Ghost Town Holiday Runs

Last Christmas I ran an uncomfortably warm (outside temperature @ 70 degrees) 20 miles, trying to prepare for a couple of marathon races in January and February. Today, on another holiday six months later, I ran 7.18 miles in 84-88 degree conditions, just trying to maintain a consistent training routine without any particular races planned for the foreseeable future. In both runs, I was uncomfortable with the weather (the Christmas conditions were also humid) but acquitted myself well by covering the distances with "honest" pacing and having decent recoveries from both. Another factor tying these two runs together was what I observed around me.

I expected last Christmas to be a bit of an ordeal, anticipating a lot of families outside with children trying out their new toys and running out into the street (and annoyingly getting in my way). But instead, the whole area seemed like a ghost town, reaching the point where it was starting to feel creepy. Now fast forward to today: I began my run around noon, having waited for the customary morning humidity to dissipate. I expected to see a lot of families outside, including a lot of cookouts. But like Christmas, it seemed as if everyone had gone into hiding (except for a handful of souls outside doing yard work). It wasn't until the 35-minute mark in my run when I saw my first cookout: it turned out to be the last as well during my slightly more than an hour-long jaunt (1:05:44). Other than that, the only people I saw out anywhere were a couple of groups sitting together outside their homes near the end of my run.

I think, our so-called terrible economy notwithstanding, that people still like to pack up the car and do outings on holidays instead of celebrating at their homes. I wonder, though, if I had done today's run straight down Main Street in Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom, whether the streets wouldn't suddenly be empty of people as well (common sense tells me it would remain impossibly packed). The effect reminds me of the opening scene in Vanilla Sky, when Tom Cruise's character is driving straight through Midtown Manhattan...and finds the place utterly deserted, sending him into a panic. With me, though, the relative absence of people would send me into fits of joy!

Need Pocket Scanner/Translator

The other day I was astonished to find a high-quality Russian language magazine on sale at my local Barnes & Noble bookstore. Titled Сноб, it is full of interesting articles spanning the breadth of topics covering the human condition. Skimming the pages from article to article, I found myself partially understanding the material but was very, very frustrated at the many words that stumped me.

Seeing how readily entire pages of text can be almost instantly translated (sometimes admittedly with severe imperfections) on my computer screen, I thought wouldn't it be great to have a small scanning device that would highlight a word or phrase in a foreign language (like the Russian I was reading) and deliver a rough translation? That would really speed up my language learning and free me from my computer screen as well!

It isn't that difficult, at least for me, to handle the grammatical details of a different language. With Russian, I have pretty much cleared that hurdle. But learning and retaining its thousands of words can be daunting. I can learn word lists (which I do), but encountering new words in the more meaningful context of a sentence in an article or story is much more desirable. So if I can't procure one of those possibly-nonexistent pocket/scanner/translators, I'll have to improvise with the old fashioned pocket dictionaries and all of that time-consuming page-turning.

As far as Russian is concerned, you can't beat the Romanov's pocket dictionary that translates words between Russian and English both ways. Not only does it provide an extensive vocabulary, but it also presents grammatical constructions in a comprehensive, detailed manner that I haven't seen even in a larger dictionary. This is important for a language like Russian which, like Latin, relies heavily on verb conjugations and vowel and adjective declensions to convey meaning in a sentence. Unfortunately, this Romanov's dictionary may be out of print as I haven't seen it in any bookstores in years. Fortunately, I still have on old copy at home (and possibly even a second one up in the attic). But it would be nice to have a fresh Romanov's...

Today's 7.18 Mile Run

My idea of cooking cheap pasta at home and taking it to work for some moderate pre-run carbohydrate-loading worked perfectly. Friday afternoon I boiled a box of bow-tie pasta that I had just bought in a buy-one-get-one-free deal and mixed it with a jar of spaghetti sauce that I also got BOGO. I took a large portion of my concoction to work and ate it cold during my early evening lunch break there. Today I started out on my planned 7.18 mile run around noon, after waiting for the humidity to abate to a reasonable level. When I started my run, the temperature was 89 and the humidity was 63%, better than that 80% humidity I struggled through earlier this week. When I completed the 7.18 miles winding up and down through my neighbood streets, the heat had gone up to 89 and the humidity down to 55%.

Because of the summer heat, I couldn't characterize today's run as being pleasant. However, thanks largely to last night's pasta, I had plenty of energy, running at a pretty high (for me) pace and finishing it in 1:05:19. As usual, I kept myself hydrated throughout the run by carrying with me a bottle of G2 and taking a gulp every seven minutes or so. I also listened to my own personalized MP3 mix of favorite songs, which helped to take the edge off the run's severity. I felt no sign of the foot and leg pain that were problems in previous weeks and months. The post-run recovery is also going quite smoothly.

In spite of the heat-induced discomfort, today's run was successful in that it reestablished my ability to run in the heat of the summer without feeling the need to duck indoors and run on the treadmill. Not that I am forsaking the treadmill, which has served me well during the last few weeks: I just like outdoors running more!

Oh, it also helped that I was off from work today and could start my run later than usual, giving me the chance to better wait for that oppressive morning humidity to dissipate. It might be better in the long run, though, for me to run around sunrise, when the humidity is very high but the temperatures are more reasonable. For where I live, summer lasts a long, long time! And at least that way I wouldn't be concerning myself with "running" out of time before work. But it can be quite an ordeal trying to drag myself out of bed that time of day...

What Do You Do? (or Moment to Moment, Day by Day)

How do you define yourself? By your nationality, what you perceive your so-called "race" to be, gender, sexual preference, political alignment, philosophical creed, religious (or nonreligious) beliefs, biographical/childhood narrative, friends, or family? Do you say I like this music, that movie or TV show, or a particular author, a type of food or drink in order to reveal your nature to others? Or maybe you're one of those who plasters bumper stickers all over your car to broadcast your identity to the world.

I'd like to offer my own view of what constitutes one's identity. Any or all of the above-mentioned items can contribute to describing one's life, to be sure, and I engage in some of them on this blog (especially with my "favorites" lists). But there is something I believe is far more profound and telling about oneself: what you DO with your life. Specifically, how do you spend your day? Or more immediately, what do you do from moment to moment?

And isn't that really what people think defines one, anyway? Just think of all those popular behind-the-scenes biographies of celebrities: for example, I have enjoyed reading such accounts of the classic rock groups The Beatles and The Doors. Sure, their artistic accomplishments, staged public appearances, and news headlines defined them to an extent, but actually discovering how they spent most of the time in their daily lives was enlightening, to say the least.

We already tend to see those with whom we are more intimate, like family and close friends, by how they spend their time. Yes, we'll cheer with them when they reach their peaks and console them through their personal valleys. But we'll also be more likely to frame our view of who they really are as we observe them doing what all of us have to do: tackle a day, from moment to moment, from beginning to end... and then start afresh the next day!

Carb-Loading Strategies for My Running

Today I ran 5 miles under pretty much the same weather conditions I struggled with so badly on my 5.69 mile run on Tuesday. However, although the heat and humidity made the noontime run unpleasant, I found myself abounding with energy once I had recovered from the tough start (sometimes I struggle a bit at the beginning of my runs). The only reason I cut off my run at 5 miles was the limiting factor of time: I began my run too late in the day and had to get ready for work! But why was today's run more energetic than Tuesday's?

On Monday I didn't eat very much. Yesterday though, I ate a whole large cheese pizza on my lunch break at work. Tuesday I ran with few carbohydrates to draw upon; today I was carb-loaded! Which makes me ponder...

Should I deliberately load up on carbs the day before every training run or just do it before an especially long run or a public race? I know one thing: I can't afford to be wolfing down whole pizzas 3 to 4 times a week! I'll have to just settle with some good old-fashioned home-cooked pasta instead...

I suppose, as with many things in life, the resolution of this question of carb-loading comes down to a matter of doing things in moderation. Sure, the day before a planned long run (10 miles or more) or before a race I can go all out with the pizza, pasta, or pancakes. And if an ordinary training run is planned the next day, I'll eat more carbs, just in moderation.

I would like to get back to running 7 miles minimum, with at least one 10-plus mile venture per week, so hopefully on Saturday during my next planned run I'll be able to pull it off. I'll just precook some noodles, mix them with some tasty stuff, and take it to work for lunch Friday. Mucho mas barato!

State and Regional Names for Pro Sports Teams

I don't care for the all-too-common practice of giving professional sports franchises the name of an entire state, or even in one case, an entire region of the country. Here is a list of some of the most notable culprits:

Minnesota Vikings (football/NFL)
Minnesota Twins (baseball/AL)
California Angels (baseball/AL)
New England Patriots (football/NFL)
Colorado Rockies (baseball/NL)
Utah Jazz (basketball/NBA)
New Jersey Nets (basketball/NBA)
New Jersey Generals (football/USFL)
Michigan Panthers (football/USFL)
Kentucky Colonels (basketball/ABA)
Indiana Pacers (basketball/ABA,NBA)
Texas Rangers (baseball/AL)
Florida Marlins (baseball/NL)
Florida Panthers (hockey/NHL)
The Floridians (basketball/ABA)

Teams like the Texas Rangers, Florida Marlins, Florida Panthers, and the old California Angels (now corrected to be the Los Angeles Angels) all have competing franchises in the same states (Houston Astros, Tampa Bay Rays, Tampa Bay Lightning, Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego Padres, Oakland Athletics, and San Francisco Giants). The Marlins are moving into their new baseball stadium next year in downtown Miami and will change their name to the Miami Marlins, a much more pleasant-sounding name that actually was the former minor league team's name before Miami was awarded a major league franchise.

I don't understand why the Patriots felt the need to change their name from Boston to New England: it is almost a "given" that Boston major league sports teams are naturally followed in New England states anyway.

Perhaps the Denver franchise called itself "Colorado" because "Denver Rockies" sounds a lot like the old ABA team "Denver Rockets" (which changed their nickname to "Nuggets" when accepted into the NBA in order to avoid conflicts with that league's already-established San Diego/Houston Rockets franchise). Besides, Colorado + Rockies makes sense.

I also get the fact that "Texas" is indispensable to its nickname "Rangers". But the name still implies some following even in the Houston area. On the other hand, Houston's NFL franchise did a payback of sorts when it was nicknamed "Texans".

And although I'm not cool with the Vikings, I can understand using "Minnesota" in conjunction with its nickname "Twins", which refers to the "twin cities" of Minneapolis and St. Paul. If you're going to identify yourself with TWO cities, then I suppose you might as well bring in the rest of the state!

Perhaps the strangest of all these was the old ABA franchise The Floridians. Formerly called the Miami Floridians (still an awful name), they sought to survive as a viable franchise by playing a handful of games in the Tampa area. Hence the strange name change.

Back before there were any Florida teams in Major League Baseball, the general regional team that fans supported was the Atlanta Braves. Now there was no need for the Braves to call themselves the "Deep South Braves". Just as virtually all of the state of Wisconsin follows its Green Bay Packers in football and doesn't need or want them called the "Wisconsin Packers", naming a franchise for a vast region or state is meaningless, and often a bit arrogant if other teams are located in the area.

Naturally, in college sports it is different because state universities go by the name of the institutions and not a specific location (unless the school in question is a branch). Hence, "Florida Gators" (for the University of Florida) is appropriate, not "Gainesville Gators" (although that sounds cooler).

My Fitness Training Of Late

I remember that at this time last year I was focusing on running as my one big fitness activity, trying then to work around the sweltering hot summer weather predominant here in northern Florida. This year I have diversified a little, adding swimming and some cross-training in the weight room into the mix. And I am still dealing with the hot and humid weather, although thankfully (as you can see from the picture above, taken at my local Magnolia Parke Starbucks) we have lately been getting a lot of rain to quench those obnoxious forest fires that had been causing the stinky smoky haze for the previous few weeks. That haze has all but disappeared, and the record high temperatures earlier this month have abated as well, leaving unpleasant enough conditions to deal with anyway. To counteract the heat and humidity, I have been spending some of my workouts at my local YMCA's workout room, which they call the "Wellness Center" (as opposed to their other places that are devoted to sickness, I suppose).

Last Thursday (6/23), I got up and out early to the YMCA pool to find an open spot in which to swim. I swam about 150 meters straight, alternating as usual between freestyle and my "easy" backstroke. Friday (6/23) I slept in and hurried down to the YMCA to run on the treadmill. I managed a "feel good" 4.1 mile run at a time of 35:51 before I had to stop and get ready for work. Saturday (6/24) I was back in the Wellness Center, this time using the elliptical cross-trainer for 35 minutes (level 12-15 resistance). Sunday I went back again to the treadmill, covering 7.0 miles at a time of 58:39 and increasing my speed up to a 7:30/mile pace at the end. Another "feel good" run. Yesterday I managed to drag myself out of bed at get back to the pool, which was more crowded (uh-oh), even at 6:30 AM. I swam 300 meters straight this time, using my usual format. I'm optimistic about getting my distance higher and improving my form. Today I tried a late-morning road run around my neighborhood. It was brutal, with the temperature being 80 and the humidity 81% at the start. Originally intending to cover my course of 7.18 miles, I had to cut it short at 5.69 miles due to the adverse conditions. My time was a typically paced 52:39. My recovery from the run seems to be going pretty well.

Last year at this time I think I was running some longer distances outside, but I was generally resting on the days between runs instead of cross-training. Also, I was waiting until the humidity had dropped considerably, even if it meant running in 90+ degree conditions. So I can't really tell whether I'm doing better or worse than before. But the good news I have to report is that neither my old IT band injury or the recent top-left foot pain has bothered me at all during my workouts, regardless of whatever I have chosen to do recently...

Bond is Back

Well, it's about time! I was beginning to wonder if James Bond movies had been banned from TV for their often embarrassing political incorrectness, but no...the SciFi Channel is showing Goldeneye and Casino Royale today. Yippee!

Goldeneye was Pierce Brosnan's first of four movies as Bond, and in my opinion, his best. Sean Bean, forever etched in fantasy movie aficionados' hearts as the flawed-but-courageous character Boromir in Lord of the Rings, plays a great bad guy. And for almost pure, sadistic evil, there may be no character in the entire James Bond series to rival Xenia Onatopp, portrayed by Famke Janssen.

Casino Royale, an original Ian Fleming story (albeit obviously modified to fit the early 21st century) that was perverted in 1965 into a horrible Bond farcical movie with the same name, introduced one of my favorite Bond actors in Daniel Craig. Gone, though, were the often very humorous characters of Q and Miss Moneypenny. Then again, Craig's Bond isn't quite as much of a "kidder" as his predecessors. To add a touch of continuity between the Brosnan and Craig movies, Bond's boss M, played by Judy Dench, was retained.

Sci-Fi picked the two best James Bond movies of the last six made to show today. But still, to me that's stretching the genre of science fiction a bit.

Is there a "spy shows" channel around? Just think of the possibilities: Bond, the Bourne trilogy, Austin Powers, Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Prisoner, Secret Agent, The Avengers, Mission Impossible, Three Days of the Condor, Marathon Man, the Flint movies, the Harry Palmer movies, the Matt Helm movies, Get Smart, Honey West, I Spy, just to scratch the surface...

Exotic Scripts Impede My Language Study

One thing that has greatly impeded my study of certain languages has been difficult scripts. Even after mastering the writing and recognition of Arabic letters, it is still well-nigh impossible to determine how an unfamiliar word sounds just going by the writing, as short vowels are routinely omitted. Both Chinese and Japanese rely on ideographic characters (the former exclusively) that one already needs to know all about beforehand. And Japanese characters can be even more problematic, with their pronunciation varying widely depending on the context in which they appear and which words they are forming with other characters and the Japanese kana syllabary. But even beyond these seemingly insurmountable difficulties, to me it is very annoying to be slowed down in my drive to get a good sense of a language's flow and build up vocabulary and skill in its grammar while stumbling through a foreign script. For other languages like Korean and Hindi do have reasonably phonetic scripts but still impede my progress since I am so attuned to the Latin script.

So what should I do? For now, at least, I feel like continuing my painstakingly slow efforts with Chinese characters, but also focus my studies in general on texts providing romanized transliterations of the aforementioned "problem" languages. Later, I can tackle their scripts with a greater knowledge of what I expect to read.

With Russian's Cyrillic writing system (which I learned in 1976 and have used regularly ever since), this isn't a problem since I am quite adept in it on its own terms. But with the other scripts, well...the hurdles are awfully high and I'm not getting any younger.

Just keep in mind that language is intrinsically primarily oral as opposed to the written, its secondary form. Whatever helps the learner to better learn the spoken language, with its thousands of words that have to be learned to the point where they are recognizable during the ordinary flow of speech, along with unfamiliar grammatical rules (and the ever-present exceptions), is to be promoted.

Two Types of Rx Ads

There are two different types of ads I often see on TV these days that feature prescription medicines. One type promotes a newly introduced prescription drug suggesting to the potential user its benefits, while also indicating some of the drug's negative side effects (which sometimes includes "death"). The viewer is then urged to go to his or her physician and ask for the advertised drug.

Another type of ad also features prescription medicines, but in a much more negative light. These are the class-action lawsuit spots put out by law firms suing prescription companies over some of the nastier side effects of some medicines (also sometimes including "death"). The lawyers claim that anyone joining in on the suit won't have to pay them any fees if they lose, but I never hear them say whether the judge in the court won't force participants suing the companies to pay for court costs and the defendant's expenses. Of course, some of the cases have already been decided for the plaintiff and there is no risk of this happening, just an open invitation to sign up and join in on the spoils!

I have never felt at ease with the idea of medically untrained individuals choosing their own prescription medicine. Isn't this ignorance of medicine supposed to be the very reason they are going to a physician in the first place? Then again, I also realize that medical doctors probably don't know all that much about the actual drugs being hawked to them by aggressive salespeople (I almost always see one around whenever I'm paying my doctor a visit).

And to be perfectly blunt, although I know that certain prescription medicines are essential to maintaining some patients' health and even life, I wonder to myself (and now to you) how really necessary (or even desirable) many of them are. And how much of their sales are due to a manufactured, artificial sense of need created by advertising and the profit motive.

Late Night Stargazing

Last night after work I was at home "unwinding" in front of the TV set when I decided to walk around my backyard in the dark. Once I was outside, after noticing how really badly the lawn needed mowing, I decided to move the bench that was on the back porch over into the middle of the yard. Then I lied down on it, facing the sky above.

Where I live, the city lights aren't overpowering but still inhibit star gazing to the point where being able to see 5th magnitude stars is problematic. Still, at about 1:30 AM the sky was studded with stars. I instantly recognized the constellations (I was oriented toward the north): Hercules, with its trademark "Keystone" asterism on the left, and Draco's dragonhead beneath it to the north. Above Hercules I could make out the northernmost stars of Ophiuchus, a constellation that resembles Jabba the Hut when traditionally drawn and which technically should have been the 13th sign of the Zodiac (scholar William Harwood believes there were originally 13 signs and Ophiuchus was one of them). Overhead and to the right were the three great summer constellations of Lyra, Cygnus, and Aquila, which respectively contain the stars composing my own asterism that I call the "Summer Triangle": Vega, Deneb, and Altair. Beyond these on the right, to the east, was the murky, darker section of the fall sky introducing Pegasus. To the west, beyond Hercules, was Bootes and Corona Borealis, and then trees obscuring my view. And turning my head down toward the house, I could see the Big Dipper asterism of the constellation Ursa Major, sideways with its handle up and spilling its imaginary contents onto my roof.

As I watched the sky, I noticed that Vega was only a few degrees from being directly overhead. And then I saw something I hadn't witnessed in quite a while. A bright, slow-moving meteor, beginning at about the northern fringe of "Jabba", streaked across the sky eastward, ending just a few degrees west of Altair.

All of this brought back memories of me as a kid in the 1960's in Hollywood, Florida, when I would also venture out at night into my backyard and observe the night sky, full it seemed of stars, summer lightning, fireflies, meteors, and the thick, overpowering smell of jasmine everywhere!

Quizlet: a Good Site for Learning

A while back, my wife Melissa recommended to me a website she had come across that is a handy studying aid. Called Quizlet, it is a directory of different curricula submitted by the public, with various ways offered for students to self-quiz. There are many different categories of study topics offered, but I am particular to the language section. I take whichever language I want to practice my vocabulary from and choose a submission that contains what I deem to be an appropriate word list for me. Then I hit the "scatter" option on Quizlet and practice matching that language's words with their English equivalents. It's very easy to access, extremely flexible, and broad in the choices offered. I come away from sitting at Quizlet for about 30 minutes with the feeling that I have given my brain a good workout and that I have enhanced my knowledge and ability in whichever areas I have practiced.

Quizlet has a free membership and allows visitors to sign in. If you follow this course, then you can compete for "best times" in some of their games. For me, though, I prefer to simply visit and "play" anonymously without signing up.

I have been able to review the Japanese hiragana and katakana syllabaries, the Hindi writing system, and various vocabulary lists in languages like Chinese, Vietnamese, Russian, German, Spanish, French, Japanese, Polish, Hindi, and Arabic. I do have a problem with the Arabic offerings, though. The printed Arabic text here excludes the short-vowel markers that often accompany school texts. Without them, I can only guess as to the exact pronunciation of a particular word (unless of course it is a word that I have already learned). And all of Quizlet's Arabic vocabulary, sad to say, omits those necessary (for me) short vowel markers (an analogous situation exists with Hebrew).

There are other areas in Quizlet to explore besides languages. Just try it and get what you can from it! And if you are well-versed in an area and have an altruistic heart, you might consider submitting your own material to Quizlet to aid others in their learning quests!

Early Morning Swimming and Running

This morning I tried something I had been meaning to do but was avoiding because...well, getting up very early in the morning doesn't exactly fit well with my work schedule. I got up anyway and went to my local YMCA pool at about 6:15 to swim a few laps. Make that VERY few laps, as I haven't been there in a while and need to build up my distance again.

The outside temperature was a pleasant 70 degrees, expected to rise to near 100 today (it is already 96, just six hours later in the early afternoon when I'm writing this). The humidity was high at 89%, but who cares about that when you're swimming? The main thing was that there were no children there. Not that many of them aren't awake at that time of day: their parents (at least the ones at home with them) are probably still snoozing away in bed. But there were a lot of adults there this morning, taking up 3-4 of the six available lanes. The only one in the shallow section was an elderly lady doing water aerobics, so I picked that area to swim in. It was a positive experience and I plan to try it again tomorrow morning (easier said than done).

Upon getting back home, I decided to go ahead and run some as well, taking advantage of the reasonable temperature. My 4.1 mile jaunt around the neighborhood was both shorter and slower than usual. I seem to run better when the humidity is low, regardless of the temperature. But when it's very hot, like it is now at 96, my recovery can be slower. Right now I feel pretty good, except for a some static pain on the top of my left foot that seems unaffected by running.

I want to get back to alternating my running and swimming every other day. Let's see if I can drag myself out of bed consistently to do this!

Super 8, 1979, & Pop Culture

The movie Super 8, directed by J.J. Abrams and produced by Steven Spielberg, brought back to me vivid memories of the personally tumultuous year of 1979. The movie's writers were very careful, down to the month, to capture the culture of the era, including the dress and general appearance of the people, ongoing news stories, technological trends, and popular music.

One element of this which touched me (because I was keenly aware of it at the time) was the conflict escalating in 1979 between the disco era and the encroachment that the two emerging branches of rock music called "punk" and "new wave" were beginning to make on disco's supremacy. It all came to a head in the early summer of that year when an unknown British group called The Knack released a single titled My Sharona. Suddenly My Sharona was the biggest hit around, played incessantly it seems on the radio and sung, air-strummed, and thudded to by people (mainly young people). Super 8 captured this phenomenon perfectly.

Another trend noticed by this noteworthy film was the personalizing of music listening through the use of portable cassette players with headphones. Now, of course, we have the iWhatever devices, with the next logical step to this trend being cranial implants, I suppose (read Tad Williams' wonderful science fiction classic series Otherland to see where we're going with this). But back then, Walkman cassete players were the big novelty.

I saw Super 8 this past Sunday and would like to offer some more thoughts about it without giving away the story. So prepare yourself for more Super 8 analysis from me...

Where's Bond?

I like watching escapist films, but not all. I like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings (both on TV lately), and tend to tune in whenever a Harry Potter flick is on. It matters not how many times I've seen these movies: I just like watching the same scenes over and over again. Apparently, a lot of other people feel the same way, else they wouldn't keep showing them like they do. But lately I have become a little disturbed about what might be the longest-running escapist adventure series around, and the fact that NOBODY'S showing it: James Bond.

As an honest popular culture history indicator, you can't beat James Bond. The first movie, Doctor No, came out in 1962 and ever since, movie after movie churns out displaying what the producers think represents what is "cool" in society at that time, some of which hasn't stood the test of time and today seems silly, crude, or even chauvinistic.

I wonder if perhaps one of the reasons the Bond series hasn't been on TV lately is how, especially in the earlier movies, women tended to be marginalized as sex objects. I find this awkward myself, but I also realize that at the time those movies were out, a lot of this was "mainstream" in society. I can be pious and self-righteous from my politically-correct perch in 2011 about this portrayal of women, but then again I wonder which movies I currently like will be panned in similar ways twenty, thirty years from now.

I like the action, humor, pretension-to-coolness, implausible plot twists, Bond portrayals by different actors, and probably most of all, the bad guys in these movies. I also think it's interesting how the international political situation has been played out in these films over the years. Early on, China was often seem as a villainous power manipulating the two superpowers (portrayed in the movies as the Soviet Union and Great Britain, with the U.S. serving as a dim-witted-but-strong ally of the brilliant Brits). Later, China's image was cleaned up considerably.

One theme that tended to make the James Bond films relevant through time, in spite of their often (very) anachronistic social conventions, was the depiction of the villains as sponsors and perpetrators of international terrorism. For decades, Bond movies featured independent terrorist organizations often pitting the superpowers against each other to their own benefit while in the real world much of what was going on then was part of a proxy conflict between those powers. Now, we see the major countries having to deal with independent groups that remind me in ways of the Bond villains.

But that's really a side issue for me. I just like watching the James Bond movies for fun! Bring 'em back!

Freckles

Freckles is our five-year old mixed breed dog we picked up as a puppy from Puppy Hill Farms, a local sanctuary for abandoned dogs. And yes, the lawn needs mowing!

Arab Culture Professor and Islamophobia

I have been carrying around with me an interesting article I tore out of May 24's Independent Florida Alligator. The article, written by Michael Sykes, is titled "Arab culture professor discusses fear of Muslims". And the first word in the article is "Islamophobia".

Stephen Sheehi is the University of South Carolina professor of Arabic and Arab culture who paid a visit to Gainesville's politically far-left Civic Media Center to speak and discuss this issue. So what is Islamophobia, anyway?

According to Sheehi, it is "an irrational fear or hatred of Islam and Muslims, one of the inherent racist tropes in America."

So with this one statement I could see the speaker's own inherent bias: when speaking about America per se (as opposed to other places), racism is inherent. But how about all of those wonderful Muslim countries out there? How tolerant are they of other religions? Not very. As a matter of fact, going by the horrible sectarian conflicts going on in several of them, they aren't even very tolerant of their fellow Muslims.

Sheehan went on, "Racism is the classic American way to divide and conquer. It is a linchpin in our society, unfortunately". Generally speaking, I sadly have to agree with him on this, but only in the broader sense of prejudice (not just racism). I see politicians all the time catering to prejudicial views about people of different demographic groups, be it "race", religion, gender, sexual preference, or nationality. Every presidential election sees conservatives place on the ballots in closely contested states referenda that would restrict gay rights, with the aim of motivating "their" voters to rush to the ballots (and vote for their presidential candidate as well). There is, I believe, some pandering to bigotry concerning undocumented Mexican immigrants, although the issue is much more complex. And look at the fuss some are making at GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's Mormon faith! But perhaps the most glaring example of what I see as prejudicial anti-Islamic sentiment is last year's widespread public objection to the so-called "ground zero" Muslim center to be built in Lower Manhattan, with some politicians jumping in to fan the flames of anger.

So yes, there is prejudice in America. But Sheehi is full of it if he thinks that prejudice is just an American fault: it permeates all of humanity. I would respect this man more were he to balance out his criticisms of our society with criticisms of the bigotry and intolerance festering within Islamic nations. For it is from that pool of bigotry that the terrorists have emerged who are responsible in large part for generating Islamophobia in America, Sheehi's high, holy, and smug opinions notwithstanding.

Another objection I had to Sheehi's argument was his categorizing prejudice against Islam in America as being racial in nature. Oh, I wasn't aware that there was such a thing as a Muslim race. Chinese Muslims are Chinese, Russian Muslims are Russian, Bosnian Muslims are Bosnian, Indonesian Muslims are Indonesian, Arab Muslims are Arab, and so on. Where is the race in that? No, I'll tell Professor Smug what I think the three main causes of anti-Islamic sentiment in this country are:

1) Terrorism. People don't want to die and they are afraid of other people committing violent acts in the name of Islam, duh. Acts like, for example, hijacking jets and flying them into buildings! No, terrorists may commit atrocities in the name of a faith but that doesn't make the faith itself culpable, so the negative reaction, while understandable, is still irrational and needs to be resisted. But this fear isn't racial in nature.

2) The predominant religion here is Christianity, a faith that largely sees itself as exclusive and in competition with Islam for adherents. Christians and Muslims typically see each other as being in error and on the wrong side of God with their beliefs. Like it or not, this creates the phenomenon in a country, where Christianity is the prevailing religion, of widespread disapproval of a competing, aggressively-spreading faith like Islam which, like Christianity, puts a lot of stock in increasing its number. So the "phobia" here isn't racist, but religious in nature. And Muslims who object need to take an honest look at countries where Islam is the established faith and see just how tolerant these places are to competing faiths.

3) Finally, there is a basic trait of being human that tends to insulate a group/tribe/clan/society against others who would change (or appear to change) that group's ideology and traditions, or establish a sense of authority from the outside. Call it the "invading horde syndrome" if you will and maybe there is a dose of racism involved. But it isn't all race and it isn't all American, either. All of humanity displays this behavior.

So sure, people need to be more accepting of practicing Muslims in this country. And by the same token, Muslims need to be more accepting of practicing non-Muslims in other lands. Anti-Islamic sentiment is NOT primarily racial in nature and America is NOT a singularly racist nation as opposed to all of the others. Racism exists, to be sure, but those from other lands need to also display some honesty in examining how this problem festers in their original homelands as well and not go around acting as if they are "above it all". They're not.

Coffee Drinker "Outed"

I suppose it eventually had to happen: after the recent strange closing of the very popular and crowded Starbucks down the road, many of their former customers have flocked to my own favorite Starbucks at Magnolia Parke in NW Gainesville. A number of times since then, I have experienced no available indoor seating. I would walk inside, examine the situation, and then walk right back out. Today, though, I decided to go back to my old custom of sitting outside.

This is interesting today in that, earlier on, there was that obnoxious, smelly smoky haze everywhere. But now it's gone and only typical summer heat rules. That's O.K.: I'm a Floridian, no point in whining about the heat, right?

My Run Against Adversity

Today I had a choice: play it wise and cautious with my running, or gut it out Karno-style. I chose the latter.

In case you're wondering, "Karno" is Dean Karnazes, an ultra-distance runner who has written some inspiring books on his interest and about whom I have written on this blog. His message is to run through the pain and adversity in order to achieve progress. Well, today I had some pain and adversity.

For one, the top of my left foot ached because of painful swelling caused by a shoe I had been wearing that didn't fit right. I wondered whether I should just wait a few days before running again (in different shoes, of course). For another, after I had made my decision to go ahead and run anyway, I stepped out of my front door and got a whiff of that horrid smoky haze that comes and goes due to local forest fires. It didn't seem overwhelming, so in spite of my reservations I set out on my run.

During the run, the aching never got worse, and afterwards the foot seems no worse for wear. And I think my lungs were able to hold up as well. I ran my usual distance of 7.18 miles in my usual range of time (1:06:44).

The past few runs of mine have not been pleasant ones, and I can chiefly blame the weather: hot, humid, smoky. Did you know that yesterday's official high in Gainesville was 102?! This was easily a new record, and scorching days are forecast in the near future. And the fires continue to burn...

A Beef About Business Today

I would like to register a complaint.

When I walk into a restaurant, store, coffee shop, or any other business establishment, I have certain standards as to how I want to be treated by the staff there. As part of the unspoken contract that I want honored, I expect the employees to focus their attention and behavior on treating me with respect, showing a friendly attitude attuned to my interests regarding their business. I don't want to have to deal with an individual who wears their personal narrative and feelings out on their sleeve. It is not my "job" to sympathize with how bad a day an employee is having, nor to I have a responsibility to make an employee personally approve of me in order to be treated with dignity as a paying customer. I enter a business establishment with a friendly, respectful attitude toward those working there and with the intention of spending my money on goods, and expect reciprocal treatment. It is not my job to enhance the personal lives of employees there by making myself interesting to them or providing them a source of entertainment.

There is a basic standard of public behavior in businesses nowadays that I very rarely see practiced anymore. Sure, I get a lot of perfunctory "politeness", but it is often quashed by facial and body language that says "I don't want to be here and your presence annoys me". Also, I am sick to death of sitting in a restaurant or coffee shop and hearing the employees there loudly talk about their personal lives, or even worse, customers that they like or dislike.

I understand that good help is sometimes hard to come by these days, but is the state of general social behavior so bad in my country that we are forced with having to put up with disrespectful and unprofessional behavior in the places where we most want to be treated with respect? That's poor business!