Exploring and Downloading Podcasts

I've just discovered the enormous quantity and variety of podcasts available for free downloading. I am currently using the site Podcast Alley to find various types of podcasts which suit my interests. So far, I've downloaded Dan Carlin's Hardcore History (about history, of course), Dump Runners Club (a Colorado-based runner gives some pretty good running tips), and Chess is Cool with Chess Grandmaster Alexandra Kosteniuk (ranked #5 worldwide for women). And I've only begun to explore what's out there. At first, I had wanted to get some political podcasts, but the ones I found, both pro-left and pro-right, were so crude and hate-filled that I decided to defer that for a while. But there are many other categories to explore. And I can listen for long stretches of time at work on my MP3 player. Much better than the radio!

I also discovered sites that enable free, legal downloads of music that (some) artists provide to promote themselves. The best one I've been using is BetterPropaganda. You're not going to get the Beatles or Rolling Stones, but some of the more obscure acts can be quite generous in providing some free samples of their works.

I've also discovered that certain radio stations, such as BBC and Radio Australia, have downloadable podcasts in Chinese, the language I am currently learning. So I can also listen to those podcasts at work, as well.

One "down" side to this is that, since I've been devoting so much time to listening to my MP3 player, I haven't been keeping up with the news as much. So a lot of what's going on has been passing me by. Maybe I should just set aside a certain time each day to just catch up with the news. But I can accomplish this by perusing my daily newspaper and click on a couple of news websites (like CNN.com). I don't need to keep up-to-date on what the professional spin-doctors are doing.

ID Check

One of the problems I've heard that our national intelligence services have in infiltrating terrorist cells is that they are usually very small and intimate, as well as cut off from each other. The members don't protect the security of the cells by wearing identification badges on their shirts; they simply recognize each other by sight and voice. But for domestic U.S. citizens, going about on their daily work business, we've gone "ID Crazy". Just take where I work.

I suppose that, if there were any place in which security measures are justified, then the U.S. Postal Service would be high on the list. It has suffered from highly-publicized attacks of violence in the past, as well as the anthrax terrorist attack in 2001 that killed some of its employees. So I'm all in favor of security. But the way they are trying to accomplish this leaves me a little confused. Take the identification check, for example.

On a regular basis, floor supervisors are required to walk around the workroom floor and check to make sure that all employees under their authority are sporting their own official (with picture) ID badge. The supervisors go around with a clipboard and check off names as they do this. This is supposed to be a security-enhancing procedure. But how? In doing this, the supervisor is only checking people that (s)he already recognizes as being legitimate employees, not suspicious outsiders. And the different floor supervisors and managers all have a pretty basic understanding about who is supposed to be there and who isn't. By recognition, not by badges. When a "stranger" (such as an outside auditor) does make an appearance on the workroom floor, heads turns everywhere, and a "buzz" goes around, through employees and their supervisors, regarding the "strange" presence. There is nothing official about this; rather, it is the same type of security sense that those subversive cells use to keep out intruders. It is much, much more sophisticated and difficult to crack than the crude official methods that management concocts.

Conversely, if a person who was unfamiliar to anyone did happen to show up wearing an "official" badge, this would in itself do little to alleviate concern about his/her presence there. That individual would stick out like a sore thumb!

There is also a segment to this argument regarding the actual security of entrances, and how restricted the access to the building's interior really is. But discretion tells me that perhaps this blog isn't a very appropriate forum in which to discuss it. That is regrettable, because actual entry to the facilities is much more important within the discussion of security than inane ID badge checks.

Sufjan Stevens

A few weeks ago, I was listening to AOL Radio, on their "Indie Rock" channel. I lucked out, getting a string of great songs (later on I found out that this wasn't the norm). In the middle of it was a song titled Chicago by someone called Sufjan Stevens. It was the best of the lot, and I investigated this artist on the Internet.

Sufjan Stevens is an independent/alternative popular musician who grew up in Michigan, lived in Chicago, and now resides in New York. He has made several albums since since his debut A Sun Came in 2001. Stevens put out an electronica album titled Enjoy Your Rabbit, based on each of the signs of the Chinese Zodiac (Year of the Monkey, Year of the Tiger, etc.). He has released five Christmas albums as well as an album of original Christian-themed folk songs (Seven Swans). But his best works, in my opinion, are his "fifty-state project" albums.

Around 2003, Sufjan Stevens released an album titled Michigan, which then examined various aspects and locales of that state. A couple of years later, he repeated the process with his Illinois (technically titled Sufjan Stevens Invites You to Come On Feel the Illinoise). Illinois received much critical praise and several awards in 2005, but didn't break through to the general radio airwaves. It contains 15 full songs, each of which I regard as excellent. And the themes are, naturally, Illinois-based: cities like Chicago, Decatur, and Jacksonville; the holiday Casimir Pulaski Day; the Palisades; the Sear's Tower (transformed by Stevens into The Seer's Tower); the depraved serial killer John Wayne Gacy, Jr.; and the nineteenth century Black Hawk War, to name a few topics. By the way, if you count the or's, The Black Hawk War, a two-minute wordless-but-sung track, is the longest title that I have ever encountered: The Black Hawk War, or, How to Demolish an Entire Civilization and Still Feel Good About Yourself in the Morning, or, We Apologize for the Inconvenience but You're Going to Have to Leave Now, or, 'I Have Fought the Big Knives and Will Continue to Fight Them Until They Are Off Our Lands!' .

Stevens is an accomplished musician in several instruments and sings with a soft, soothing voice. But his lyrics are often very cutting, and his clear vocal delivery gives the listener little opportunity to miss anything he has to say. He also recorded his albums with multiple tracks. On Illinois, he separated the lengthy instrumental endings of some of its songs by calling them separate pieces. That gave two alternative endings for some of the songs.

Various rumors have floated around as to whether Sufjan Stevens will follow through on his expressed plan to record albums about all fifty states. He is a bit of a prankster, so who knows. But Illinois came out about four years ago, so he needs to "get cranking" if he wants to accomplish this before the "Star Trek Era" commences around 2060 (my way of saying "before hell freezes over")! I personally doubt that he will continue his "states" theme much longer, seeing that his first two, Michigan and Illinois, have strong autobiographical themes to them. I expect much of the same in any later works as well.

Here are my favorite Sufjan Stevens songs so far (with their albums in parentheses):

1: Casimir Pulaski Day (Illinois)
2: Jacksonville (Illinois)
3: Chicago (Illinois)
4: Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois (Illinois)
5: Come On Feel the Illinoise (Illinois)
6: In the Devil's Territory (Seven Swans)
7: All Good Naysayers, Speak Up! Or Forever Hold Your Peace! (Michigan)
8: Decatur (Illinois)
9: The Henney Buggy Band (The Avalanche)
10: Jason (A Sun Came)

But We Need the Rain

North central Florida, today, tomorrow, and Friday. Flood watch until then. Take THAT, you pesky forest fires!

Contrived Editorial Letter Page

I've noticed, from time to time, that a newspaper's editorial page will pick up a letters-to-the-editor viewpoint about an issue that doesn't really merit discussion and bat it around for weeks at a time. I've experienced an example of this recently in my hometown "newspaper" The Gainesville Sun, whose editor seems determined to bring its standards down to the level of a high school newspaper. A few days ago, a letter was printed decrying the local PBS radio station, 89.1/WUFT. The writer complained about listening to slave-trading dead white men's music. And what was he referring to? Classical music!

The inflammatory (and asinine) tone of this letter revealed, by its printing, an ulterior motive by The Sun's editor: whip up a torrent of responding letters to artificially create an issue that heretofore didn't exist. And for several days thereafter, just I suspected, the newspaper printed letter after letter taking sides on whether or not WUFT should play classical music. The original letter complained that by playing classical music, WUFT wasn't being "diverse" enough, when the truth is that they have long stretches of programming where they play jazz and the blues. Not to mention the incredible variety of other music that they broadcast, along with informative news shows. And the editor knew this "no-brainer", of course.

I don't mind a real issue being discussed. But putting the local PBS station under scrutiny, especially when considering the relative homogeneity of commercial broadcasting across the radio dial, is ridiculous.

Let me give another example. From time to time, a motorist will write (and get printed) an editorial letter complaining about bicyclists who disobey traffic laws. Or a bicyclist will write complaining about motorists who don't respect their presence on the road. And this goes back and forth for a while.

Or how about the tried-and-true (and tired and old) argument about evolution vs. creationism? That's always good for a few days at a time on the editorial page. As if public opinion should decide what is "science" and what isn't, based on twitter-length editorial letters!

Sometimes I think that my local newspaper's editorial page isn't much better than those exploitative television talk show hosts like Maury Povich and Jerry Springer, who create a divisive topic in advance, invite people involved in that topic as guests on the show, and then "objectively" sit back and watch them heatedly argue with each other, with the "concerned" studio audience weighing in. All of which is phony and contrived! Can't we do better than that with our journalism?

Late Night Television

I usually get home from work at about 12:20 AM. Sometimes I turn on the television to see if there is anything worthwhile to watch. Unfortunately, the vast majority of channels are thoroughly worthless to me. But there are a few that suit my peculiar tastes.

On our digital TV service here in Gainesville, we can pick up the various Encore movie channels. Quite often, I'll find at least one movie on them that's good. On BBC-America, which recently had a marathon of James Bond movies, I can also watch episodes from the old, hilarious Monty Python's Flying Circus series. Bravo and AMC (American Movie Classics) are other good movie channels carrying some good films. And the Sci-Fi Channel and Spike occasionally show something interesting.

Besides movies, I like watching old series. Especially cartoon series. Niktoons currently shows old SpongeBob SquarePants episodes late at night. Also, I've grown somewhat attached to their cute My Life As a Teenage Robot series as well. But my current cartoon favorite is the side-splitting South Park, a series that I only discovered less than a year ago. My favorite episodes so far? Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes, obviously a satire on the negative reaction many have to Wal-Mart stores opening in their towns, and Manbearpig, which parodied Al Gore. My favorite South Park character? Who else but the villainous brat Eric Cartmen! I can pick up South Park on two different stations, as well as the Web.

Sometimes C-Span has an interesting replay of an interview or hearing (but usually not). Sometimes I can watch the end of a west-coast basketball game, or just a recap of the day's sports news. But sometimes the programming is pretty dried up for me. It is then that I flick over to MSNBC and watch the replays of their three "liberal" shows: Hardball (with Chris Matthews), Countdown (with Keith Olbermann), and Rachel Maddow. It's too bad that I can't receive this type of liberal commentary programming on my radio, which has been taken over by right-wing talk shows . And (like most other working human beings), I'm not allowed to watch TV on my job. However, I've recently discovered the many choices I have with downloadable podcasts, ranging the entire political spectrum, and to which I can listen almost anywhere on my MP3 player.

Finally, if the worst happens and all late-night programming stinks (or if I'm just in the mood), I turn my cable channels to the music stations they offer. My preferences? Alternative Rock, Soundscapes (new age music), Classical, and Retro Alternative.

Of course, the ultimate option in the absence of anything good on TV is to just turn it off and go on to bed!

But, wait! I've just discovered the ultimate soothing late-night channel: PBS's Sprout, which is aimed at pre-school audiences and is simple and sweet throughout its programming. It's obviously not very intellectually stimulating, but it has a very positive tone which is very relaxing to me.

NCCA Men's Basketball Down to Four Teams

Now we're down to the Final Four in the NCAA men's basketball tournament for 2009. North Carolina, one of my favorites, has done well to advance. They will play Villanova in the semifinals, while Connecticut will play Michigan State. I predict a North Carolina-Connecticut final. It's too bad that none of the teams from the Southeastern Conference advanced far into the tournament.

When all is said and done, the Southeastern Conference really didn't do all that well this year in men's college basketball. None of the three SEC teams in the NCAA tournament made the "Sweet Sixteen" and none of their four teams in the National Invitation Tournament (including two number one seeds, Florida being one of them) made the "Final Four". Pretty sorry year for the conference! Why was this?

I can only speak about the UF Gators when I say that this was a very young team, with only one starting senior (Walter Hodge) and no starting juniors. The acknowledged "star", if you can use that term with this team, is sophomore guard Nick Calathes. Other returning starters for next year are Dan Werner, Alex Tyus, and Chandler Parsons. Erving Walker also was a factor in what success the Florida had this year, and he will be returning as well. So the Gators promise to be much improved next year. But unlike the national championship squads of 2006 and 2007, they seem to get stressed out in close games and don't play together as a close-knit team whose members fully understand each other and their strengths and limitations (in my amateur opinion). They seemed to keep repeating the same mistakes during play without learning from them. Coach Billy Donovan has a lot of work ahead of him if he wants the 2010 edition of the University of Florida men's basketball team to get back to making the NCAA tournament instead of once again being relegated to the "runner up" NIT.

One final note: one of the factors that the NCAA tournament selection committee held against Florida (and some other SEC schools) was the extremely soft non-conference schedule they played, effectively padding their win-loss record to make them look better than they really were. The message is clear: UF and other schools need to schedule more competitive games in December if they want more serious consideration in March!

Economic Recovery Perception Danger

As we look for signs of recovery from our current recession, we may see different trends that may not correlate too well. This past week, the stock market has had a small-scale surge. Whether or not this continues remains to be seen, but I believe that eventually the market will recover and long-term investors (especially in those all-important retirement accounts) will recoup their losses. However, one important fact needs to be taken into consideration.

In a recovery following a recession, one of the last statistics to turn around is the unemployment rate. In fact, unemployment may continue to rise for a while at the same time that businesses are starting to show profitability again. While this tends to bother some people, the current situation dictates restraint on their part.

During this recession, our federal government, under both the previous and current administrations, has pumped more than a trillion dollars worth of economic stimulus and recovery money into the economy and stands to take much of the credit (and responsibility) for ending the recession. With this may come the temptation to criticize profitable businesses who had benefited from the various "stimuli" but haven't rehired their laid-off employees. And some may be continuing to down-size their payroll as they make their comeback. I know that this criticism is on the way, and government officials may be tempted to try to dictate, through hearings and legislation, that businesses take back workers. This would be a horrendous mistake, in my opinion. Some of those businesses needed to change their directions in order to remain viable. As they begin to grow, they will increase their staff to fit their needs. And the unemployment rate will naturally go down. As it has done in the previous five (my own count) post-World War II recessions. As Al Gore has stated (regarding a different topic), this is "an inconvenient truth".

Big Bro' Don't Know Drugs

I'm looking at a headline in today's Independent Florida Alligator newspaper: SMOKERS, BUSINESSES PREPARE FOR CIGARETTE TAX INCREASE. According to the writer Jacquelyne Smith, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau says the tax for small cigarettes will increase from 39 cents to $1.01 for each pack and from $3.90 to $10.07 for each carton. Although the increased tax is certain to cause a spike in prices, local business owners were reportedly unconcerned that cigarette sales would suffer in the long run. I say, of course, that's because cigarette smoking is an addiction! And I wonder about the wisdom of conveniently laying this "sin tax" on an officially-frowned upon commodity.

I've already revealed my opinion about smoking, never having lit up even once and having undergone death in my own family, caused by smoking. Smoking cigarettes is a nasty, dangerous thing to do. But nicotine is a very highly addictive drug and its regular users are addicts. And should be treated as such. If the price gets too high for them to get their cigarette "fix", then they will behave as addicts to illegal drugs behave: they will seek their drug through the black market.

And don't think that this isn't going on right now. When are politicians going to understand that you can't legislate people out of addictions, be it proscribing the responsible drugs or levying impossibly high taxes on them? All this does is create a criminally-based alternate economy that exploits and brutalizes its own consumers and diminishes our law-based civil society.

I've heard the argument that having a high tax on cigarettes will encourage users to finally "kick the habit". But as I have said, it isn't a habit; it's an addiction! Yes, people can overcome addictions, but this ain't gonna do the trick, bro'. Otherwise, why not legalize and heavily tax cocaine, heroin, and any other currently banned addictive drug?

I believe that our "War on Drugs" has been an unmitigated disaster. All it has accomplished is to empower criminal elements across the world, who in turn have empowered hostile governments and terrorist movements. Hillary Clinton was right to apologize to Mexico for U.S. complicity in their drug/crime problems. For our own laws and their enforcement have created the very market that these foreign-based cartels exist to satisfy. Legalization of these drugs, without "sin taxes" and with a concomitant stringent regulatory process overseeing their provision to users, would completely undercut those crime organizations and send THEM into a severe economic downturn! But I'm afraid that this will never happen, with all of the pious self-righteous moral goody-goodies running around reacting in a knee-jerk negative manner to any proposed reasonable reforms on this topic while demonizing anyone who would advocate such reforms.

Assorted Musings

--I've been recalcitrant with this blog, but I think things will most likely begin to kick back up again soon...

---Anyone around me (including myself) who has problems with respiratory allergies is suffering greatly, with all of the pollen currently floating around in the air...

---I recently tried something interesting: watching two movies at the same time. They were Clint Eastwood's Oscar-winning Unforgiven and Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut. They were simultaneously on two different channels (Bravo and Encore Mystery) and I sat there, switching back and forth on my remote. I've done this before with movies that I've already seen, but I think this is the first time for two first-runs (for me). The result? I came out of it feeling as if I watched two movies in their entirety! And they were both quite good (and very different from each other)...

---The University of Florida women's basketball team bowed out of the NCAA championship tournament with an expected loss to #1 Connecticut. Meanwhile the men's team lost to Penn State in the NIT quarterfinals. Congratulations to both teams (although I'm sure they are pretty disappointed right now). Next year, the women's team will need to rebuild, but the men's should be much stronger, with almost everyone returning.

---The US Postal Service has been in the news lately, announcing plans to cut its workforce. My only comment is that they would be better served to invest a little in offering some tangible incentives for early retirement. I believe that many longtime employees are currently refraining from retiring due to uncertainty about the economy and the plunging value of their retirement accounts...

---Once I get over my present health issues mainly concerning allergies, I plan to resume my running. I'm already doing much more this year than I had since 1975. And back then, I lived in South Florida and encountered ZERO hills. Here in Gainesville, I have been running a course that involves running up and down several hills. And the surrounding trees should provide some much needed shade during the summer months. Much better training!

---Hopefully, we'll begin to get more rainfall, starting this week. If not, we're due for a disastrous fire season here in north central Florida...

Gainesville Coffee Shops Pros and Cons

At the beginning of Roger Moore's stint portraying James Bond, in the 1973 movie Live and Let Die, he invites his superior, M, into his flat to receive his new assignment. And then treats him to coffee, using his extremely (then) complicated looking espresso-making apparatus. M can only stand there, looking befuddled at the trouble that Bond is going through for a cup of coffee.

Nowadays, of course, this is all "old hat" with the various espresso coffee shops everywhere, especially those with the Starbucks trademark. I welcome the new culture of coffee drinking, especially that part of it that encourages customers to bring their laptops, books, and (with me) word processors to sit around for lengthy time periods without the fear of being run out of the shop for loitering. This lazier, informal environment is what I imagined (correctly or not) about street cafés in Europe. It represents for me a positive shift in the attitudes of (some) businesses in favor of customer service and away from the notion of seeing customers as a tool to extract money from, then sending them off (and away) on their merry way. So that trend I totally dig.

But there is, alas, a different trend I see, at least here in Gainesville. In large cities like New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles, there may be a culture of around-the-clock places to drink coffee and study, but not here. But we used to have several places where I could go in at any time of the night, get a cup of coffee, and study or write. Now, I could still go to certain restaurants like Steak N' Shake, Waffle House, or Perkins late at night, but they all have the idea of getting their customers seated, getting them fed, getting them to pay, and then getting them out (and the sooner the better). We used to have doughnut shops that stayed open around the clock, but that number has dwindled down to one, Krispy Kreme on US 441 three block north of the University of Florida campus.

My work schedule is such that I don't feel the need to go out in the wee hours of the night/morning, but sometimes, around 11pm-1am, if I do happen to be out at that time, it would be nice to be able to stop off somewhere and sit for a few minutes and enjoy a decaf coffee. But the Starbucks shops around here close up by 10 pm. Oh well, you win some and you lose some.

Bad "Feel Good" Legislation

Back in 2005, the case of a brain-dead woman named Terri Schiavo dominated the news. Her husband, consistently supported by the courts (even by ardently conservative judges), wanted her to be allowed to die, while her parents (and the religious right with their political clout) fought to keep her body alive. The struggle continued to the U.S. Senate, where the Republicans, led by Majority Leader Bill Frist, pushed a special bill, called the Terri Schiavo Bill, specifically designed to determine the outcome of that one single case. Democrats roundly criticized it, claiming that this was poor, knee-jerk legislation. Now let's fast forward to the present.

After losing so much money and procuring so much bailout assistance from the federal government, AIG Corporation infuriated the president and congress by handing out lavish bonuses to its top executives. The only problem was that this was perfectly legal. So the Democrats in the House of Representatives, along with some Republicans, just passed a bill levying a 90% tax specifically on those AIG bonuses. AFTER it was learned that they were being given. Now it is the Republican Party leadership's turn to "stand on principle" and denounce this as knee-jerk legislation targeted at only one circumstance. And they are right; they're just hypocrites, that's all.

I deplore those bonuses as well. And I generally support what the Democrats are trying to do in government. But this time they missed the boat and committed the same after-the-fact faux pas that their political rivals committed four years earlier by enacting legislation retroactively affecting a single party. It may carry popular support and make people feel good, but it's bad legislation. Better to simply recognize the loophole that AIG exploited and fill it in any future bailouts in order to prevent this from happening again.

Crichton and Gore on Global Warming

Continuing with my discussion of Michael Crichton, I have to comment on his method of presenting his opposition to the theory of global warming in the novel State of Fear. Crichton uses a completely fictional story with completely fictional characters to refute this theory, referencing apparently real scientific and academic journal articles with extensive footnotes throughout the book (making this work of fiction appear like an academic article). And different characters, especially the mysterious Kenner, spout out detailed statistic after statistic from the tops of their heads demonstrating how global warming is a scare tactic designed to control people, put in place by the "PLM" (political-legal-media). [How do you like that nice touch of his, making all of this sound like the PLO?]

How does Crichton portray believers in global warming? They are either fanatical terrorists or are shallow, vain, hypocritical dupes who want to hold on to their creature comforts while depriving most of the world's population of the same. Sounds like a real rap from me against Crichton, doesn't it?

Well, not completely. For one, I don't want to disparage the recently deceased too much. For another, Michael Crichton brings up some good points (if you can stand his ranting through the mouths of his characters, that is). Assuming his revealed research isn't part of his fiction, temperatures in various places across the world haven't really been following any discernible pattern for the past 150 years. Crichton opines that much of the measured warming comes from urbanization and deforestation, not increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Plus, he shows that the amount of added carbon dioxide to the atmosphere is actually very minuscule. But the best argument I got is the chaos argument: you can't linearly change an element of a chaotic, untested system and then expect to get a predictable outcome from it. And our atmosphere, from our many frustrated years of trying to predict and control the weather, is the essence of a chaotic system. So Crichton's views, albeit expressed in a distasteful manner, did make an impact on me. And they reminded me of another voice on global warming: Al Gore.

Former Vice-President Al Gore, as most people know, is famous for his movie An Inconvenient Truth, which sounds the big alarm about global warming and advocates drastic changes in how we run our economies worldwide and use energy. One of Gore's biggest arguments is to make a direct correlation between increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and increasing temperatures. And it's here that I simultaneously have a problem with Gore's approach and begin to scratch my head in confusion. For urbanization and deforestation, which skeptic Crichton acknowledges as warming factors, also correlate with increased carbon dioxide. So what caused the warming then? And what about those figures denoting increasing global temperatures, and how are they reconciled with Crichton's mixed figures? Just because two trends correlate, that doesn't automatically imply a cause and effect relationship between them.
Aside from this confusion, I was a bit taken aback by Gore's flagrant bouts of self-adulation in An Inconvenient Truth. Those rosy autobiographical parts detracted from his message by making Gore appear (to me) as being narcissistic and opportunistic. It's this aspect of Gore that the television series South Park seized upon in its merciless Manbearpig episode about him a few years ago.

So both Michael Crichton and Al Gore have presented their opposing opinions on the subject of global warming, each in their own personally obnoxious and irritating manner. What do I think on the subject? I'm not sure, but if Crichton and Gore can cash in on the subject while making complete nuisances out of themselves in the process, there has to be something in it for me! Let me put on my thinking cap and I'll get back to you on it......O.K., I'm back. I just figured out what I have to do: first, like Crichton and Gore, I have to become famous for entirely something else, and then I can present my alternative theory as an "expert" and reap in the rewards!

NIT and NCAA Tournaments

The last time I wrote about the Florida Gators men's basketball team, they had a chance to make the NCAA tournament, but only if they met certain conditions. It turns out they met NONE OF THEM and consequently didn't make the championship tournament. Instead they're back in the "runner-up" National Invitation Tournament this year. They started off well Wednesday night, winning their first game against Jacksonville 84-62. Tonight they play the University of Miami, a tough team from the very tough Atlantic Coast Conference. But the Gators will have the decided advantage of playing at home (and for the following game, should they win).

As for the main NCAA championship tournament, I'm still following it and rooting for various teams. I am unhappy at how unfairly UF's Southeastern Conference was treated, with only three teams selected for the tournament. So I'm rooting for those three teams to do well and prove the NCAA wrong (unfortunately, Mississippi State lost their first-round game last night, although LSU managed a win; Tennessee plays today). Also Florida State is having one of their best basketball seasons ever and stands to advance in the tournament. I traditionally root for North Carolina as well, and the Tarheels have a good shot at winning it all this year. Plus, I was impressed with Syracuse's tenacity in pulling out a recent six-overtime victory over impressive Connecticut a few days ago. So there's still plenty of interesting games for me to follow in the NCAA tournament even though the Gators aren't in it. Hopefully, they'll make it next year.

Writing Fiction From a Pedestal

I've recently been reading some of the late Michael Crichton's novels. Crichton, who rose to fame for his exciting science fiction novel The Andromeda Strain, wrote his stories with the idea of introducing the reader to specific trends in scientific and engineering research and then extrapolating those trends to usually calamitous results. Thus the fusing of computer technology with the human nervous system creates a homicidal monster, dinosaurs grown from DNA containing their genetic codes get loose and wreck havoc, nano-machines create their own swarms and plot to take over the world, and now, in State of Fear (the book I've just finished reading), the author reveals his skepticism about global warming. Crichton apparently believed that, regarding the environmental movement, the politics came first and the scientific research was then tailored to fit those political positions.

In the Michael Crichton novels that I've read so far (The Andromeda Strain, The Terminal Man, Timeline, Congo, and Prey), the author did extensive research on the topics and then cluttered the stories with intimidating technical details, apparently with the aim of enforcing his authority on the subject in the reader's mind. I am not very enthusiastic about this tactic of writing (a reason I don't feel like reading Jack Clancy novels, either). I instead prefer a relatively minimalist approach that emphasizes characters and the story. Sure, it's necessary to lay out some technical details in a story in order to create in the reader's imagination the "new world" that the author is using as the story's setting. For example, in the Harry Potter series, author J.K. Rowling naturally did her own research on magic and mythology in order to create an alternative, exotic world. But she didn't drown the reader in details either. And that's what I appreciate in a writer.

In the realm of science fiction, during the middle of the twentieth century, there were three writers who were generally considered to be the top three science fiction writers around: Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, and Isaac Asimov. All three of these (especially Asimov) wrote their fiction with the aim of staying true to the principles of science in their writing (and often painfully making a major point about this to the reader). And then there was Ray Bradbury, a contemporary of the "big three" who enjoyed a higher level of respect as a general writer and who sometimes wrote science fiction. But when I read Bradbury, I don't get the feeling that I am some lowly student in an undergraduate science class, being talked down to by some professor (as is often the case with Crichton/Heinlein/Clarke/Asimov).

When I read a story, I want to feel that the author and I are communicating on the same general level, and that I am not expected to just take in whatever slop (s)he decides to shovel in, just because it is dressed with extensive technical jargon. Reading for me is almost an act of conspiracy between two kindred souls. If one of those souls insists on standing up on a high pedestal, then I'm not going to read with the same enthusiasm that I would have if that same writer had just written like an ordinary person with no pretensions of grandeur. An author has to reveal enough knowledge of the subject to make the story believable, but there's no point in being a complete smartass about it!

Still Learning Piano

I am still practicing piano and taking weekly lessons. I am progressing with my playing skill, but I'm not satisfied at the rate of that progress. My goals are still pretty much the same: (1) to able to play melodies from memory as I have heard them and (2) seamlessly read and play music from the printed page. I think the main thing holding me back is that I don't put in enough time practicing, pure and simple. But I'm still plugging along, nevertheless.

One thing that I'm having a little fun with regarding music is the study of keys and chords. The chromatic scale consists of 12 notes, so a decimal system of modeling simply doesn't work. Neither does the traditional, convoluted "A through G" system of notation, with its flats and sharps. To me, it makes more sense to start with a "base 12" system and go from there. And that's not really such a difficult thing to do: we all are pretty comfortable with base 12, seeing that our clocks are based on it! As a matter of fact, to aid me in understand various chords, I am imagining them as combinations of numbers on a clock face, and then remember them by their shapes. Works for me, at least.

For the individual notes, I have assigned each a number:

0/12: C
1: C sharp/ D flat
2: D
3: D sharp/ E flat
4: E
5: F
6: F sharp/ G flat
7: G
8: G sharp/ A flat
9: A
10: A sharp/B flat
11: B

I realize that I still must deal with musical notation in the form that it is written, but it sometimes helps me to understand things better using this alternative system.

Veterans Memorial Flagpole

Here are some shots of the gigantic Veterans Memorial Flagpole, located at the south end of the Santa Fe College campus next to the track.

Ominous Fire Season Signs

At this writing, a fire is raging, uncontained, in the Ocala National Forest about forty miles southeast of Gainesville. There are other fires beginning to break out in various spots in north and central Florida, portending a crisis situation in this extremely dry time of the year. We've received very little rain over the past few weeks. And if we don't begin to get some on a regular basis and in large quantities, I'm afraid that we in Florida will suffer a similar fate to that which we underwent in the disastrous 1998 "fire season".

You don't have to be directly threatened by a wildfire in order to suffer its effects. A fire can be hundreds of miles away. But if the wind is blowing its smoke in your direction, your air will become full of it (and even ashes), making it more difficult to breathe (and impossible for some).
Maybe I'm being unduly pessimistic. But you know you're in a bad situation when it does rain and, while discussing the weather with others, someone almost always chimes in with "yes, but we need the rain"!

Sometimes, during these fires, the smoke gets so bad that I get the urge to go dump a ring into a volcano (with a hobbit carrying me there and an eagle flying me back). And then I would wake up breathing fresh air, with a kindly old wizard grinning at me. Yes, it can get that bad. Mordor in Florida!

Senator Byrd's Joke

I was watching the U.S. Senate on C-Span2 a few days ago. A vote was going on regarding an amendment submitted by Senator Wicker (R-Mississippi). It aimed to deny funding to any United Nations agency offering or promoting abortion services. Naturally, the pro-life senators supported the amendment while the pro-choice senators opposed it. There were, at my count, three "cross-over" votes from each party, canceling each other out and ensuring the amendment's defeat. But what I was most interested in was the voting process itself.

Apparently, senators can vote from their offices while the role call is going on for their vote. But afterwards, those yet to vote will go to the front desks in the Senate chamber and register their "ay" or "no" with one of the clerks there (who then will call out their names and how they voted).

As this vote was approaching its conclusion, I saw a woman pushing 91 year old Senator Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia) in a wheelchair up to the clerk's desk. Naturally, I expected Byrd to signal how he would vote to the clerk. But instead, the woman leaned over, said something to the clerk, and then proceeded to wheel the Senator away and off the screen, up the ramp to the area where the Senate body sat. I then forgot about this until about a minute later when the clerk called out "Senator Byrd", to which was heard a loud, thundering "NO-O-O-O!!!" coming from the rear of the chamber. Everyone stopped what they were doing for a second and then a few snickered. About another minute or two later, here comes Byrd back down in his wheelchair, grinning and once again closely passing by the clerk's desk (and then out of the chamber, presumably back to his office).

It will certainly be a sad day when Robert Byrd no longer graces the United Senate with his personality, rhetoric, and special sense of humor. But I thought the same of him eight years ago and here he still is, while many others have come and gone from this prestigious body.

Gator Hoops Tourney Prospects

The University of Florida men's basketball team is in danger of being shut out of the NCAA Championship tournament for the second year in a row after finishing their regular season at 22-9 and Southeastern Conference play at 9-7. Not bad on the surface, but their overall record was enhanced by scheduling smaller colleges that they were relatively assured of beating. And the SEC as a conference doesn't do much better in the national rankings. Only two teams, LSU and Tennessee, are reasonably assured of a spot in the NCAA tournament. A third team from the conference will probably also be added, but a fourth is highly questionable this year. And South Carolina is widely regarded as the "third" team, Florida "fourth", and Auburn "fifth". The UF Gators still have a chance to pass ahead of South Carolina, though, because the SEC tournament is beginning today. And depending on the outcome of that tournament, Florida may either find itself back in the NCAA tournament in which it won the national championship in 2006 and 2007 or it may be relegated to playing in the "second fiddle" National Invitation Tournament, in which it did well last year.

Here is how I see Florida possibly making it to the NCAA tournament this year, based on the outcome of the SEC tournament:

(A) If Florida wins the conference tournament outright, they automatically qualify for the NCAA. And they can potentially do this, if they play up to the level that they have demonstrated at different times during the season.

(B) If Florida doesn't win the SEC tournament then three things have to happen:

[1] Either Tennessee or LSU must win the SEC tournament, keeping another conference team from becoming the third team to go to the NCAA tourney.

[2] Florida needs to outlast South Carolina in the tournament, preferably beating them head on.

[3] Florida needs to avoid being outlasted by Auburn.

Even if the Florida Gators fulfill the conditions for (B), that still doesn't guarantee that they'd be selected. But I think that it would put them ahead of other conference teams competing for that important "third" selection.

Well, the fun starts today. Win or lose, I've enjoyed following the Gators this year. They'd have nothing to be ashamed of if they went back to the NIT this year again instead of the NCAA Championship tournament. But of course, I would be very disappointed if that happened, nevertheless.