About Yesterday's Florida-Alabama Football Game

Yesterday, at least for a while as late as the third quarter, the University of Florida football team was keeping up with highly ranked Alabama, with the score knotted at one point at 21.  But the Gators were even with the Tide due to three turnovers that they all converted into touchdowns.  Florida quarterback Jeff Driskel had horrible passing statistics for the game, going 9 for 28 with 1 touchdown pass and 2 interceptions.  Yikes!  In contrast, Alabama quarterback Blake Sims, along with wide receiver Amari Cooper, had breakout career performances, heavily contributing to the most yards ever given up by a Gator defense in a single game.  After that 21-21 tie, Alabama protected the football while grinding out three more touchdowns and shutting down Florida's offense.  They were clearly the better team.

After the game I began to see some discontent with Florida coach Will Muschamp in the social media, some even calling for his firing.  I don't get that at all: Florida played Alabama with great tenacity and spirit; they were always big underdogs in this game and few expected them to win it...although I thought (as expressed in yesterday's article) that they had a shot.  Well, they might well have had a chance if the Tide had kept coughing up the football, but that was not to be.  This was a throwaway game for Florida...they don't need it to accomplish what could very well turn out to be a very successful season.  Florida needs more than anything to win against the other six teams in their own East Division.  If they accomplish that...no small feat...that will more than likely give them the division title, the first under Muschamp.  First things first, though: the Gators will need to get by Tennessee in their next game...while qb Driskel and the Florida defensive secondary need to regain the confidence that has been severely attacked over the last two games...

Gators Have a Shot at Beating 'Bama Today

In just a few hours at this writing, the unranked-but-still-undefeated University of Florida football team has an opportunity to return to its glory days of the Urban Meyer era as it plays #2 ranked Alabama in Tuscaloosa, with the kickoff slated at 3:30 PM.  Alabama isn't as strong as it has been in recent years, and the Gators are much improved from last year's dismal 4-8 team.  That having been said, Alabama is favored to win, and should win...but with that weird-shaped football and the way it bounces funny and sometimes unpredictably squirts out of players' grasps, anything might happen up there this afternoon.  I just hope that Florida quarterback Jeff Driskel has his confidence back with his passing, which had faltered measurably in the first half of last week's Kentucky game but came back at the end.  Also, I'd like to see their tenacious defense return and hope that their vulnerability to Kentucky in the second half was due to the opposition's talents and not their own shortfalls...

Pictures Carry Too Much Weight in Today's Society

Recently, much has been made of professionals football's Baltimore Ravens star player Ray Rice and how he slugged his then-fiancee (and now wife) in an elevator in Las Vegas.  NFL commissioner Roger Goodell levied a two-game suspension on Rice, after which the player publicly and contritely apologized...alongside his wife, who also curiously expressed regret at her own involvement in the incident...despite the fact that she was the victim.  There was a video surveillance tape circulating around the media showing Ray Rice dragging his unconscious fiancee out of the elevator and standing there with her lying on the floor.  The video sparked outrage at Goodell's light punishment of Rice, but the matter seemed destined to be finished with...until another video was released, this one in the elevator showing Rice slugging and knocking out his fiancee.  Suddenly, it seemed that everyone in the country exploded into rage over it all, even though it had already been established that Rice had hit his fiancee.  But apparently simply KNOWING this did not seem to make a very deep impression on people...but SEEING it did.

The same can be said for the recent videotaped beheadings of western journalists by ISIS in Iraq/Syria: it appears that the victims' deaths, while tragic and uncalled for, were not the main driving force in radically focusing public opinion so vehemently against this insurgent Muslim extremist militarized group: it was seeing it on video that did it. And now we're on the verge of extensive and extended military involvement in the area against ISIS...

The point to the above examples is not that the information wasn't already out there: it was available, but people did not accept it in its deeper reality and significance until they saw visual evidence: words were not enough.  But I already knew this anyway, judging from my experiences on Facebook for the past few months...

I have noticed that certain Facebook users are in the habit of digging up from the Internet "posters" dressing up often trite and even objectionable messages as some kind of wisdom and presenting them with a graphically designed background...such presentations inevitably elicit "likes" from other users, even when the message has a hateful nature to it. But would the same messages be even read, much less "liked", had they simply been presented as unadorned text? I seriously doubt it. From my own experience with putting links on Facebook with this blog's entries, I have noticed a much higher level of reaction whenever (usually rarely) I insert a picture into an article.  Suddenly my "writing" somehow apparently becomes more readable...   

Behind the Times Using Smart Phone Innovations

When the latest editions of various computer or cell phone gizmos come out from time to time, some people rush out to buy the new products, even to the point of camping out in line the night before they first go on sale in order to get a jump on everyone else.  I'm in the opposite group of folks, who tend to reluctantly join in on new innovations just around the time when something else is coming up to make them obsolete.  Such is the case with these "smart" phones.  I had gone for the longest time on my cell phone without any Internet, finally getting around a couple of years ago to putting it on a relatively primitive Blackberry.  But I upgraded to a more "current" phone on my account, for practically nothing, a few weeks ago and am now in the process of trying to figure how to use it.  I am pretty happy, though, about my Internet access, which is now lot faster and easier to view than with that old Blackberry clunker.  And I have been able to transfer to my new phone an application that I had been heretofore been using a lot on my laptop computer: Quizlet.

Quizlet is a website that allows users to learn and practice material from just about any field that one can dream up...with me, my focus of interest is foreign languages.  With Quizlet, I can study and practice vocabulary lists from many different languages.  The application on my phone has a feature that allows me to practice matching words with their meanings, and I've been availing myself of this a lot in recent days.  How far this will actually take me in learning the languages I'm studying is another matter, though...but at least I am spending more time, interspersed more throughout my day, in studying them...

It looks as if Apple is now coming out with a "smart" wristwatch with a built-in computer to mimic a lot of what we get now with smart phones. I like that innovation, but I think that with the tiny, limiting screen that necessarily goes with a watch's small face, I'd rather wait until they develop eyeglasses that have computers built into them, providing more full screens to interact with. But for now, I think I'll just revel in my ready access to Quizlet, ESPN, Wikipedia, and, oh yes, that cool flashlight that my new cell phone provides...

Misery Loves Company: Georgia-South Carolina Game Lightning Delay

I was planning to watch a little of the Georgia-South Carolina college football game today, scheduled to start at 3:30 this afternoon.  But it's now past 4:30 and the game officials just evacuated the field after the players had come back and the fans were sitting in the stands expecting the game to finally begin.  The TV announcer just said that lightning strikes and stormy conditions had caused the delay, but that these conditions were predicted to hang around the Columbia, South Carolina area as late as midnight.  Now I don't feel so bad about that opening Florida game being delayed and finally cancelled for the same reason.  But there's no way that they will let today's crucial Southeastern Conference East Division game be cancelled: they'll reschedule it if the lightning doesn't abate...like they rescheduled 2001's Florida-Tennessee game, which was scheduled on the Saturday following the 9/11 attacks but was postponed until the end of that year.  But I don't think this Bulldogs-Gamecocks contest will suffer either postponement or cancellation: they have several more hours to get the game in than did Florida and their opponent Idaho, which, after all, was an evening game to begin with.

What I find bizarre is that CBS, which is broadcasting the Ga-SC game, is using this delay to replay the Alabama-Auburn game from last year!  You might think that they could at least come up with an alternate game that's actually going on right now.  In any event, when the scheduled game finally gets underway, I'll be pulling for Steve Spurrier and South Carolina to beat them Dawgs...

Just Finished Reading The Cove and The Maze by Catherine Coulter

Recently I thought it would be a good idea to explore the works of  a different popular fiction writer.  So many to choose from...almost at random, I picked Catherine Coulter, who turns out to be quite prolific.  One of her series, focusing on the FBI, intrigued me...so I read the first two relatively short books: The Cove and The Maze, published in the late 1990s. Although I felt that The Cove was the better book, both seemed very similar in that they involve spunky young women, with dysfunctional family backgrounds, finding themselves each immersed in a murder mystery involving a family member.  They each meet up with a burly, brave, and discerning young FBI agent.  The two, naturally, irresistibly fall head over heels in love with each other as they work together to unravel the mystery.  The Cove focuses on a mysterious West Coast town populated wholly by senior citizens who seem to be guarding a sinister secret while travelers passing through seem to be disappearing.  In The Maze, there is a serial killer who torments his victims by forcing them to play his "game", which involves them making their way through an intricate maze he has devised.

Although both The Cove and The Maze in a way seem like a repeating formula, it did occur to me that they might transfer well to the big screen.  Who knows, maybe there have already been film adaptations of one or both of these  stories...I'm probably not the best Internet researcher around, but you're welcome to check for yourself.  There are a few more of these "FBI" books that Catherine Coulter has written since, and they are easy reading, although once again I emphasize that the characters seem to follow a predictable formula. Still, the author did create some suspense in these whodunnit mysteries, and the protagonists do display a kind of charm...

Where I Was On 9/11

Although I have slackened off a bit from the practice in recent years, I used to regularly sign the "overtime-desired list" at my job, which for the most of my 27-year tenure at the post office, has been spent working the late night, early morning "graveyard" shift.  Usually I have gotten off from work around 7:30 to 8 AM...just in time to combat heavy morning rush hour and school traffic...groan.  But one morning 13 years ago, I was spared this fate when, to my immediate chagrin (although I ultimately WANTED the extra work and pay) I was told to stay a couple of hours longer in the morning to process some mail, along with the next shift's work crew, on the flat-sorting machine.  Oh, well, I was tired but I HAD signed that overtime-list, I said to myself, as I went on my allotted break into what my post office humorously calls a "cafeteria" (tables and seats and a few vending machines...and a television).  I got myself a much-needed coffee and plopped into one of the hard plastic seats in the back of the room to drink it and shut my eyes for a few minutes.  But as I sat there, I noticed that the few others in the room were riveted to the TV, which was showing a skyscraper with a big, gaping and smoking hole near its top.  I asked around and, apparently, a small plane had just accidentally collided with one of the World Trade Center towers, resulting in the incredible picture. I finished my break and returned to work, remarking to my colleague Tim Thrasher what had happened.  He then suddenly raced off to see for himself...and returned momentarily with new, very sobering news: a second plane, a jet airliner, had hit the other tower.  Instantly, we all knew that this was a terrorist attack.  Tom Metz, another "flat-sorter", asked me who I thought was responsible, and I replied with the immediately obvious: Bin Laden.

I finished my overtime shift that morning and was about to leave when somebody came running in to announce that the Pentagon had been hit.  Then I knew that it was time to quickly get my ass home and watch the TV...which I did in time to see the North Tower collapse (the South Tower had already done so by this time). While all this was going on, nobody except the perpetrators (and probably only a few of them) knew of the scope of these attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda on September 11, 2001.  So there was a lot of fear and anxiety regarding what would happen next.  But as the day wore on, it became more clear that there were four passenger jets hijacked that morning, as it was later revealed, by Arab Muslim-extremist terrorists, chiefly from Saudi Arabia and Egypt, with the intention of hitting prominent (and symbolic) American structures.  The attack that failed, the fabled "Let's Roll" Flight 93, had been meant to hit either the US Capitol building or the White House itself, but had reportedly been thwarted by its passengers who, through their cell phones, had learned that other planes had been flown into buildings and that this wasn't a simple hijacking to patiently sit through, endure, and be eventually released...so they staged a bold uprising against the hijackers.  That flight ended in a crash in an open field in western Pennsylvania...

I appreciate how MSNBC continues, each year on 9/11, to show NBC's coverage of the admittedly horrible events as they happened, with announcers Matt Lauer, Katie Couric, and others weighing in on it all. Now, in the evening on 9/11/14, the news stations are talking about the 9/11 attacks. But unfortunately, other than the History Channel, I saw very little else on TV this morning (other than some short segments) to mark the attacks...which should never be forgotten...   

Reunion "Reservations"

My high school just held its 40th year Class of 1974 reunion in Fort Lauderdale.  I had gotten my name included in the reunion's Facebook group and was interested in the various posts and information.  Thanks to those who put in the effort to make it all happen! I think a concept like getting together after a few years to touch base is a good idea in general...but specifically for me, not this reunion.  For one, I also went to school with kids from the Classes of '73 and '75: but the reunion of course left them out, as high school reunions typically do.  For another, my high school graduating class, depending on which section of my yearbook I look at, had somewhere between 410 and 480 students.  Many of these I had never spoken to (nor had they spoken to me) and most of the others were just classmates that I never got to know very well.  Not being by nature a very gregarious person, I only had a small number of friends when I went to high school...I simply was not into the social scene and I cared little about my own popularity among others. From what I could gather from the reunion's Facebook site, there were a few old friends planning to go the reunion and, yes, I suppose it would have been nice to meet back up with them.  That being said, had I attended it I would have felt myself either (mostly) among strangers or among a smaller number of (hopefully former) enemies, for a few of the attendees that I did know would definitely fit into categories like "bully" or "snob" (or much worse, a malevolent combination of the two)...or at least they did forty years ago.  I'd like to think that they all grew up out of their own hangups, as I humbly would like to think that I have also grown some, but why should I go to the expense of time and money to go down there and see?  No thank you, the people I have now, here around me in my present life,...ZERO years from the past...are the ones who are the most real and meaningful to me. Maybe forty years from now I'll try to have a reunion with THEM! Should I happen to run into someone from my high school past, be they old friend or old foe (or old stranger or old slight acquaintance), the doors are always open from my side for resumed friendship or any needed reconciliation...but, to borrow a couple of titles from old rock songs, I do NOT have a delusional "Kodachrome" memory of any "Glory Days" from my high school experiences. Some of it was good, some of it bad...but for the most part it was just LIFE...pretty much the same way I look upon the present...

Miami Stomps New England in Second Half on Opening Day

I was following the opening weekend NFL games off and on earlier Sunday afternoon.  It looked for a while that the Jacksonville Jaguars were a lot better than the experts had predicted when they ran up an early 17-0 lead over the heavily-favored Philadelphia Eagles.  But the expected order of events prevailed as the Eagles mounted an impressive comeback and won easily, 34-17.  Meanwhile, I kept hearing updates on what was happening between my "main" team, the Miami Dolphins, and their nemesis the New England Patriots.  That game was going downhill as well, with the Patriots building up a 17-7 lead and everything looking as if this might also turn into a rout. I took a break from following the football action for a while to do other things and didn't return until the ending of the Carolina-Tampa Bay game, around 7 pm.  Unfortunately, the Buccaneers blew a comeback attempt in the last two minutes of that game with a fumble and lost a close one to the Panthers.  It didn't look good at all for my Florida teams...but wait, how did that Dolphins game turn out...that is, by how much did they get blown away? 

When I saw the final score on my cell phone, I had to do a double take: Miami 33, New England 20!  It seems that after the Dolphins had given the Patriots a 20-10 lead, largely through their own turnovers, they turned around in the second half and dominated the game.  Suddenly, the one fact that Miami had won, over New England no less, rendered the unfavorable outcomes of the other games meaningless to me.  I guess there's a lesson here: I have my preferences with the other teams, to be sure, but I am truly a fan of just one, for better or for worse: the Miami Dolphins.  Maybe this will be the year they turn it around after so long in mediocrity...

Ran Fourteen Miles on Saturday

Saturday I managed to run, over the course of the entire day, 14 miles...a feat I hadn't accomplished going back possibly to 2011.  It's true that I've run a few 13.1-mile half marathon races in the intervening time, but whenever I did that, I was done with running for the day!  Saturday's big mileage didn't occur in a single run, though: I ran several times, with the longest run being for 5 miles.  Still, today I feel a little sore from the running, although this is something normal, to be expected. I'm going to continue stepping up the mileage to see how much improvement I can make in the next couple of weeks: races are coming up in October!

Happy Anniversary, Melissa My Love

To my wonderful and beautiful sweetheart Melissa, Happy 28th Anniversary!  You are such a blessing to me and the light of my life!

Just Finished Reading Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov

I have just finished reading another one of Fyodor Dostoyevky's novels, this one being his most celebrated, as well as his final one: The Brothers Karamazov, from 1880 (I read the English translation).  This is one of those stories that I have to stand back from and let simmer for a while in my mind, for there are many different themes interwoven through the narrative.  The basic thread of the book, though, is the relationship between three (and possibly four) adult brothers along with their difficult father, set in Russia in the author's time of the late nineteenth century. The father, Fyodor Pavlovich, is a ne'er do-well hedonistic philanderer who has appropriated his wealth through his marriages and not by his own toil. He has completely neglected his three sons, Dmitri ("Mitya") from his first marriage and Ivan and Alexia ("Alyosha") from his second, even to the point of not immediately recognizing the last when meeting up with him in adulthood.  The main force driving the story's narrative is the embittered relationsip between irresponsible, capricious, and often violent Dmitri and his suspicious father over money and their mutual love interest, the enticing Grushenka. In counterpoint, Ivan is intellectual, atheistic, and cynical while Alyosha is fervently Christian, patient, and benevolent toward the welfare of others.  These three brothers combine in the story to produce an ongoing argument about religion, morality, and ethics, expressed by the brothers' own actions as well as their own words between themselves and other characters. 

As was the case with Crime and Punishment, the other Dostoyevsky novel I read (and which I prefer), the resolution of The Brothers Karamazov focuses on a murder and the determination of the guilty party.  It is here that I retreat I bit from this review, since, if you the reader haven't yet read this book, then I don't want to give away who the murderer and murdered are...but the book's ending brought back memories of my own jury duty experiences and how both the defense and prosecution sought to obtain my "vote" through psychological manipulation as much as through the actual evidence and testimony. 

There are other crucial characters in this story, such as Pavel Smedyakov, the possibly illegitimate son of Fyodor Pavlovich, Kateria, who was technically engaged to Dmitri but with whom Ivan falls in love, and Father Zosima, who is Alyosha's spiritual leader at the monastery he attended.  Also, there is a subplot involving a poor family that Alyosha ministers to, along with the boys in the immediate neighborhood...

What you have just read is a gross oversimplification of The Brothers Karamazov.  So I'll just leave it at that, for now...maybe as the days and weeks pass, I'll write a bit more about this interesting and profound book...

English Soccer: Stoke City Impressive in Upset Road Win

I was watching a Barclay's English Premier League soccer match on TV this morning after getting home from work.  Normally, one would think that sporting events don't have much of a place in a time of the day when people are eating breakfast or traveling to work or school, but you have to consider that in England (and Europe), our mornings are their afternoons.  So on the weekends, NBC Sports broadcasts live league play at this time of day, although this morning's match was a rebroadcast from August 30.  The teams were Manchester City, last year's league champion, and Stoke City, which finished the previous season buried in the standings along with most of the field.  I expected this contest, which was a home game for Manchester City, to go their way by a couple of goals, at the very least.  Instead, I was treated to a clinic of excellent soccer defense...and a goal that reminded me of how I used to score in soccer as a kid...

It can be pretty intimidating when observing how English professional soccer is played in such a continuously agressive manner, in contrast to what I often see in Major League Soccer in the United States.  There seems to be a lot of standing around in MLS games, but the action in England is usually constant, ferocious and fast!  Stoke City produced a masterpiece against Manchester City as they checked attack after attack from their opponent.  But it was their one scoring driving that brought back memories for me.  During the second half of the match, Stoke City's Mame Biram Diouf took a pass after a turnover deep in his own territory and, by himself, took the ball all the way downfield and outmaneuvered the defenders, culminating in an easy close-up goal kick.  That's what I used to do whenever we played soccer (albeit with a much lower level of skill).  Diouf also did something on this drive familiar to me: when someone came up to challenge him for the ball, he just kicked it ahead a few yards...and then outran his opponent to catch up with it and continue the drive...

I know that soccer is supposed to be all about teamwork, but I never got the more formal education about position playing for the sport.  To me, it was all about wresting control of the ball, running very, very fast, and then punching it hard through the goal...nothing very complicated in that!     

My August 2014 Running Report

As I had mentioned in an article a few days ago, my running has picked up a bit in August, with me almost doubling July's mileage total.  I ran a total of 135.2 miles, running on 29 of August's 31 days.  My longest single run of the month was for 5.3 miles.

August was a turnaround from July, as I see myself growing stronger and increasing in endurance.  I'm beginning to look forward to the fall, when there should be some good opportunities to participate in some local races...

Florida Football Season Opener "Terminated"

Earlier this past week, Melissa and I discussed whether going to see the University of Florida's 2014 season opening game against Idaho was something we wanted to do.  After mulling over it for a little while and considering the length of the game, the transportation hassles involved in getting there, parking, and getting back, and the possibly uncomfortable seating there, we opted out...at least for this time around.  After all, as we reasoned it out, the weather will most likely be more pleasantly cooler later in the fall...even though this game WAS scheduled for the evening.  Yet, even with that we both noted the tendency for late afternoon and evening thunderstorms in our area.  As it turned out, we were both very thankful that we had stayed home...

Late Saturday afternoon, an almost continuous string of rain and lightning strikes descended on Gainesville, lasting for several hours.  The game's start kept being delayed and delayed, until finally at close to 10 pm, they finally allowed the kickoff.  The Gators pulled off a spectacular 60-yard return, but as the returner (appropriately named Showers) was tackled and was sliding about 10 yards further on the rain soaked field, lightning struck again and the field was quickly evacuated.  Not much later, the game was "terminated" and may or may not be rescheduled for later in the season.

One of the ESPN channels (on my local Cox channel 251) was going to broadcast the game, and it was here that I saw the frustration of the fans enduring the conditions out in the stands for so many hours.  Then Melissa brought up a pertinent point: if lightning was a threat for the players on the field, then why did they let people stay in the stands?  Or maybe I just happened to see on TV when they had just let people return to their seats...I deeply hope that was the case!  Anyway, it was almost heartbreaking at one point to see the Florida players, three hours after they were supposed to begin play, all bunched up together and enthusiastically jumping up and down as they began to finally pour out onto the field.  And the excitement after that long-awaited first play...only to be so suddenly and dismally squashed.  Oh well, those are the breaks.

If this game is simply cancelled and not rescheduled, then that's one almost certain victory that Florida won't be able to claim for itself this year.  It might make a difference as to whether they end up being bowl eligible, supposing they unexpectedly "stink up" this year and go 5-6...when they might have gone 6-6 and gotten invited to some insignificant postseason bowl.  But the way I see it, this washout may carry a couple of advantages for them.  For one, it reduces the chances for season-ending injuries for their players.  For another, this is an entire game for which Alabama coach Nick Saban will NOT have film available to study in preparation for his team's upcoming game against Florida later this month. And the Gators will still have a small college opponent next Saturday to help "ease" into the season, as they are accustomed to...

Overnight at Daytona Beach

We (Melissa, our son Will, and I) had a nice overnight stay here at the Hampton Inn in northern Daytona Beach on the ocean.  After the very stormy two evenings we just experienced in nearby Gainesville, we expected more of the same here.  Instead, the clouds parted and the skies have been clear...and the seas calm.  I even got to stargaze a bit from our eastern-facing balcony, noting the rising of the constellations Pegasus, Casseiopeia, and the great "summer triangle" of first-magnitude stars Vega, Deneb, and Altair.  Down below I observed other "points of light": beachcombers wandering around the beach with flashlights.  Melissa and I got up before sunrise and marveled at the beauty of the extraordinarily calm predawn ocean...along with the spectacular presence of Venus just above the horizon and Jupiter above it.  Later this morning I was walking on the beach with Will.  I remarked that usually there are a lot of people out running on the beach, but the humidity right then was so high that no one would dare undertake such a venture.  Immediately after I said this, an elderly man ran past me from behind....

Alphabet Soup of Continental Soccer Tourneys

CONCACAF, CONMEBOL, CAF, AFC, OFC, UEFA...these are the confederations of international soccer, organized on a continental level.

CONCACAF is the Confederation of North, Central American and  Caribbean Association Football.  It comprises what its protracted name suggests, as well as French Guinea, Guyana, and Suriname in South America.  But although CONCACAF has 41 member nations, for the purposes of focusing on the top teams in the various leagues, Mexico, Costa Rica, and the United States are easily the strongest countries.  Although the CONCACAF Gold Cup is held every two years to determine the overall national team champion, I am more interested in the CONCACAF Champions League, within which the top original league teams from the various nations compete annually.  These matches are interspersed throughout the regular season and create a sense of postseason excitement throughout the year.

The other confederation I'm starting to follow is the UEFA, or Union of European Football Associations, which naturally is the umbrella group for the various European leagues and which, like its North American counterpart, holds an annual Champions League with matches also interspersed throughout the regular season.  I just witnessed such a match on TV pitting Club Atletico de Madrid against Napoli (won by the former 3-1).  As a matter of fact, the overriding reason I am concentrating on the UEFA and CONCACAF is simply that they are the confederations whose teams I get to watch play on television. Univision has a Spanish language sports channel that shows many Mexican games and NBC Sports and ESPN have been showing MLS and European matches (especially of Barclay's Premier League in England).  There is a channel in Spanish showing Colombian soccer games, but that would cost more to watch and I have enough as it is...

I am gradually getting to know more how international soccer is run, according to the various leagues, tournaments, and the times that everyone seems to automatically transform into national teams and tourneys.  I like the league teams more, one of the reasons being that I don't care for the overwhelming sense of nationalism that permeates series like the World Cup.  Instead, I'm getting to know teams like Mexico's Cruz Azul, America, and Monterey...England's Chelsea, Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool, and Arsenal...Spain's Club Atletico (Madrid), Real Madrid, and Barcelona...and of course the United States' Seattle Sounders, Sporting Kansas City, LA Galaxy, and New York Red Bulls.  I do feel a bit disappointed, however, as I am missing out on a high level of soccer without access to Germany's Bundesliga...

Voted Today...and Past Regrets

Late this afternoon I finally got out to my voting precinct to continue my long string of participation in elections.  In this one, there was an assortment of races, some of them being party primaries (for governor, state attorney general, U.S. House of Representatives, county commission) and some non-partisan (judges and school board).  Except for the governor's race, I was probably less informed and prepared for this voting then any others in several years.  I picked up very little to help me from my local newspaper, the Gainesville Sun (which is turning out to be only useful in my household for its coupons, sales papers, list of local upcoming events, and puzzles section).  Besides, in regard to the judge races, how am I, with no legal background, supposed to feel qualified to rate the jurisprudential abilities of the candidates...and does a sitting judge automatically merit my rubber-stamp vote just because he or she managed to avoid scandal?  I voted anyway, for sometimes even when I AM well informed, it is still a matter of guesswork to an extent.  Sometimes it happens that candidates I voted for get elected and cause me to later regret my support...but then again, that's what reelections are all about!

I began voting for U.S. President in the 1976 election and have voted in every one since, save the 1980 election when I waited too late to register here in Alachua County.  I regret having missed it, though.  But I haven't regretted many of my nine votes for President over the decades...actually, I only regret one: my vote for George W. Bush in 2000.  I supported him then largely on the basis of his reputation for pragmatism and reaching across party lines as the governor of Texas, something I erroneously felt he would continue doing as the President.  But, as I said before, that's what reelections are about, and I supported Bush's opponent, Mr. Kerry, four years later...I still feel good about my 2004 vote but not about that election's outcome...

Just Finished Reading Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land

Robert Heinlein is one of the most renown science fiction writers of the twentieth century. Perhaps his most famous work is his 1961 novel Stranger in a Strange Land, which I just finished reading and which (according to Wikipedia) his wife said was inspired by Kipling's The Jungle Book story of how a boy brought up by animals adjusted to life among humans...only with Heinlein's story, the boy is brought up from birth by Martians and returned to Earth as a young man.  This character, going by the name Valentine Michael Smith, or simply "Michael", has a completely different take on life, death, sex, and society based on his upbringing.  The novel follows his "education" at what it means to be human through his small circle of human friends, who owe their fellowship with him to a ritual called the "sharing of water".  Michael is constantly seeking the deeper meaning of what he perceives around him through a process he calls "grokking".  Sometimes he puts himself into a deathlike trance while he tries to "grok" something.  And speaking of death, Michael sees it (he calls death "discorporation") as something not to be feared but rather a possible cause for elevation into a higher spiritual plane of existence.  Eventually, Michael's exploration into humanity leads him on a collision course with religion and sexuality, combining the two into a cultlike free-love religion that causes the established religions to oppose him, one of them, the Fosterites, with extreme violence.  It was this open expression of sexuality and dropping out of the dominant culture that caused Stranger in a Strange Land to eventually be embraced by many in the late 1960s counterculture "hippie" movement, although Heinlein himself has expressed that he wasn't advocating anything more in his story than for people to try to take a broader perspective on their beliefs and customs.

The supporting characters for Michael included Gillian Boardman, a nurse, Ben Caxton, a muckraking journalist, and Jubal Harshaw, an elderly doctor/lawyer/writer who serves in the story as the framer for the many and often intense philosophical discussions contained within.  For me, it is Jubal who makes Stranger in a Strange Land work as a story: I can't imagine it without him.

When Heinlein first had Stranger in a Strange Land published in 1961, it was a shortened version of his original work, which had undergone extensive editing, largely to omit some of the more sexually suggestive material.  A year or so after Heinlein's death in 1988, though, his wife stopped the publication of this truncated version and authorized the complete original, which is the version now available to us...

Rays and Marlins: Poor Playoff Prospects as Season Nears End

Depending on which team you're looking at, there are only 31 to 35 games left in the 2014 Major League Baseball regular season.  While the Florida teams of Tampa Bay (64-66) and Miami (64-65) can still put themselves into playoff contention with a super-hot streak in the remaining games, both of them will have to pass too many other teams to earn one of the wild card slots...and there is little to no chance that either will win their divisions.  The Rays are looking at this season as a down year (they made the League Championship Series last year), but for the Marlins, after going 62-100 last year there is a positive spirit and hope for the future.  Of course, with Miami, that's assuming that their management won't trade or sell off their star players in order to avoid paying them salaries comparable to general major league standards...a sad pattern typifying this franchise.  But maybe, just maybe, this time around they'll try to hold onto their standouts...but I'm not betting on it.

Tampa Bay is also known for underpaying its players, and they recently dealt away their ace Cy Young Award winning starting pitcher David Price, who had already settled with the Rays for $15 million this year, well below his market value.  When they traded him to Detroit in the final minutes of the July trade deadline, I realized that Rays management cared more about their financial bottom line than their fans.  It's hard to root for teams whose ownership holds them down and regards overachieving players as liabilities to be gotten rid of...