Campaign Situation

Unlike back in 2004, I am very pleased with how the current presidential campaign season has gone so far. John McCain, a decent, brave, non-ideological conservative who is strong on national defense, is going to be the Republican Party's nominee. Barack Obama, a great communicator along the lines of John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, is in a good position to win the Democratic Party's nomination. If this holds true, then the November election, for me, will be a matter of choosing whom I like the most and not whom I dislike the least (as it was in 2004).

One of the problems with the primary phase of the campaign is the intra-party animosity and hurt feelings that necessarily accrue between different candidates and their supporters during the arduous and hard-hitting campaigning. The Republicans, ideologically-elitist right-wing radio talk show hosts notwithstanding, seem to be coming back together in the spirit of reconciliation that the situation demands, if victory is to be had in November. Even McCain's only significant remaining challenger, Mike Huckabee, is running basically a positive issue-based campaign. The Democrats, though, may be in for a bit of trouble. If Hillary Clinton doesn't see the writing on the wall after March 4 (when the Ohio and Texas primaries are held) and withdraw from the race, I'm afraid that the bitterness that is rising in this campaign may not be extinguishable. I believe that the Clintons might become spiteful and unforgiving about losing, but I also believe that most of their supporters would be quite happy at supporting Barack Obama as their candidate in the general election. I don't see (based on the public opinion polls) how Hillary can win by huge margins in Ohio and Texas (she may even lose the Lone Star State). And if she is counting on making up for her primary and caucus losses by wheeling and dealing for superdelegates, then I believe that she is bordering on the delusional. I say this, feeling that if their situations were reversed, Obama would have the grace to bow out and throw his support to Clinton after next week's results. Hillary can make a big impression on me if she moves toward reconciliation (barring unexpected landslide primary wins next Tuesday). I'd love to see an Obama/Clinton ticket in November!

Writing Stories on the Eights: 2/29

At the beginning of this year, I proposed to begin writing fiction. But this goal hasn't panned out for me during the past eight weeks. The main reason for this, I believe, is that I haven't yet established a specific time and place in my daily "walk" through life in which I can fully devote myself to this endeavor. I did write a rough outline for a novel (or novella), but have only written about six pages worth of story material. This must change! I have to get over the feelings of inadequacy that inevitably crop up whenever I critically examine what I've just written. Also, I need to let the story take over my writing and for me to not worry about how "perfect" it has to be. Most of all, I have to get myself into the "writing zone"! I'm currently reading The Wastelands, Stephen King's third volume in his Dark Tower series. In it, one of the characters, an eleven-year old boy, is horrified to discover that for his final essay that he is about to turn in at school, he has written a crazy-sounding stream-of-consciousness piece that he is sure will land him in a mental hospital if his teacher were to read it. As events turn out, his teacher did read it and rewarded him with an A+ and great praise. And that is how I must write, too: on the "edge", where the words can sometimes express and bring up dangerous emotions and thoughts. The fear of myself being exposed in my writing has to be faced and overcome. Because in the end, it is exactly that which I want to do!

Favorite Songs of 1985

1985 had many good songs, so I don't have room here to include every one I liked. The year began with an emergency plea in the form of a British song Do They Know It's Christmas, by an assemblage of British pop stars. There was famine in eastern Africa (due mainly to war) and the record was put out to fund relief efforts. The U.S. would follow suit with their We Are the World (although I didn't like that song). Even later that year, John Mellencamp came out with his Rain On the Scarecrow, decrying the plight of farmers in financial trouble across America. Murray Head's One Night in Bangkok presented a unique picture of a chess tournament competing with the night life in Thailand. Blanc Mange's underrated and underplayed Don't Tell Me was a very upbeat dance song with a "happy" video. Prince went "Beatles" with his Raspberry Beret. My favorite Bryan Adams song, Summer of '69, came out in '85. One of the best videos ever made, the comic book adventure of A-Ha's Take On Me, accompanied a sweet, synthesizer-based loved song. Wham, George Michael's vehicle to stardom, had my favorite of theirs with the exercise in frustration Everything She Wants. Tom Petty's Don't Come Around Here No More stood well enough on its own without the overblown "Alice in Wonderland" video that came with it. Sting's first solo effort produced three memorable tunes: If You Love Somebody Set Them Free, Love is the Seventh Wave, and Russians. Duran Duran's Save a Prayer, released earlier, was a big hit with me in 1985. Jefferson Starship (I think that's what they were calling themselves then) released their salute to San Francisco, We Built this City. Possibly Foreigner's greatest song, I Want to Know What Love Is, was an early 1985 hit. Don Henley's catchy All She Wants to Do Is Dance was a funny satire on American foreign policy in Latin America. Depeche Mode's "masterful" Master and Servant, from 1984, didn't reach my ears until the next year. The same was true with my #2 favorite song from 1985 (as I lived through it): Frankie Goes to Hollywood's explicit, smashing record Relax. And my top favorite of 1985 was by Tears For Fears: their first big hit in America, the somber and sad (but lively) Everybody Wants to Rule the World (with another great video to go with it).

The Writing Zone

In his excellent novel Bag of Bones (which I just recently read), Stephen King made frequent mention of something called "The Zone". No, he wasn't referring to the diet plan that balances fat, protein, and carbohydrate consumption. King's "Zone" was a mental state that a writer would get into that greatly enhanced his writing ability. Being in the Zone is something akin to being in a trance, where outside distractions simply do not intrude upon the writer's thoughts, enabling him to experience a world of his own creation and draw his writing cues from that world. I happen to know for a fact that this "Zone" is a reality for me. There are times when I can barely put one word ahead of another. And then something will happen and I am completely immersed in my writing, with whatever going on around me seemingly inconsequential and even unreal. With such experiences, I often find that after snapping out of my "Zone", I've written quite a bit of material. And often, when I read back through what I've written, I feel disturbed at the content, which is usually quite a bit more outspoken and blunt than how I would normally express myself. Often, I will write a blog article this way and then delay publishing for a few days because of my discomfort with it. Right now, I have a couple of articles like this and am asking myself how appropriate they are to put out on my blog. But I think that this is a good thing, because it means that I am beginning to write out on "the edge". And the edge is where all writers want to stay, both to attract readership and to be honest about both their feelings and writing.

I can see right now that one of my greatest obstacles to becoming a prolific writer is that I can only slip into the Zone under certain conditions. Usually, these conditions don't exist at home, so I often go out to a coffee shop somewhere, where often I can get myself into the required state. But in order to write anything substantial, I need to train myself to reach that "Zone" state at home somehow, and to elicit the needed cooperation in this endeavor from my family. My major role model for prolific writing has to be the late great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov, who was basically in the Zone all of the time, even when he wasn't physically writing things down! Asimov is credited with having written 500 books, but I'll be happy with a small fraction of that!

Beach and Theme Park Yearnings

It has definitely been too long since I've had the pleasure of going to the beach or attending one of the fine theme parks surrounding Gainesville (from a distance). I am ready to take a day trip out to Universal Studios and their Islands of Adventure park to ride the rides and stroll around the crowds. The problem I have is that it's sometimes difficult to be able to get everyone in my family synchronized with their schedules to allow some free time for us all to make an excursion together. Also, we have passes for the rest of the year to Universal, but this actually creates two problems for us. One, if you go there and don't buy special "express" passes that allow you to bypass long lines, then you're liable to be spending too much time waiting in line for a small number of ride opportunities. Two, having the Universal passes makes going there a priority over other parks like Wild Adventures (in Valdosta, Georgia) or Busch Gardens (in Tampa). Personally, I enjoy these parks more than Universal. The lines are almost always much shorter than Universal's, and the rides are comparable in quality (actually, I generally prefer the rides of Busch Gardens to those of Islands of Adventure at Universal). But there always seems to be something on our schedules that rules out a theme park excursion.

Also, as an alternative to the crowds, noise, and exhaustion associated with going to a theme park, a short stay at St. Augustine or Ormond Beach sounds awfully attractive, too. And there is a very comfortable hotel in St. Augustine that is just about the best I've experienced, and at a good price to boot!

Monday Newsbreak: 2/25

--Ralph Nader declared his candidacy for President in another installment of his never-ending quest to throw the election to the Republicans. In 2000, he actually convinced enough people that there really wasn't any significant difference between George W. Bush and Al Gore. Enough to give Bush Florida and the election. Four years later, very few people bought this line. And I predict that even fewer will in 2008!

--Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain had to endure some nonsense from a New York Times article that insinuated a possible affair with a lobbyist from more than eight years ago. The really scary thing to me is that, with all of the important issues at stake in this election, some people would actually decide whom to vote for because of this sort of thing.

--Fidel Castro officially retired from being president of Cuba, ostensibly handing over power to his brother Raul. I wish that the Cuban people could have a path established for them that led to more freedom and prosperity. I don't believe in U.S. sanctions. All they seem to have accomplished is to consolidate the hold that Castro has kept on this wonderful island nation since 1959.

--It looks at this point as if Barack Obama is in the driver's seat to obtain the Democratic Party's nomination for President. One unfounded charge that I've heard leveled at Obama is that he only speaks in generalities. But he has expressed himself very clearly on many important issues, so I'm left with the conclusion that some people are just swallowing whatever the Clinton campaign is putting out about Barack hook, line, and sinker.

--Apparently, Pakistani president Musharraf is on the way out as opposition parties crushed his party in the recent parliamentary election. Enough, it seems, to make Musharaff's impeachment likely should he "elect" to stay on as president. It is crucial that whoever becomes Pakistan's next president enjoy the support of the people there. And Musharraf has lost his people's support long ago.

Earth is the Center of the Solar System

[Or I should say, Terran System]

I just read in today's newspaper the results of a study which concluded that as many as one out of five Americans believe that the Sun revolves around the Earth! The idea was to point out how ignorant Americans have become about very basic facts of science, but I have a bone to pick about this specific example.

One of the objectives of science is, given accurate and comprehensive data from observations, to derive the simplest and most viable interpretations of natural phenomena, often explained in terms of models and equations. This certainly holds true with the field of astronomy. And with the model of our Solar System that we universally accept as absolutely authoritative today. With our Copernican model, the Sun lies at the center of the Solar System, with the planets revolving around it in close-to-circular elliptical orbits. Earth is the third planet from the Sun. But this is not intuitively obvious from the point of view of the Earth itself. In fact, there is a more obvious interpretation that could have led to a vastly different model of the Solar System, but which would have fit with observed data as much as our model today does.

First of all, let me say that when I jump up in the air, the gravity from the Earth’s mass pulls me back down to it. But I would be equally correct in saying that the gravity from my mass pulls the Earth up to me! This is important, considering that our Sun is, far and away, the most massive object in the Solar System. It would naturally derive from this that everything else revolved around it. And this is why we accept as convention the model putting it at the center. But we can make a factually-accurate model of the Solar System with the Earth as its center!

To achieve this model, it must be accepted that all of the celestial objects of the Solar System, except for the Earth and its Moon, revolve around the Sun. But these objects, which include the planets, asteroids, and comets, do indirectly revolve around the Earth, since the Sun does (according to this Earth-centered model). The Sun, however, takes the orbital distance and position that Earth would take in the Copernican model.

The data would fit well with this Earth-centered model, and it is more intuitively obvious from an observer on Earth. But is it the simplest model scientifically? No, especially from an “objective” vantage point, far away from the Solar System. But sometimes we get carried away with notions of absolutes in science and some of these need to be countered.

Why make this point anyway? I suppose it’s just that the Earth-centered Solar System is considered to be subjectively-derived, while the Sun-centered Solar System is considered to be objectively-derived. But even with this, it’s all about from where one wishes to observe the Solar System. If an observer were looking directly down at the Sun from a point on a line lying perpendicular to the Solar System’s plane, then the Copernican model would be evident. But suppose that the same observer shifted position to be directly above the Earth. Then the Earth-centered model would be indicated, instead. It’s all about where one chooses to establish a point of reference. Terra is another name for Earth, so an Earth-centered system could be called the Terran System. But for convention’s sake, I’ll stick to the Sun-centered Copernican model, like everyone else. But beware of confusing conventions with absolutes! A model is just that: only a model. It is an abstraction designed to emphasize certain things over others, usually to illustrate a particular principle. And it has no intrinsic scientific value beyond that.

2004 Hurricane Season

During the summer and early fall of 2004, it seemed as if all of the previous rules governing the trajectories of Atlantic hurricanes went out the window when four strong hurricanes passed through my state of Florida, three of them too close for comfort. Hurricane Charley first developed in the western Caribbean. The usual path for a storm like this would have had it going into the Gulf of Mexico and then landing anywhere from the Florida panhandle westward to the Mexican coast. But with Charley, the meteorologists had predicted it coming in just north of Tampa and hitting Gainesville like a bulls-eye! So you can imagine that we in Gainesville were more than a little concerned. But a funny thing happened on the way to the disaster. Just before landfall, Charley did two things: it greatly strengthened and abruptly changed its path more eastward, harshly slamming into the southwestern Florida coast at around Punta Gorda. It then traversed the state (passing over newly-renovated Cypress Gardens), coming out in the Atlantic around Daytona Beach. Gainesville was basically spared Charley's wrath.

The next hurricane we experienced, Frances, was a more typical Atlantic hurricane that also didn't follow the usual trajectories. We had grown accustomed to hurricanes approaching Florida directly from the East and then, just before hitting, veering toward the north, either hitting the Carolinas or steering clear of land altogether. But this time, Frances stayed true to its course, slamming into land around Stuart and Fort Pierce and then very slowly passing through the state in a west-northwestward direction (also directly passing over unfortunate Cypress Gardens). Frances was so big and slow-traveling that it affected Gainesville, more than 100 miles to the north, with big winds, tornadoes, and extensive power outages. My own neighborhood kept its power going, most likely because our power lines were underground. I remember during the storm listening for information on my radio (on station 97.3-WSKY). The announcers on the radio stressed how dangerous driving conditions were, so why not instead stay home and call for a pizza delivery? Does anyone besides me see anything wrong with this suggestion?!!

After Frances, Ivan slammed onto the Florida panhandle coast, but spared the state's already battered peninsula. Well, this was obviously a very active hurricane season for Floridians, but who could imagine what was to come? Yes, there was even another hurricane, Jeanne, that brewed, like Frances, out in the Atlantic. But unlike Frances, Jeanne had taken a northward turn, away from Florida. I was of the mindset to get at least one trip to the beach in for me and my family that summer. So I made a reservation for a hotel in Ormond Beach. As the "beach day" approached, though, Jeanne did a funny thing. It suddenly went into a loop and came out of it strengthening and headed westward, straight at Florida! Suddenly, I had to call to cancel my hotel reservation. Amazingly, as Jeanne was bearing down on the coastline with evacuation pronouncements proliferating everywhere, the woman at the hotel's desk told me on the phone to come on down anyway! I said "no thanks" and canceled. A few hours later, the entire beach area underwent a mandatory evacuation. Jeanne came ashore at the precise spot that Frances had, and, yes, it too passed directly over hapless Cypress Gardens (which later named its new wooden roller coaster the Triple Hurricane in honor of Charley, Frances, and Jeanne). But unlike Frances, after Jeanne had been ashore for a while, it turned more northward, bringing Gainesville more into the range of moderately severe winds. We did lose our power this time (for only three hours, though) and suffered some minor roof damage. But all things considered, taking what could have happened into account, I consider myself very fortunate to have escaped the full brunt of these storms. The folks in central and southwest Florida fared much worse.

After the storms, it being the presidential campaign season, global warming publicist Al Gore tried to lay the responsibility for the unusually active 2004 season at the doorstep of the White House and George W. Bush for not adequately addressing the global warming problem. And, of course, 2005 would bring the disaster of Katrina for New Orleans and southern Mississippi as well as Rita (in Texas) and Wilma (in south Florida). But the last two years have seen a welcome drop-off in American hurricane disasters. Strangely, though, I haven't heard Mr. Gore giving any credit to Bush for the "improvement"!

The weather surrounding tropical storm systems is very special. It may be completely calm one second and the next second may bring high gusts. Often, the rain will seem to be falling sideways. There is a kind of warmth in the air that usually is absent during the thunderstorms we commonly experience. Looking up at the sky, one can see several layers of clouds, some very low and fast, each layer seeming to be going in a different direction. And there is, to me, something rather spooky about the lighting (or lack of it) when one these systems begins to pass through. Scary, but also memorable.

For the Sake of the Children

I like kids. After all, I was once one myself and I have two wonderful children. Also, sometimes I feel that I tend to see things too much from a kid’s viewpoint and not enough as an adult. That all being said, there is, I believe, an ominously progressive phenomenon pervading our society.

Back during the late 1980s, when Tipper Gore was on her crusade “for the sake of the children” against suggestive or explicit rock lyrics, I got my first inkling of what was to develop. During Janet Reno’s reign as Attorney General under Bill Clinton, she decided to violently storm looney-tune David Koresh’s Waco compound because children were reportedly being abused inside. The result of this rash action was that they were all killed by Koresh, who burned the whole compound down with him. Then, for the sake of little Elian Gonzales (the Cuban refugee whose father wanted him back in Cuba with him), she had a SWAT team descend like the secret police in the early morning hours into the Miami home where he had been living with relatives, the defining moment captured by a photo of a terrified Elian being grabbed by a hulking agent pointing a powerful gun in his direction. Although Reno, in my opinion, went way overboard with her “child protection”, the Clinton Administration did well by pushing through and signing v-chip legislation giving parents (and not the state) the choice of which television channels they wanted to block from their children’s eyes.

Today’s Internet world, though, has largely supplanted television as the biggest threat, in the eyes of many, to children. And although there are supposedly safeguards built into the system to help block children from “bad” sites, they are woefully inadequate. One of the problems is with sites such as MySpace that children often use to describe themselves, write about their lives, and communicate with their friends. Parents should be careful to restrict access from others to these sites (or just prohibit their kids from having any) to those “safe”, known persons who can give the correct login information.

It’s important to protect children from harmful elements in our society. I just hope that those in authority will balance their concerns with the fact that these children, when they grow up to be adults, will want to enjoy the same constitutionally-protected rights that they themselves currently enjoy. After all, from time to time we hear of libraries removing this book or that book because some local “moral” element feared that it might fall into a child’s hands.

I’m also wary of government and government-authorized bodies pushing laws and making recommendations while using the idea of “protecting the children” as a gimmick to persuade others to accept their agendas. The latest example of this trend that I’ve picked up was last year’s Mitchell Report on some baseball players’ abuse of steroids and human growth hormone. According to George Mitchell, one of the main motivating factors driving him in his investigation was his desire to protect children from following the bad examples that the adult players named in the report had set. And I suppose then that everybody is supposed to just stand back and say, well, if it’s for the children, then go ahead and do and say what you want! But if you think about it, one can use the “save the children” tactic to promote (or oppose) virtually anything! Protecting children is a prime responsibility properly exercised within the family unit. Government needs to get out of the habit of bypassing parents with their often holier-than-thou zeal to further agendas ostensibly “for the sake of the children”. But parents need to then “pick up the ball” and take an interested and engaged role in seeing to it that their children are not exposed to danger, whether that be in the cyber world or the “real” world.

Favorite Songs of 1986

My musical interests were pretty mainstream in 1986, and my favorites reflect this. There were some funny tunes (I Wanna Be a Cowboy by Boys Don't Cry and The Future's So Bright by Timbuk3). There were quite a few danceable ones as well (C'est La Vie by Robbie Nevil, Kiss by Prince, Sweet Freedom by Michael McDonald, Falling in Love (Uh-Oh) by the Miami Sound Machine, The Sweetest Taboo by Sade, Two of Hearts by Stacey Q, and Velcro Fly by ZZ Top). 1986 contained some "dreamy" songs I liked, such as Life in a Northern Town by the Dream Academy, These Dreams by Heart, and Your Wildest Dreams by the Moody Blues. The most purely "happy" song from 1986, to me, was Wang Chung's boisterous Everybody Have Fun Tonight. Two artists who (in my estimation) were in a period of decline, Phil Collins and Billy Joel, nevertheless came out with quality singles this year in Take Me Home and A Matter of Trust, respectively. One of the most inspirational songs I ever heard was Whitney Houston's beautiful rendition of The Greatest Love of All. Bruce Hornsby and the Range produced a social commentary on how far race relations still need to go with The Way It Is. Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer, in my opinion an "O.K." song, was greatly enhanced by its very funny and innovative video. Steve Winwood began his string of comeback hits in 1986, starting with his appeal for a Higher Love. Britain's Pet Shop Boys broke into the American music scene with their semi-rap, semi-synthesizer West End Girls (my #3 favorite of '86). My #2 song from that year was the romantic, light-jazzy piano song Captain of Her Heart by Double. And my #1 favorite tune of 1986 goes to Madonna for her unusually-serious song Live to Tell, towering above all of her other early works. 1986 was also the year I was married, and a review of this year would be incomplete without mentioning the top song in the country at the time of my wedding: Berlin's You Take My Breath Away!

Some Earliest Memories

Why do we hold on to certain memories in our distant personal pasts while casting off most others into oblivion? When I was not quite two, I remember having just moved into a new apartment (in Opa-Locka, Florida) with my family. My (nearly) six-year old sister and I were standing outside on the porch looking off at two sets of swing sets: the closest had no swings hanging from it and the farthest had a full complement of swings. I remember my sister bemoaning the fact that we weren’t permitted to go down there to the “good” swing set, where we saw other kids playing. Another memory of my ancient childhood (c. 1958-59) was my mother telling me how far down the sidewalk I was allowed to ride my tricycle before having to turn back. And then me going farther anyway (when she wasn't watching)! Or about the time my mother sent me to a neighbor’s apartment to borrow some sugar. When I got there, they proceeded to grab me, put me in a high chair, and begin to serve me supper! I was horrified since this wasn’t on my agenda, but was somehow unable to get across my mother’s reason for sending me. Finally, my sister showed up and rescued me from this well-intentioned imprisonment!

But why would those memories linger while others died? I believe that there are two reasons for this. First, I chose to reflect upon those memories I just described soon after the experiences occurred. By doing so, this reinforced their importance to me over other experiences that I decided were marginally too insignificant to reflect upon. Second, it may be true that some memories carry lessons with them that have life-long applications. The swing set memory may have stressed the notion that I wasn’t allowed to participate in fun things while others were (life isn’t fair). The tricycle memory stressed the notion that not even a supreme authority (like my mother) ultimately carried more authority than my own will, for better or worse (“I gotta be me”). And the “benevolent kidnapping” incident stressed the notion that I could be going about life minding my own business and then others could set events in motion around me, totally screwing up everything ($#!& happens)! (Plus, the world seems to full of people who think they know what’s best for me, my protestations to the contrary!)

I have quite a few old memories, but they only go back (consciously) to just before I turned two. But even back then, as far as I was concerned, I was just as old (to me) as I am now at 51 years. It’s just that, at some point in my toddler years, I began to tie together certain chosen memories for reflection and then began to draw generalities from them regarding life. This was probably the beginning of my own personal narrative, which grew with time and ran intertwined with my real existence to this day, without ever quite matching it. And I suppose that almost everyone else has this sort of duality going on with their lives as well, originally springing from very early memories from infancy.

Villain's Virtues and Enough

One of the most brutal, sadistic rulers in the history of human life on this planet was Josef Stalin, who, after he had consolidated his power, ruled the Soviet Union from 1929 to his death in 1953. When discussing just the deaths that this one individual was responsible for, we’re talking about a scale in the millions of people. He instituted an oppressive police state and an enormous system of state prisons (the GULAG). And he collaborated with Hitler in 1939, helping to destroy Poland and bring on the cataclysm known as World War II. Stalin’s naiveté in dealing with Hitler directly lead to his own nation being invaded, with about 20 million Soviet citizens losing their lives as a result. So Stalin was an enormously villainous historical figure. But since he was such an important person in history, many have scrutinized his life in minute detail. And some discovered some interesting things about him.

Although Stalin insisted on being made into the object of a strong personality cult throughout his reign, in truth he believed little in it and was contemptuous of those who fawned over him. He had a tight circle of loyal associates with whom (and with their families) he had a close social life. Earlier in his political career, Stalin was a master at manipulating meetings with his political colleagues, not taking sides on an issue until he determined which side was prevailing in the argument, and then coming down at the end on the winning side. This served two purposes: first, it gave Stalin the reputation of being open-minded (which he wasn’t); second, he would consistently be on the winning side, increasing his stature that way as well. Unfortunately, his obsessive fear of being overthrown led him later to persecute his perceived political enemies with a progressively intense fervor that ended in many deaths, imprisonments, and a thoroughly closed and totalitarian society.

So you can see that I am thoroughly convinced of Josef Stalin’s evilness. But even with someone like this, I can filter out some virtue! And with Stalin, I see two things: one, he was, in spite of his paranoia, a terrific prankster with an enormous sense of humor; two, Stalin did not pursue (or even value) material wealth in his life. Those who visited him at his residence would come away amazed at the plain, stark conditions that he lived in. Of course, you could say (and be correct) that Stalin put all of his worldly aspirations into obtaining and maintaining absolute political power, and that anything else was (to him) secondary and even trivial. But it hit me anyway that, in our comparatively much more abundant society that is America today, how hooked people in general are on their material possessions and status. Yes, there are still the poor around us. Historically speaking, though, I don’t believe that at any time or place in the span of human history has there been such abundance available to the general population. But instead of recognizing this and letting our abundance of wealth serve us as we need it like the air we breathe, we instead hoard it up like a hibernating squirrel would hoard up acorns. Why can’t we recognize when enough is enough, and then go on to more worthwhile pursuits in this short period of time that we have been accorded to live? Of course, I don’t think that the rest of Josef Stalin’s life would be a suitable example to follow. Still, in at least the area of accumulating personal material wealth, he recognized when enough was enough.

Monday Newsbreak: 2/18

--This past Thursday, another tragic school shooting rampage took place when a former Northern Illinois University student shot several people, killing five students and then killing himself. Because this phenomenon seems to be random in nature, it makes people scratch their heads in puzzlement and do little more. But it’s obvious that there is something terribly wrong within our society when some young adult males seem to feel such utter hopelessness about their future and such bitter anger about their past that they would feel compelled to commit such evil acts against completely innocent people who had never done them any harm. Immersing these people in a culture glorifying violence and then equipping them with the means to commit it is a formula for repeated disaster. But I have a feeling that the seeds of these tragedies are sown earlier in life, by abusive relationships (both with adults and peers) and a lack of truly loving, affirming, and nurturing relationships.

--As the tight struggle for the Democratic nomination continues between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, more attention is focusing on the 795 deliberately uncommitted superdelegates who will ultimately decide who the winner will be. The hope is that these people will be responsive to the voting trends and support whichever candidate has garnered the most delegates through the primary and caucus process. Real trouble will occur if one candidate comes away at the close of the primary season with a plurality of committed delegates but loses the nomination because the superdelegates support the other. If this happens, you might as well not even bother with the general election, because John McCain would then definitely win over a bitterly divided Democratic Party.

--Gainesville’s own Nancy Yi, 13 year-old ninth-grader, was signing copies of her second book Sword Quest for customers at a local Barnes and Nobles Saturday. Her first book, Swordbird, was a New York Times bestseller. What an inspiration she is!

--Kosovo is declaring its independence from Serbia. Populated chiefly by ethnic Albanian Muslims, this province of Serbia was the sight of a brutal conflict in 1998 that saw the intervention of the United States to end reported ethnic cleansing in the area. After independence, how long will Kosovo last before its opts to unite with the neighboring nation of Albania? It’s a shame that the extreme nationalism in this part of Europe has rent apart such a promising nation as Yugoslavia. It seems to go completely against the general European trend of integration.

--The University of Florida men’s basketball team lost the fourth out their last five games with a close, hard-fought defeat at the hands of Vanderbilt in Nashville, 61-58. In spite of the slump, the Gators are still 19-7 overall and 6-5 in the Southeastern Conference. Let’s see if they can shake themselves out of this mid-season slump. They were able to two years ago when they won their first of two national championships. I’ll just be happy to see them make the NCAA Tournament this year!

Running on the Eights: 2/17

For most of the past eight weeks (up until about two and a half weeks ago), my running continued at a sporadic pace. I never ran on consecutive days, and often there were gaps of several days between runs. One of the reasons for this was that I was sick for a while last month. But I began to step things up, starting at January's end and continuing up to the present day. Although my distance per run is about the same as before, I now often run three or four days in a row between "breaks". And I plan to continue, if not step up, this pace of training. I'd like for my running mileage to get back up to between 2.5 and 3.5 miles. I'd also like to run some outdoors. I was considering actually entering a 5 kilometer race on February 23, but I've really only trained on the treadmill. But there will be more races offered (through the Florida Track Club) in Gainesville throughout the year, and I should get myself more accustomed to road running before I take off in that direction. Although participation in a future race is a possibility, I still plan to continue emphasizing the noncompetitive aspects of running in my training. Anyway, here is my running record for the past eight weeks (all runs done on a treadmill):

DATE DIST.(miles) TIME
12-23...... 1.5............ 10:48
12-31.......0.5.............. 3:42
1-4.......... 1.5............. 11:33
1-7.......... 1.6............. 12:09
1-11........ 1.5..............11:21
1-15........ 1.0.............. 7:21
1-17........ 1.2.............. 8:55
1-19........ 1.0.............. 7:47
1-27........ 2.0............ 15:31
1-29........ 1.75.......... 13:22
1-30....... 1.25............ 9:30
1-31........ 2.25.......... 17:11
2-1.......... 1.75.......... 13:08
2-6.......... 2.5............ 19:10
2-7.......... 1.5............ 11:08
2-8......... 2.0............ 15:05
2-10....... 1.5............. 11:16
2-11........ 2.25.......... 16:59
2-12....... 1.25............. 9:33
2-14....... 0.75............. 5:28
2-15....... 1.50........... 11:04

Be Angry Or Make Angry

Sometimes, during my daily passage through this world and its ups-and-downs, the downs seem to take over and bring me to a baser level of consciousness. By that, I mean that when the stress and injustices associated with different situations I am compelled to be in pass a certain threshold, I tend to become more prone to anger and less willing to be a compassionate, reasonable person. Elements of our social existence that we often call "dog-eat-dog" can crop up anywhere, but most often (for me), it occurs in the workplace when certain duties are expressedly expected of me, but for which those in charge will not provide me with the means (time, assistance, or equipment) to accomplish them. Then, there are two types of immediate reactions that I can have: first, I can try to rise up to the stressful situation by attempting to accomplish my tasks in spite of the imposed handicaps; or second, I can continue working at a normally acceptable level and let the "system" break down. The first option may see me heroically surmounting the problems while drastically increasing my stress, anger, and disaffection. Choosing the second option would keep my composure at a normal level, but quite possibly anger some others around me.

The way I see it, in a work setting (or any other setting that requires social cooperation) there are always going to be times when the participants will have to chip in and "go the extra mile". But when a situation breaks down due to the negligence of others (usually habitual negligence), then stepping up and trying to compensate for it is, in my opinion, detrimental: not only to myself, but also for the entire dynamics of the situation. If someone else is consistently not doing their job, then this fact needs to be exposed, not covered up by overachieving and progressively angry colleagues. Yes, a breakdown/failure would cause some anger and bad feelings among some, but in the long run the problem has a better chance of being adequately addressed this way. To me, avoiding unnecessary anger and anxiety is just as much of a safety concern as other things such as correct lifting procedures or working around machinery.

Why I Am Of The (fill-in-blank) Faith

It’s a generally well-known fact that most of the people in the world, past and present, identify themselves with a religion. In east Asia, we see the prevalence of Buddhism, while on the Indian subcontinent, the Hindu religion predominates. Islam covers northern Africa, parts of the Balkans, central and southwest Asia, Indonesia and some neighboring lands. Christianity is the “majority” religion in Europe, Australia, parts of Africa, and North and South America. Judaism is the main identified faith in Israel and in many local communities spread throughout the world, especially in the United States. And, of course, there are many other faiths as well. Besides this, the main religions are all subdivided into various sects. Someone in, say, Libya, is likely to grow up in the Islamic faith, while a resident of Bombay is very likely to be a Hindu. A Cambodian farmer is probably going to live his life out as a Buddhist, while a child in Alabama will find him or herself growing up in a culture of Christianity. And a student growing up in Tel Aviv will most likely consider herself to be Jewish.

As the children in the various diverse cultures all over the world grow up into adults, they often will become more aware of their culture’s and/or their family’s religious faith and will become educated as to that faith’s doctrine. More likely than not, that doctrine will teach that, whatever faith it is, it happens to be the exclusively correct divinely-inspired faith. By exclusively, I mean that this excludes all other religions from being acceptable to the believer. Thus, an adult believer in his or her predominant faith will learn to look down, either with concern, pity, or contempt, at the followers of other religions.

But the overwhelming reason that a person becomes an adherent to a particular faith isn’t that said faith is “The Way”: the reason is quite simply the fact that the believer was born and raised in that religion’s culture, either as part of a seriously devoted family, or simply as a general member of the society where that religion prevails as an accepted part of the culture. So, a born-again Christian in America may be considered to be a true convert by his church, but in reality he most likely had been exposed to Christian culture in one way or another his whole life, even if his family wasn’t religious.

True converts, that is, people who reject their beliefs that were prevalent in their home culture and adopt a “foreign” religion, are in reality relatively rare in number. The overwhelming body of religious believers in the world did not choose their faith: the accident of birth within a particular society or family mainly determined their religious identity. I believe that it is a gross form of self-deception for one, therefore, to ignore this fact while waving their own religion’s scriptures around to try and convince people that they are out of favor with (or separated from) God just because they were born and raised somewhere else.

An honest person, with few exceptions, would answer the question “Why am I of the ___ faith?” by saying “Because that religion was the prevalent one in the societal and family context that I was born and raised in.” I’m afraid that our planet is in for a very dismal future if people don’t just grow up and show a little mature awareness on this matter!

Happy St. Valentine's Day

I hope that you readers out there in cyberland are enjoying this little holiday that celebrates love and affection. St. Valentine's Day is a very special day for my wonderful, lovely wife and me. This marks the 23rd time we've shared it together. It's a blessing to have holidays like this (even though I don't get the day off from work), because it gives me the opportunity to once again thank her and God for her presence in my life!

Prioritizing and Accomplishing Goals

Whenever I have a challenging goal laid out ahead of me to accomplish, I find that my chances of success are much more enhanced the more fanatical and single-minded I am about accomplishing it. This is fine if my life were simple, with few responsibilities or interests. But I have found as I have grown older that my goals have proliferated to the point where my embarking on one necessarily interferes with my work on others. And I don't think that I can (or want to) go back to the time in my life when I could just "let things slide" in favor of one particular quest that happened to captivate my attention at the time.

At the beginning of this year, I set as a goal for myself to consistently write fiction, with the intention of having it published for sale. In truth, I have written very little so far and am disappointed. But I've also been engaged in many other projects and duties that have drawn my time and attention away from this important goal. However, if I am to become a successfully published writer, as the great Stephen King has repeatedly stressed, I must make it a priority and set aside time solely devoted to writing fiction. And do or think about nothing else during that time. When the allotted time is up, then I'm open for the other things that, as an adult with a family and many interests, I will continue to engage in. But although I can't make writing stories an exclusive, "nothing else matters" kind of project, I can be more assertive to myself and others in creating the conditions that will help me achieve the success that I know I am fully capable of. I've already begun to do this with my piano study, running, blog writing, and reading. Besides writing fiction, foreign language learning is also an area that I need to set aside a specific time and place for undistracted study.

I have learned to be a multitasker: often in situations that I know I have be in but which don't require my constant attention and vigilance, I will pull out my pocket notebook to scribble down ideas for stories I have or some papers that have lists of foreign language words that I want to review or learn. I also have an MP3 player that I carry at times when I can listen to downloaded webcasts from international broadcaster of the Internet. But that, while helpful, is no substitute for just sitting down and concentrating my full attention on a particular project, without distractions. Setting aside a block of time for an endeavor accomplishes two things: one, it trains me to deeply believe in the importance of the endeavor, and two, it creates an atmosphere of self-accountability toward the endeavor's fulfillment (I can't make excuses like I was distracted by other things). I know this can happen. I just have to take the steps to make it happen!

Mundane Matters on the Eights: 2/12

There is a new area in my "self-improvement" zone that I'm trying to figure out a way to appropriately express on this blog. For want of a better term, I call it "mundane matters". Keeping up with the mundane things in my life is probably one of my greatest shortcomings as a human being on this world. Keeping up with important deadlines, keeping my home and vehicles maintained and clean, being more careful with finances, and a few other other areas could stand a good dose of attention and habit-changing! But, with regard to this blog, being transmitted world-wide to anyone who clicks on it, I'm not all that keen on revealing things like this, at least in any great detail. So instead, I'm going to encode it a bit, even though it seems as if this may defeat the whole purpose of publicly holding myself accountable for my progress (or lack thereof). Still, I think it's worth a try. I will therefore initiate a new "on the eights" blog entry (every eight weeks) titled "Mundane Matters on the Eights" which may or may not completely make sense to the reader. But I do plan to write some stuff that is comprehensible (although it may seem terribly boring) in my "mundane matters" entries. So, I guess this is "Day Zero", and who knows what you'll find eight weeks from now! But at least this puts me, in at least a small way, on the spot in regard to behaviors that I need to change about ordinary, but important areas of my life. So, if you happen to run across one of these entries in the future, you have my sympathies! It will be only once every eight weeks, anyway.

Monday Newsbreak: 2/11

--The Super Tuesday primary results did nothing but tighten up the Democratic presidential race, but on the Republican side John McCain won enough contests and delegates to eventually convince his main competitor Mitt Romney to drop out of the race. The extreme irony of the campaign season is that the actual President, George W. Bush, has been buried in the news by personalities who presently have no real power to determine American policies from an Executive Branch level. Even Bush's important Middle East trip a few weeks ago seemed to be overshadowed to a large part by the campaign. But some working within the McCain campaign organization are considering a possible involvement by our current President on his behalf in the campaign. I may be wrong, but if they want to use President Bush to help out McCain, they need to do it sooner instead of later to help bring disaffected conservatives over to McCain (earlier) and to deemphasize the Bush connection (later) during the general campaign to bring over Democrats and Independents.

--An ominous report has come out revealing that this year's flu vaccine has missed many of the strains that are spreading across the United States. And several of the states are currently experiencing very high flu outbreaks. So far, my Florida is one of the few states that are relatively unscathed by flu. Let's hope it stays that way, and not just for my sake. After all, Florida is a state full of the elderly, and they are the people the most endangered by influenza.

--Concurrent with the February 5 Super Tuesday evening election returns was a deadly plague of tornadoes that descended on Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee, causing at last report 56 deaths. It seems that severe winter frontal storms have affected this general area many times over the past few years.

--The National Basketball Association team that I support, the Phoenix Suns, just made a make-or-break major trade with the Miami Heat, picking up the legendary-but-aging Shaquille O'Neal in exchange for star Suns player Shawn Marion and another teammate. I'm really going to have to see one of those late-night Suns game to see the on-court dynamic between the great Steve Nash and Shaquille. These are already my two favorite players, and now they're both on my favorite team. I'm keeping my fingers crossed...