my arms...worked for the first half, after which I shed it to retrieve later after the race. Before the race, starting punctually at 8 am, famous marathoners Frank Shorter and Jeff Galloway gave short speeches...I managed to get a photo of the popular creator of the Galloway Method of taking short regular walking breaks during long runs (see 2nd photo). The half-marathon consisted of two there-and-back laps along the eastern Hawthorne Trail...the marathon was, naturally, four laps.  The last pic shows the trail, clear of runners...reminded me a little of Frodo's hazardous trail to Rivendell (but I saw no mushrooms or sinister riders).   Everyone in both distances started at the same time and shared the course. My personal goal was simply to keep running and set for myself a 12 minute/mile pace, which I was gratified to be able to adhere to.  I ended up with a negative split for the race, finishing with a time of 2 hours 34 minutes 42 seconds and somehow managing to win my age group...click HERE to see the complete results.  I had no problems like I experienced with the previous half-marathon and had a lot of energy left over.  Still, my feet and legs ached too much as the race wore on, and I think that was because I was wearing shoes that did not provide enough cushion.  The next race...whenever that is...I'll definitely be using a pair that is better padded.  There was a very friendly, sweet spirit coming from the organizers and participants, and I appreciated the coffee, bagels, and doughnuts after the race.  I probably would have won a trinket award for my finish but wanted to get on home instead...that's okay, I run for the sake of the run, a true amateur...the medal in the top picture is given to all finishers.  Now my body is in the recovery stage, and I'm taking it easy for the rest of the day...

Cold Weather and Football

After generally warmer than usual temperatures this winter so far, the weather has turned frigid here in northern Florida. Tonight...and early tomorrow morning...Gainesville temperatures are slated to dip below freezing for several hours, and even reach the mid-20s.  Tomorrow it's only going to get up into the 50s...if you live up north where it gets much worse, you're probably laughing at this article.  But my plans are to be outside in the middle of all this and that's not exactly something I'm looking forward to.  Shifting the subject a bit, I see that the Los Angeles Chargers have scored early in their first round NFL playoff game against Jaguars, being played in much colder weather than usual in Jacksonville.  Although four teams I follow somehow managed to make the postseason playoffs in spite of their mediocre records, I wonder whether any of them will survive this first round.  A few hours ago, I was heartened by Seattle, one of those teams, coming out of their first half against heavily favored San Francisco with a 17-16 lead, but the 49ers stomped the Seahawks in the second half and ran away with a 41-23 win.  Tomorrow Miami travels to Buffalo and Monday Tampa Bay hosts Dallas...I'll count myself lucky if at least one of the Florida teams advance.  Hope you're keeping warm and if you like to watch football, that some of the games go your way...

Quote of the Week...from Gardner Dozois

When I was a boy in Salem, Mass., in the 1950s, if you wanted to buy a book, you had to take a train to Boston.  And when you got there, to a bookstore, there was no such thing as a science-fiction section.

                                                                  ---Gardner Dozois

Gardner Dozois (1947-2018) is probably best-known for his anthology series The Year's Best Science Fiction...which I'm currently reading and reviewing (I'm up to the year 1989), as well as being the editor of the acclaimed Asimov's Science Fiction magazine.  He's also written science fiction in both novel and short story form, but his fame has been as the role of a collector and editor of quality stories written by others.  His above quote places him a decade ahead me, but I couldn't tell you very much about bookstores even during the sixties, other than the book and supply store at my public school.  Then again, I tended to go more for libraries in my early youth, and liked those old children's series they sold at my nearby G.C. Murphy like Power Boys and Bobbsey Twins (I read all my sister's Trixie Beldon and Donna Parker books, too).  But sure, once bookstores, both new and used, began sprouting in full force during the seventies, I caught the bug and began buying paperbacks, mostly nonfiction. I picked the above quote because nowadays bookstores sadly seem to be in a state of retreat, both new and used. And for those that are still around, it's funny that now the science fiction section is often the biggest one.  I'm not bemoaning the advancement of digitalized books like Kindle or audiobooks, mind you...I make liberal use of both forms. But I also know that for some reason book publishing...unlike with music or movies/TV...lags far behind in the availability of bygone and out-of-print works for digital reading, while much is unavailable in libraries as well.  Which means you go to a used bookstore to find them...assuming there are any used bookstores.  Gainesville's number has steeply declined in recent years, but we still have a couple of them, along with a crazy used book sale that happens every (pandemic-free) year in April and October.  I'd say take a train to Jacksonville, but you can't do that from Gainesville anymore, either...

Asimov, Wollheim and Dozois...and Their SF Year-by-Year Anthology Series

Isaac Asimov and Donald A. Wollheim, both significant science fiction writers of their era in the mid-to-late twentieth century, passed away in their seventies just two years apart: Asimov in 1992 and Wollheim in 1990.  In their later years they were both important anthologists with Wollheim's Annual World's Best SF Series covering the period from 1964 through 1989.  Asimov, during the 1980s, decided to go back and anthologized his own (and co-editor Martin Greenberg's) favorites in a year-to-year retrospective series titled The Great SF Stories...this covered the years 1939-63.  Asimov, a longtime friend of Wollheim, had his series published by the latter's company, DAW Books.  Over the years and especially recently, I have appreciated and enjoyed the efforts of these two writers who obviously loved their chosen genre of fiction to undertake this sort of effort involving sorting through the many quality stories that their colleagues (and, sometimes, they themselves) produced.  It's a shame that, in this digital age, I can't get either anthology series on Kindle or audiobook...if they were recording artists there wouldn't be a problem with their old works.  Starting next Wednesday, I will be reviewing Wollheim's final anthology, published in 1990 while he was already very ill and covering that last year of 1989.  After that I plan to continue reviewing science fiction short stories from another excellent anthology, that of the late Gardner Dozois and titled The Year's Best Science Fiction (which is available on Kindle and audiobook)..his will continue through the year 2018 so I'm not very likely to run out of material anytime soon, especially since his collections are much lengthier than those of Asimov or Wollheim...I'm very grateful for all three of these important figures of science fiction...

Weekly Short Stories: 1988 Science Fiction, Part 8

Whew, finally I conclude this long, long look at the year 1988 in science fiction short stories, finishing up on the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Sixth Annual Collection.  Of course, had I been doing this the "right" way (as the publishers probably wanted), I would have been writing these blog articles when these anthologies first came out, with the whole year over which to spread out my reading. Only there were no such things as blogs back then, were they...dang it, here I go feeling old again! What floors me about some of the stories I read is when they point to a time in their near future, but which for me is already in the past...and they often get the trends right but overdramatize them.  Well, here are my reactions to the final five tales in the Dozois book...next week I begin reviews of 1989 sci-fi from the much shorter...and, sadly, final book in the Donald A. Wollheim anthology series...

IT WAS THE HEAT by Pat Cadigan

A married female executive makes a business trip visit to rowdy and raunchy New Orleans, where she encounters a man full of the "heat", which infects her and brings out her passions and sexuality.  Yes, this is a very sensual tale...but I'm not sure it quite belongs in the science fiction genre...

DYING IN HULL by D. Alexander Smith

In the little coastal Massachusetts town of Hull on the outskirts of Boston dwells a single elderly woman who is staying put in spite of the encroaching sea level that is destroying her hometown building by building.  There civil society has broken down into lawless gangs and ruthless smugglers.  Ethel must find a way to deal with them as well as the rising water in her home to survive, yet she cannot bring herself to admit defeat and leave for Boston.  I found this story peculiarly similar in premise to Kim Stanley Robinson's Glacier earlier in the same anthology...

DISTANCES by Kathe Koja

Interstellar travel is developed...but the human travelers are altered volunteers called "glassheads" with their brains and neural systems altered to be able to adapt to the sensory input that the probes provide.  Michael is second-generation and ready for his mission; his "handler" Halloran, is first-generation glasshead and cannot go. Furthermore, she is dying because of this alteration and although she is there to comfort Michael, the two find their roles reversed.  I couldn't quite get into why they had to drastically their nervous systems to travel virtually through space and it kept bugging me as I read...

FAMOUS MONSTERS by Kim Newman

A brief, very tongue-in-cheek look at the tawdry, cheesy side of the fifties' science fiction film industry as a Martian actor, tentacles and all, looks for supporting work in some of the B-flicks.  It's also an alternative history as, for example, James Dean has grown fat and over the hill instead of his tragic death in 1956 after only three acclaimed movie appearances ..

THE SCALEHUNTER'S BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTER by Lucius Shepherd

More a novella than a short story, a pretty and frivolous young woman makes light of romance in her home village, situated on a bewitched vast, still dragon.  Pursued by her enemies, she escapes to the dragon's inner parts where she finds herself both captive and destined for a special, unspecified purpose.  I thought this story might do well adapted to the screen, but I admit to not getting the point of it all.  A whole lotta suffering going on here...

Next week I start with Donald A. Wollheim's anthology covering 1989 science fiction short stories...

Podcaster Discusses Why People Won't Change Their Viewpoints

On a recent Mindset Mentor podcast of his, personal development coach Rob Dial gives three reasons why it's so hard for people to change their own minds about things as well as change others'.  They are (1) cognitive dissonance, (2) partisanism/tribalism, and (3) confirmation bias.  With cognitive dissonance, someone hears something that conflicts with what they are comfortable with, so they either rationalize or trivialize it...or as is often the case, just get mad at the other person who they perceive as messing up their life by expressing it.  The second one has to do with our tribal social nature, be it following a particular political party or politician, religion, culture, family, work pals, section of the neighborhood...or maybe just what our favorite sports team is.  Folks tend to magnify the faults of those outside their felt circle, especially when they are in direct competition with them, as is the case in politics and sports.  Dial himself says he doesn't come down on either side of the political spectrum, he's in the "center", and doesn't care about all the political things others do.  With that I have a problem: you can be in the center and care more than many on the left or right fringe.  But I'm totally in agreement with him in that people in a group who want to be accepted within it will often, if not usually, bend their beliefs to fit in...even if they are obviously false.  As for confirmation bias, people tend to seek their sources of information that confirm their already cherished beliefs and reject those that challenge them...this isn't helped by Internet algorithms that various social media and search engines use to "perceive" the user's inclinations and then fulfill them with affirming material.  Also, Dial mentions that there is a tendency for people, if they hear something repeated enough times, to accept it as truth...combine that with confirmation bias and the desire to "fit in", and you have whole entrenched sections of the population at odds with one another while "circling the wagons" to  protect own "tribes".  I don't think that this problem with human nature has changed over the centuries, but with our very recent development in mass personal digital communications the effects have mushroomed.  Rob Dial's solution seems to be to avoid confronting people with the truth because you're wasting your time for the aforementioned reasons...up to a point I agree with him, but at some point you have to stand up for what you know is right...

New Year a Good Arbitrary Time to Seek Habit Changes

I like to think of the new year as an opportunity to break away from old destructive personal habits and set out on new goals.  From what I've picked up from others and my own experiences, changing one's life is largely a matter of changing those habits one at a time, and in measures that are attainable.  So, 2023 is a year like the others in that I'd like to improve my skills in certain areas and eliminate any toxic habitual behavior.  The temptation is to try to do a lot of things differently from the beginning, but right now I'm considering how to divide up and prioritize my projects.  Should be fun...of course, it's all a continuum whether it's January or July.  I've heard that it's best to focus on one habit in an area at a time and diligently see the change through for one hundred straight days until it becomes ingrained within me.  But first I need to sit, think, and write down what I want to change...the new calendar year is an arbitrary but convenient time to assess where I've been and where I want to go...

Fins, Jags, Bucs in NFL Playoffs...Whoopee!

It happened back in 1999 when all three Florida National Football League teams managed to make the postseason playoffs in the same season, but finally here we are more than two decades from then and in the same situation after each team...none of them admittedly all that good...scrapped and lucked their way into next week's game lineup.  Tampa Bay had already wrapped up their sorry NFC South title last week and took out star quarterback Tom Brady during today's essentially meaningless contest against Atlanta as the Falcon's win put the Bucs into a losing regular season at 8-9.  They'll most likely be playing Dallas at home next week...although Tampa finished with a worse win-loss record, they did manhandle the Cowboys 19-3 earlier this season.  In the American Conference the South Division title went to Jacksonville at 9-8 when they ran back a recovered Tennessee fumble late in their game to come from behind and win.  And Miami broke their five-game losing streak by staving off the New York Jets 11-6, breaking their tie with a 50-yard field goal with only seconds remaining...the safety was icing on the cake.  But the Dolphins also depended on Buffalo winning against New England, which they did in large part from two touchdown kickoff returns.  It was a little strange for me to be rooting so hard for the Bills, considering that I'll be rooting just as hard against them next week when they play the Dolphins at home.  I don't know whether Miami's injury-prone quarterback Tua Tagovailoa will be back for the Buffalo game, but it seems that playing against this team has not been good for his health, with multiple concussions coming from those games.  Maybe I'll trade an early exit from the playoffs for the Dolphins in exchange for this player to stay healthy.  As for Jacksonville, they will be playing next week at home against San Diego.  Later tonight Green Bay will play at home against Detroit for the final disputed playoff spot...I'll be watching, naturally.  If Seattle loses their ongoing game against the LA Rams, then the winner between the Packers and Lions gets in... otherwise it's Seattle if the Lions prevail.  Besides the three Florida teams, I tend to root for the Seahawks as well as the Kansas City Chiefs...maybe the latter will take it all the way this year to another Super Bowl championship...

NFL Regular Season Ends This Weekend, College National Championship Monday

The next three days will finish off both the NCAA Division I college football championship as well as the National Football League regular season for "2022".  On Monday Georgia will play Texas Christian University for the national title...in the opening round of the playoffs I departed from my usual pattern and actually rooted for Big Ten Conference powerhouses Ohio State and Michigan, both of which lost close contests.  As for the Wolverines, looks like they're in for some punishment for unspecified NCAA rules violations as their prima donna coach Jim Harbaugh may once again be headed for the NFL.  I'm pulling for neither the Bulldogs or the Horned Frogs....as they like to call themselves for some reason...and, besides, I'll be at work during the game.  Regarding the NFL games this weekend, I'm focused on the Florida teams.  As I wrote a few days ago, all three are 8-8 and could make the playoffs, with Tampa Bay already in due to their lackluster division.  Jacksonville has an evening game today against Tennessee to decide their also-mediocre division's title...even if the Jaguars lose there's an unlikely scenario where they could sneak into the playoffs as an 8-9 team.  Miami has the poorest chance of making it.  First, even if they win their contest against the New York Jets tomorrow, New England must lose (or tie) against Buffalo since the Patriots have the tiebreaker advantage over the Dolphins.  And Miami has lost five straight games and is depending on their third-string quarterback to carry them in the regular season finale.  The Bucs, by the way, will be playing an essentially meaningless game at Atlanta since they're already set to play either the Dallas Cowboys or Philadelphia Eagles at home in the playoff's first round, depending on how those teams do in Sunday's games.  Working in favor of the Jags and Fins is that they will both be playing at home while the Pats will be at Buffalo.  Still, the Bills must depend on Kansas City losing their game this afternoon at the Raiders, an unlikely proposition.  And if the Chiefs win, then Buffalo just might hold back some with their starters against New England, thereby hurting Miami's chances.  But the Dolphins put themselves in this situation of depending on others with their long losing streak...although all of those losses have been close.  I guess by all this you know that I'll be following football this weekend...

Quote of the Week...from Alan Watts

A myth is an image in terms of which we try to make sense of the world.          Alan Watts

Today is the birthday of Alan Watts (1915-73), an English popularizer of Eastern philosophies for Western audiences.  Sometimes people's quotes from the past can quickly seemed dated and obsolete...even wildly wrong.  But Watts had a plethora of material that resounds strongly in today's world...the above quote captures a great truth of how people interpret reality and try to construct an order, however artificial, that fits the narratives they are most comfortable with.  The problems arise when the narratives are blatantly false, or at least severely distorted...but people, having a tribal nature and desperately wanting to fit in with their valued group, stubbornly adhere to them out of fear of belittlement or being ostracized if they think independently as individuals. The emperor may have no clothes, wearing masks and getting vaccinated are effective and safe ways to prevent the spread of Covid and complications from infection, and Biden really did legitimately win the 2020 election. But go up against someone's strongly cherished myth, one from which they derive a sense of acceptance from others in their identified "tribe": I dare you...no, I triple dog dare you!

McCarthy Having Difficulty Becoming House Speaker...Not My Problem

The paper-thin majority in the United States House of Representatives that Republican caucus leader Kevin McCarthy is "leading" has left him short of receiving the votes needed to become Speaker, which Democrat Nancy Pelosi had occupied for the previous four years.  It's all about the extreme wing of a party leveraging their power out of proportion to their numerical strength...well, that's politics!  No fan of McCarthy, I felt he let the country down in the hours immediately following the insurrection on the Capitol building on 1/6/21 when he and two thirds of his caucus took the dangerous, undemocratic...and, frankly, fascist step of refusing to officially acknowledge the counted Pennsylvania 2020 presidential election votes that gave the state to Joe Biden over election-denying sore loser Donald Trump.  This guy has to be the slimiest politician on Earth...and that's saying a lot.  No doubt when whoever does finally take the gavel, the Republicans will resume their endless pointless investigations that nobody believes worth the effort and expense...other than their hardcore, unquestioning FoxNews followers, that is.  Hillary's e-mails will soon morph into Hunter's laptop as a continuous Fox/Republican headline...and there will probably be payback attempts to impeach President Biden as well.  If you want to follow all that crap, you're welcome to it.  But as Soundgarden's late front man Chris Cornell once sang, "Keep it off my wave"...

Weekly Short Stories: 1988 Science Fiction, Part 7

Once again, it's time to examine some bygone sci-fi, appearing in the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Sixth Annual Collection, spotlighting tales of that genre from 1988.  It takes me awhile to get through the year-by-year Dozois books, in contrast to the much briefer ones from Donald A. Wollheim. But Wollheim's final anthology was for 1989...he died the following year, it won't be too long before I'm only reviewing stories from Gardner's series. But for now, let's go back to look at some more stories from '88...

SANCTUARY by James Lawson

Initially about an Arizona police detective in the near future (from 1988, that is), blinded in duty and provided a loyal dog that tends to him long after advanced surgery restores his eyesight.  He is assigned to investigate two employees from the area's competing technological think tanks...they are found calmly lying in a room in one of their offices, apparently physically unharmed but their minds completely sucked out of them.  Quite a quandary, but our hero, with his faithful companion and a sidekick female employee of one of the think tanks, solves it all and then goes one enormous step further. Reminded me of Tad Williams' wonderful Otherland book series and its resolution for a terminally ill character...

THE DRAGON LINE by Michael Swanwick

A speculative resurrection of the Arthurian mythos, with principal characters Merlin and Mordred...the latter the story's narrator...set in modern times. I learned quite a bit about the original story of King Arthur and those around them.  Just about everybody had some serious character flaws...talk about anti-heroes.  It reminded me a little of Neil Gaiman's later novel American Gods...

MRS. SHUMMEL EXITS A WINNER by John Kessel

An elderly woman regularly plays bingo at her hometown's VFW lodge. Already overcritical of others, she objects to a strange young mute man already sitting in her favorite seat.  But then he keeps winning and winning, and the buzz starts to go around the place that he might be cheating somehow.  He tells her she can win, too...at a price.  And the price she is willing to pay makes this story brilliant, like one of Shirley Jackson's best psychological short stories...

EMISSARY by Stephen Kraus

Roger, a friend and former colleague of the narrator and who has recently been missing following his termination from a research professorship, stumbles exhausted into his home and tells his remarkable story, one about his ancestors in a rural England mining town and an incredible discovery there from centuries past.  It's a first contact tale like no other, and has a curiously cyclic nature to it like the great old Time Machine movie from 1960...

Next week I conclude my look at science fiction short stories from the year 1988...

Podcaster Speaks on Designing One's Future

For his last few podcasts, personal development coach Rob Dial seems to have cut back on their length, which usually has been approaching 20 minutes.  This last one from yesterday, titled "Architect Your Life", went on only for about 15.  Still, I think that each of his programs could be distilled to about a minute or two long, truth be told.  In this episode he observes that most people just stumble through each day of their existence, reacting to and coping with whatever comes their way without much foresight as to what direction they want their lives to go in the future besides some generalized, vague hopes and wishes.  Dial goes full opposite in that not only does he stress planning in as minute detail as possible, but that he speaks to himself as if the desired changes have already happened.  This is because he believes that it's crucial to normalize future aspirations in one's own mind, instead of them seeming strange and distant.  I get all that and agree with him about the importance of positive self-talk.  But I also get the flip side of that argument, which is that becoming centered in the present moment and appreciating and being grateful for what I have NOW matters as well.  So, it looks like two different ways of seeing things is being pushed here...apparently another instance of duality.  Duality is when two different agendas or perspectives combine, in spite of their surface contradictions, to present something that is better than the two original parts...seems that's what is going on with this combo of future planning and present appreciation...

Florida NFL Teams: All 8-8 and in Playoff Running at Season's End

I suppose this is what the bigshots of the National Football League had in mind when they added a team from each conference to be in the postseason playoffs: teams with mediocre records are sneaking in.  For my home state of Florida, this is a windfall as two of the three teams here...Jacksonville and Miami...haven't exactly been setting the league on fire during the past few seasons.  I remember the first year I seriously began to follow pro football, 1967, when the Baltimore Colts, undefeated at 11-0-2 going into the final regular season game against their divisional rivals the Los Angeles Rams, lost that contest and thus failed to make the playoffs.  That's the year, if you're old enough to remember, that Green Bay won the NFL championship (before going on the Super Bowl) in the infamous Ice Bowl game against Dallas...the Packers lost four games during the regular season in a weak division.  This year's version of the Tampa Bay Bucs, still with Tom Brady taking the snaps, was similarly blessed with a weak division as they've already clinched a playoff spot in spite of their often-lackluster play so far.  The other two Sunshine State teams, although with the same records, are going in diametrically opposite directions.  Jacksonville, having started 2-6, have since become a winner under Super Bowl-winning first-year coach Doug Pederson with Trevor Lawrence coming into his own as a quality premier quarterback. The Jaguars have a chance to win their division title with a regular-season-closing game next week against slumping Tennessee.  Speaking of slumping, the Miami Dolphins, earlier with an 8-3 record and on top of their division, have now lost five games in a row and are "outside looking in" on a playoff slot.  Their fate this year seems bound to that of third year quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, who is now out of action due to his third diagnosed concussion.  They will face rival New York Jets in the season closer...if they win and New England loses to Buffalo, Miami's in.  Too bad they fell like this: in each of their last five games they played tough but lost by small margins.  As far as I'm concerned, it's been a good year for Florida in the NFL this year regardless of what happens next week, since I've always held reasonable expectations for "my" teams, only wanting them to stay in contention toward the season's close. And all three have, although I have my doubts about the Dolphins making the playoffs or the Bucs advancing very far in them.  But who knows what Jacksonville will do...

Ran New Year's Day Depot Parkrun This Morning

I thought I'd get the 2023 New Year off on the right note as I got up early and drove down to Gainesville's Depot Park to run in their special event on this holiday Sunday morning, departing from their Saturday pattern.  The weather, while not raining, wasn't exactly cooperating, though.  The temperature at the 7:30 race time was an unseasonably warm 65 degrees with an extremely muggy 97% humidity (with fog everywhere), bringing to memory the horrible conditions for last November's Tom Walker Memorial half-marathon I struggled through.  This time around I was wiser, taking the first couple of laps in the 3.1 mile course easy...I had to anyway as the asphalt/concrete trail was moist and slippery.  No, my goal was just to reasonably get through this run, and I accomplished that, with a modest finishing time of 32:59...click HERE to see the complete race results.  There were only 42 finishers this morning...no problem finding a parking space this time!  I'm still thinking of entering the Florida Track Club's half marathon race two weeks from now, but I'd first like to get an idea what the long-range weather forecast will be for that morning and will need to wait another week to find out.  It's being held on the Hawthorne Trail, originating and ending at its endpoint in the town of Hawthorne near the high school...   

Year-End Running and Walking Report

For December 2022 I ran each day of the month, amassing a good amount of mileage and keeping myself generally in shape.  I did run a public race, the 5K Depot Parkrun on the 10th, although due to online registration misinformation I missed running the Tyler's Hope 15K I had intended to run on the same day...sometimes I think that with the charity events, the organizers get so caught up with their admittedly worthwhile causes that they forget about providing reasonable conditions and pertinent information for the participants.  I had run this race twice in the past and, should circumstances permit, will seek it out next year.  As has been the case recently, my walking mileage comes naturally over the course of my day, especially with my walk-intensive job.  Unfortunately, my eating habits of late have created a creeping weight gain over the course of 2022 that interferes with my running...a few small habit-change corrections should solve that issue.  As for 2023, in January the Florida Track Club is holding a marathon/half-marathon/10K race on the 15th and the Newnan's Lake 15K will take place on the 29th...both on Sundays.  The Five Points half-marathon will not happen in '23, but they are still holding the 5K race in February...not that I intend to be in it.  I am a member of the Florida Track Club, and they offer a 10-mile run in Micanopy on February 11th...I ran it earlier this year, enjoying the course.  Being 66 and not getting any younger, I know that my finishing times in different distances aren't going to improve very much...most likely it's going to be a gradual slowing instead.  That's all right...one of the things I look for when scanning posted results of races that I just ran is to see who the oldest runners are...with this I'm usually among the "top" finishers.  Here are the races I ran in 2022:

DATE   RACE-NAME                          DISTANCE   FINISHING-TIME

2/12     Depot Parkrun                                5K                    31:28

2/20     Five Points Half-Marathon       Half-Marathon   2:33:51

3/19     Micanopy Ten-Mile                    10 Miles           1:48:24

3/26     Depot Parkrun                                5K                    30:45

4/9       Headwaters                                     5K                    29:28

10/15   Tom Walker Preview                     10K                1:04:55

10/22   Run the Good Race                       10K                1:03:20

11/06   Tom Walker Memorial              Half-Marathon   3:05:29

11/12   Depot Parkrun                                5K                    31:38

12/10   Depot Parkrun                                5K                    31:46

Note the six-month gap in the middle of 2022 with races...yet during that period I trained an awful lot.  I don't train because I want to run in public races, I run in public races because I train.  Still, it would be nice to run in a few more next year, although I'm disappointed that there won't be a Five Points Half-Marathon, an event that had become a strong Gainesville tradition since 2006, with only the Covid pandemic interrupting it in 2021, and one that I had run in six times starting in 2010...

My Favorite Songs in 2022

Today at year's end, I'm taking a break from my weekly Friday quotes feature to list my top ten favorite songs of 2022.  This year I derived most of my favorites from 2022 album releases by Regina Spektor (Home, Before and After), The Smile (A Light for Attracting Attention) with Radiohead members Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, Spoon (Lucifer on the Sofa), Arcade Fire (We) and Kasabian (The Alchemist's Euphoria).  I also liked listening to alternative rock band Metric's 2014 album Pagans in Vegas as well as pianist composer Ludovico Eunaldi's 2015 piece titled Night, from his Elements album. The songs below all come from those albums...there's a lot of good material on them besides what I have listed below.  With each top ten song I've included a brief commentary...they're all very good.  It's interesting that I heard none of these songs and their albums in the first half of 2022...it all began in July when Spektor released her long-awaited new album... 

1 SPACETIME FAIRYTALE---Regina Spektor...nearly 9 minutes long, a dreamy song that actually teaches you astrophysics (well, a little anyway)!

2 LOVEOLOGY---Regina Spektor...quite an accomplishment to elicit both tears and laughter within the same song.

3 THE OPPOSITE---The Smile...brilliant jazzy rock jam, every instrument spotlighted, along with Yorke's trademark voice.  

4 THE AGE OF ANXIETY II (RABBIT HOLE)---Arcade Fire...simple lyrics, powerful instrumentals, 7 minutes long.   

5 THE FACE, PART I---Metric...chiefly instrumental, this is a great wake up song, forceful and positive. 

6 WILD---Spoon...beat resembles Safety Dance from the 80's, lyrics are inspiring. 

7 THE SAME---The Smile...spooky, mysterious opening track on album with a universal message. 

8 RAINDROPS---Regina Spektor...a sweet love song I'd like to learn to play on the piano.

9 FORTUNES---Metric...Emily Haines and her amazing voice take over this somewhat cynical song.

10 HELD-Spoon...one of the best opening album tracks, a pounding beat, guitar riffs everywhere and energizing message. 

Honorable Mention:

Regina Spektor: Coin

The Smile: A Hairdryer, Waving a White Flag

Spoon: On the Radio

Metric: Cascades

Kasabian: Scriptvre, Rocket Fuel  

Ludovico Eunaldi: Night 

Enjoying Jigsaw Puzzles Over Holiday

 

A few days ago, Melissa bought a Christmas-themed jigsaw puzzle for us...together with our grown children Will and Rebecca...to work on as a collective, fun effort.  We had a good time with it, and it turned out that Melissa and Rebecca each in turn gave me new puzzles, both pet themed.  I enjoyed doing both the dog and cat puzzles...the three ranged from 550-750 pieces.  For me it's a lot of fun to discern different patterns out of the chaos of the unassembled pieces and making them all come together.  Guess I'll now take a short break before tackling some more...

Weekly Short Stories: 1988 Science Fiction, Part 6

Today I continue looking at short stories I've read from the year 1988 as they appear in the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, 6th Annual Collection.  I'm not sure why, but as far sports are concerned, I have few memories of '88 even though I was a Florida Gator and Miami Dolphins football fan, and both the Winter and Summer Olympics happened then, in Calgary and Seoul, respectively.  I do remember, though, the Dolphins, with Marino as QB and Shula as coach, finishing in last place, failing to win a single game within their division...tsk, tsk. And that year's Super Bowl, held following the 1987 season in January of '88, featured former Bucs quarterback Doug Williams delivering perhaps the greatest championship game performance ever with his first half play for Washington versus Denver.  But enough of sports, back to those stories...

HOUSE OF BONES by Robert Silverberg

A man is selected as part of a science experiment to travel back in time to the Cro Magnon era, where he is taken in and assimilated into the nearby tribe. One day he is given an assignment that challenges his personally held ethics...and discovers something new about his new friends deep in the past...

DO YA, DO YA, WANNA DANCE? by Howard Waldrop

Not a part of the sixties-era counterculture, I was always amused hearing of others bewailing its decline and end. This story plays into that narrative as a 20-year high school reunion in 1989 promises to bring back an old rock band to restore the old spirit. What's sci-fi is the story's ending...

THE GROWTH OF THE HOUSE OF USHER by Brian Stableford

Reminding me of an old Star Trek Next Generation episode titled Tin Man, it's a few centuries into the future as architecture is evolving to use special bacteria in structures, making buildings more durable and adaptable to change. One architect, though, has taken "living buildings" to an entirely new level as a guest discovers...

GLACIER by Kim Stanley Robinson

Glaciers are quickly descending southward through America...a Canadian family has already been driven from Toronto to Boston, where they encounter social resistance to their presence. Alex hears of his father's employment struggles while trying to befriend their skittish adopted cat and exploring the massive glacier close to his home with bullies always lurking around. A good description of what a real glacier would be like...

Next week I conclude my look at science fiction short stories from 1988...

Just Finished Rereading Insomnia by Stephen King

Back in the first decade of this century (the "Aughts") I was tearing through nearly all of Stephen King's books to date, both novels and collections.  One of my favorites...the first time I read it...was his 1994 Insomnia, a story set in his imaginary, sinister Maine town of Derry, site of the events in his earlier tumultuous novel It but set in 1991, six years after that tale's climax.  The protagonist is 70-year-old retiree Ralph Roberts, recently widowed and spending his time hanging out with the loose association of fellow elderly friends they collectively dub themselves "the Croaks".  As the peculiar change in a younger friend, Ed Deepneau, shows him becoming a violent and dangerously delusional man, the issue of abortion takes center stage and Ed and Ralph's closest friends, Bill McGovern and Lois Chasse, become more and more prominent in the developing narrative.  Ralph finds himself in the unsettling position of falling asleep at night easily enough...but he keeps rising out of bed fully awake earlier and earlier each morning until, eventually, he no longer sleeps.  At the same time, he begins to see an enhanced hyperreality of auras and strange "people", among them three figures who seem to have both the power and duty designate who will be next to die.  Eventually, a lot...maybe a little too much...gets explained as Ralph gets sucked into the monumental struggle that King covers much more deeply within his Dark Tower fantasy series.  What appealed to me then...and now...about Insomnia was the attention that King paid to the elderly and their attitudes and concerns.  This aspect of the novel gets magnified each time I reread it...this is my third, the last in 2017 (click HERE to read my review from then)...and I'm only four years removed now from Ralph Robert's age.  Yet I have to admit that while I considered Insomnia in years gone by as a favorite, I didn't particularly enjoy it as much this time around...I never could get into Stephen King's Dark Tower universe although I read all seven core novels twice, as well as the associated Wind Through the Keyhole.  King himself has been critical of this novel, earlier stating that it diverged from his usual writing pattern as he atypically outlined the story in advance...and the Dark Tower series itself seems to distance its narrative from that in Insomnia.  But perhaps the most disturbing thing about this story is something that, if I bring it up, is bound to be a plot spoiler...so stop reading this article NOW and go no further if you're planning on reading Insomnia in the future.  Still sticking around? Okay, here goes...

Sometimes when I watch certain movies and TV series, especially the ones dealing with crime and violent acts, I wonder whether the writers who dreamed up these fictional scenarios were aware of the many mentally or morally disturbed viewers who might take those ideas and copy them in real life.  Insomnia has someone flying on a suicide mission in a plane with the intent of crashing it into a crowded building where a rally is going on.  I wander what Stephen King felt seven years later on the morning of September 11, 2001, when this idea was implemented on a much more massive scale.  Is there any concern felt by writers that the villains of this world might just adopt some of their material?  Not that this sort of thing was original in Insomnia: it goes back to the desperate Japanese suicide kamikaze attacks against American ships during the final months of World War II.  By the way, the excellent 1975 Robert Redford spy thriller Three Days of the Condor takes up this concern of life imitating fiction as well. Anyway, I've read Insomnia three times now...that's probably enough, especially considering all the other books out there waiting for me.  But I still think that King did a wonderful job with his characters and his empathetic treatment of the elderly...

Constellations of the Month: Aries and Triangulum

Even since I learned the constellations, their star patterns and locations back in 1964, I have always grouped small Aries (representing a ram) and even smaller Triangulum (representing, er...uh, a triangle) together as a combo deal.  They're just east of the dismally dim Zodiac constellation Pisces, although the two aren't endowed with bright stars, either.  They also tend to get overshadowed by the brilliant display of stars to their east, with Taurus (including the nearby beautiful cluster the Pleiades, visible to the naked eye as a smudge in the night sky) and spectacular Orion drawing the star gazer's attention away from them.  Triangulum does have a deep space object, M33, which is a spiral galaxy visible without binoculars, but only when the sky is very dark.  The three main stars in Aries also form a triangle, duh...I don't know why they didn't just graft what is Triangulum onto the Ram and make one more substantial star group, but I didn't live way back in ancient times when they came up with these designations.  As a kid watching the night sky, I always regarded making out Triangulum and Aries as a sort of visual test...this task is made easier when they pass nearly overhead this time of the year around 9 pm Standard Time, making them less susceptible to city lights.  Triangulum has a southern counterpart constellation, dubbed "Triangulum Australe"...I've actually seen star maps with it represented by a crude quadrilateral of connected stars...really???   And I can't finish this article without mentioning what you probably already know: Aries is a Zodiac constellation, so the elliptic, the imaginary celestial "line" representing the plane of our solar system through while the sun, moon, and planets seem to travel, passes through it...

Next month I'll pick another constellation (or two) to discuss...

Merry Christmas

I think I'll take a couple of days off from this blog as I wish you and your family and friends a most Merry Christmas.  Right now, as I am writing this the temperature here in Gainesville, Florida has climbed all the way up to 30 degrees...elsewhere in the eastern and central U.S. it is much colder with snow covering much of the land.  No snow here, but for a lifelong Floridian this is definitely uncomfortable, and it's supposed to get to about 20 tonight.  They say around the New Year, temperatures are supposed to be warmer than usual, but for me that's an awfully long wait.  Again, Merry Christmas!

Quote of the Week...fron Neil deGrasse Tyson

While casting shade on Elon Musk for what he's done, is doing, or will do, try to pause and remember that he made electric cars a normal thing in society and he commercialized space...for cargo, satellites & people. Count him among those who are inventing civilization's future.   ---Neil deGrasse Tyson

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you may know that I'm a fan of Neil deGrasse Tyson, science popularizer and astrophysicist, the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York, the narrator of the Cosmos TV series after the death of its originator, Carl Sagan, and a strong advocate for space exploration, both manned and unmanned. I think he hit just the right chord with the above Tweet (I'm a follower of his) about the exorbitantly wealthy entrepreneur Elon Musk, recently much praised and maligned after buying and taking over this social media site. Tyson's politics are clearly far to the left of Musk's, who has signaled with some of his Tweets a willingness to pander to the Trump crowd and their conspiracy theories and agendas. Yet Musk has indeed pioneered the mass production of electric cars with his Tesla and worked with liberal president Barack Obama to develop a future manned Mars project under his SpaceX company...breaking the multi-year dependence on Russia to launch our own astronauts into space. There are two chief points I'd like to make. One, the very nature of being a public figure/leader, be it in any field like politics, business, sports, academics, or entertainment, jettisons one into public scrutiny and there will always be something objectionable about their behavior or views that comes out, either with their own consent or not. Two, we seem to be suffering lately from what I term the "Fonzie Syndrome" where just because someone is thought of as "cool" or thinks himself or herself cool then whatever they say is supposedly Infallible Wisdom and Truth...millions of Trump worshippers are totally into this fallacy: for them the Orange Man IS the Fonz. And I suppose super-rich folk can get a swollen head about themselves and pretend expertise in areas beyond their specialties...Elon's foray into Twitter I believe betrays this very human frailty. I wish he would focus his attention more on the transformational technology for which he will ultimately be honored in history instead of this current misguided detour.  The latest breaking news is that he just resigned as the company's CEO, although since he's still the owner I don't know how much that's going to change things...

Give Billy Napier the Time He Needs to Restore Winning Gator Football

I was just discussing with a coworker how he felt about University of Florida football head coach Billy Napier after his first season, going 6-7.  We both agreed that Napier had replaced previous coach Dan Mullen because Mullen was perceived to have done poorly with his recruiting...basically, the team that Napier was forced to deal with in his first season was Mullen's product.  The sports gurus who others think are knowledgeable about this sort of thing have just ranked the Gators as #12 in this year's recruiting, so maybe the new coach is performing as hoped.  Only real games, starting next year, with reveal the trend as my friend and I feel inclined to give Napier the time he needs to build up a higher quality football team.  After all, I reminded him, Charlie Pell went 0-9-1 in his first year coaching UF (1979).  As for my expectations for Florida football, I don't expect a national championship or SEC conference title every year, but I do want them to at least be in contention for the title game late in the regular season and finish with a higher than 2:1 ratio with their win-loss record.  If they accomplish that, then I'm happy...even if many of my prima donna fellow Gator fans aren't...

Weekly Short Stories: 1988 Science Fiction, Part 5

Today I continue looking at 1988 science fiction short stories as they appeared in the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Sixth Annual Collection and featuring Dozois' selections. They're all good stories with interesting premises...three of them are intimately connected with the future fate of animals on our planet while the others are split between a serial killer, an indigenous culture fighting submergence and a tribute to northern European mythology.  Sometimes with short stories it can take a bit of effort to figure out exactly what's going on...the second and third stories below fit that bill.  My favorite of the bunch? Judith Moffett's The Hob.  And now, to the stories and my reactions...

KIRINYAGA by Mike Resnick

The Kikuyu people of Kenya, like so many other groups, had to endure the oppression of European colonialism, not only dominated economically and politically but also socially and culturally, with the colonists' ethics and values supplanting their own.  In this story it's a future where humans are abundantly settling other worlds, and the Kikuyu are accorded their own planet...but the outside organization monitoring and supplying them is still bound to interfere whenever a traditional practice conflicts with their own values.  The response from the Kikuyu is traditional, sad...and effective...

THE GIRL WHO LOVED ANIMALS by Bruce McAllister

On our world in the future the extinctions of animal life have progressed to the point that going to a zoo is basically looking at holograms of the animals as they appeared in the past.  A young abused, low-IQ woman is pregnant, having accepted money to be a surrogate mother...but it isn't a human she is carrying.  The protagonist breaks her out of state custody for the sake of her own well-being and that of her growing baby in the face of adverse social and legal actions...

THE LAST OF THE WINNEBAGOES by Connie Willis

Sometimes the author in a story will quickly switch without warning back and forth between two different times and experiences...it can be a bit confusing, especially at the beginning when the reader has not picked up on the narrative's parameters.  That aside, this tale of the "extinction" of Winnebagoes and other RVs is dwarfed by the realization of a much larger extinction...as well as what can happen when one regulatory agency accrues too much power for itself...

LOVE IN VAIN by Lewis Shiner

A Texas D.A. travels from his home in Dallas to a town jail just outside Austin, where dwells an accused serial killer.  Only problem: Charlie has confessed to thousands of killings with detailed knowledge...killings he could not have possibly done.  As the D.A. digs deeper into this mystery, his own unraveling personal life is revealed.  I felt this could have been the start of a series, what with the personal back story...

THE HOB by Judith Moffett

A hairy, long-living humanoid group is coming out of its secluded hibernation in the remote Yorkshire heath country in northern England.  Elphi awakes first and discovers one of his fellow hobs has died...how to get rid of the body without arousing suspicion among the surrounding humans?  Along the way he accidentally encounters a young woman hiking through the area, and his story is eventually told.  Sounds like a fantasy story Tolkien might have dreamed up, but there is a real science fiction angle when space travel enters the picture.  A sweet story, well told... 

OUR NEURAL CHERNOBYL by Bruce Sterling

A tongue-in-cheek look, from the middle of our current century, at a genetically induced biological disaster as in the 1990s genetic hackers run rampant altering human's DNA through the use of the RNA involved in HIV.  If it had just ended messing up a few people's lives it would have been one thing, but the enhanced neural activity and markedly higher intelligence produced through one of the experiments inadvertently crosses species lines, producing the sometimes-comic effects the author seemed to have fun with...

Next week: more from 1988...

Podcaster Discusses Momentum

On his Mindset Mentor podcast yesterday, personal development coach Rob Dial brought up the subject of momentum.  Giving the word picture example of getting a car moving from a still position, he stressed that getting started in anything can be an arduous task...even becoming more difficult after the initial actions...but that once it all is in motion, that is, the habits begin to set in more and more, it begins to pick up momentum, which provides positive feedback and encourages more effort.  Then it is a matter of keeping with it and not interrupting the flow of your efforts, for once the car comes to a rest again, the whole process of getting it moving has to start from scratch.  I think that sometimes we confuse taking necessary small breaks from an endeavor, or even just a little rest, with walking away from it "for a season"...that latter break has a tendency to be a momentum destroyer.  Also, there is nothing like having people around you who see the intensity of your initial efforts in something as a kind of unhealthy fanaticism that must be curtailed and balanced...just contending with this kind of opposition can be discouraging: in my childhood I felt I was victim to this sort of negativity, with no recourse to the kind of personal boundary-setting that folks like Dial like to suggest.  But even without outside interference, it can be imposing to get started moving that "car" along, and not only that, but you're more likely to see how immense your undertaking is once you're finally moving down the road, with the possible inclination to put on the momentum-destroying brakes...

Interesting Winter Weather Hitting Gainesville as Christmas Approaches

Looks like an unusually wet and cold upcoming week in Gainesville as Christmas on Sunday approaches.  Whenever precipitation is forecast and the temperature is below freezing, the obvious inference is that it's gonna snow...such is the case this coming Friday, two days before the big holiday.  All I know is that in the next few days we're going to get a lot of water...in whatever form...falling from the skies and plummeting temperatures as the weekend approaches.  At last glimpse The Weather Channel has Christmas day's high in my hometown here in northern Florida at 45, bracketed with lows in the 20's.  My main concern in all this...and perhaps yours as well...will be potentially icy roads: hardly anyone here, including myself, is prepared to handle driving over them.  The last time that happened in Gainesville to any substantial degree was just before Christmas in 1989 when roads iced up overnight.  I was at work in the downtown post office in the wee hours of the morning and after my shift spent several minutes trying to clear my car's windshield of the thick ice.  Then the treacherous 6-mile drive home...I managed to make it nearly into my own neighborhood before the car began briefly to skid on the frozen road.  And then it began to snow in earnest while icicles formed all around my house.  Nothing like that has happened here since...until possibly this coming Christmas weekend.  Should be interesting...

Just Finished Reading Starry Messenger by Neil deGrasse Tyson

I've previously read two other books by astrophysicist and popularizer of science Neil deGrasse Tyson: Astrophysics for People in a Hurry and Cosmic Queries (cowritten with physicist James Trefil)...click on the titles to read my reviews.  Starry Messenger, just out, is the latest in a string of popular science books by Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City and Carl Sagan's long-time replacement as narrator of the recurring Cosmos TV series. As in other books of his, he presents a diverse set of perspectives in science and society, this time claiming a special perspective from the viewpoint of space, looking down at our planet.  In everything he extols objective truth, as opposed to the highly subjective personal and political truths so many of us adhere to, and also claims for it a kind of transcendent aesthetic beauty that enhances, not diminishes, what the subject of focus is.  Then he goes on to discuss how scale...the extremely fast/slow, large/small and distant...can distort our perceptions of reality.  Tribalism, a subject that I only sadly know too much of from my own life experiences, gets the Tyson treatment: seems we're in the same "tribe" on the subject.  How people like to label themselves these days goes beyond ethnic, national, religious and socioeconomic distinctions...sexual identity and even the ethic of being a vegetarian versus eating meat come into play and are subject to, well, subjectivity.  Finally, the author discusses the highly subjective nature of race, law and order, presenting as a whole a smorgasbord of topics under the perspective of seeing us from "above", either in a literal or figurative sense.  Since I tend to see eye-to-eye with Neil deGrasse Tyson, I suppose this is an instance of reading for the sake of picking up talking points, rather than to have my eyes opened to a differing perspective that would challenge my beliefs.  I enjoyed Starry Messenger...maybe you will, too...

Overslept for Depot Parkrun 5K This Morning, Checked the Park Out Later

 

This morning I had been thinking about going down to Gainesville's Depot Park for their weekly free 5K run, but since I get off from work on Fridays at 10 pm, I am already cutting into my night's sleep if I get up early to get ready and drive the 6 or 7 miles to the park for the 7:30 run...as it happened, I got up at 9:30!  Still, I thought why not go down there around 1 this afternoon and run there...so I did.  I was a bit shocked by how crowded the park was...I was lucky to find a parking spot.  And, you know what?  People were walking and running on the path in both directions, with me sometimes having to cut over the grass to avoid them...it was like the Matrix training program, if you've seen that movie.  Suddenly, I noticed there was a kiddie play area loaded with rides (and now, kids) as well as a wine/eatery place that had always hitherto escaped my attention.  I had especially wanted to see how I would react to running with heavier, but more padded, shoes: the jury is out on that, since I already was feeling a little out of sorts with so many people there...the above photo is at the start of the 5K run, probably the only time there weren't loads of people immediately around me.  If you only go to Depot Park early on Saturday mornings, I learned, you're bound to get a false impression of how popular it really is.  Later on in the day, it's more like New York City's Central Park...

Quote of the Week...from Ludwig van Beethoven

The true artist is not proud: he unfortunately sees that art has no limits; he feels darkly about how far he is from the goal, and though he may be admired by others, he is sad not to have reached that point to which his better genius appears as a distant, guiding sun.                      ---Ludwig van Beethoven

No one is exactly sure...other than Charles Schulz's piano plunking little Schroeder from Peanuts...exactly which day the great classical composer Ludwig van Beethoven's birth falls on.  Heck, they're not even sure which year he was born in! But for the sake of this article, I'll bow to fictional Schroeder's high opinion of his idol and say it's today.  I rummaged through some of Beethoven's more famous quotes and found that they were a mixture of extreme narcissism and pride for his own greatness with times of self-doubt and recrimination.  The above one is actually right in the middle, and pretty profound at that.  I doubt there are few of us who were so specialized and extensively skilled and accomplished in our chosen life endeavors as he, so here's someone who knows what he's talking about.  The more skillful and productive you get in an area, the more knowledgeable you are about it and how painfully much you lack in ability to fully master it.  A little baby who finally learns how to walk may suddenly feel he or she can do anything, but artists, athletes, scientists, or anyone else or who have dedicated themselves to their special field can feel a deep personal lacking and feeling of shortcoming that others may be confounded at, seeing only how they excel.  Not that I am remotely as accomplished in any of these areas as, say, a Beethoven...I am horribly spread out over many areas and with my skills and works in any one of them much lower than if I had decided to concentrate my efforts. But it's true: pick up a beginning foreign language book and after the first two chapters you'll think you can speak the language... a couple of years later you may think you never will.  As for Schroeder and the rest of his Peanuts buddies like good ol' Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus and Snoopy, they were always on the front of my Sunday newspaper comic section as a kid, but I really got into the strip when I bought a couple of paperbacks featuring nothing but the oldest Peanuts comics going back to the 1950s.  I'm grateful both for Schulz and Beethoven...and others whose dedication to their crafts have enhanced my life's enjoyment over the years...

Artemis I Successfully Returns, Future Lunar Missions Scheduled

The Artemis I NASA mission to the Moon and back was finally completed with a successful splashdown return on December 11th.  It was unmanned and designed to test the SLS launch rocket and Orion spacecraft and systems, as well as the Earth-based command center.  After some delays lasting months, it was finally launched on November 26th, with the Orion craft eventually making many lunar orbits over a span of six days, performing various maneuvers and taking spectacular photos both of the Moon and Earth off in the distance before returning to Earth.  I'm happy to see this concerted return to human deep space exploration after nearly half a century of doing little more than go around Earth in low orbit.  The next Artemis mission is scheduled for May, 2024 and will featured a human crew that will also orbit the Moon and return...after that, the way should be open for the first human landing on our Moon the following year, for the first time in 52+ years.  This time around, hopefully, we'll keep our presence there permanent with a planned Moon base.  The media coverage for all this is scant, with little popular interest...I'm not sure that this is a bad thing after thinking about it: it's all those voices complaining about investing money, time and effort into space exploration instead of pursuing their agendas that has, in large part, created this unnecessary gap in human deep space exploration and settlement.  May the future Artemis missions continue to be successful...