Happy Birthday, My Dear Melissa

We've come around the calendar once again to one of my very top favorite dates of the year: the birthday of my adorable, beautiful wife Melissa.  What a blessing to have had her in my life all these years!  Happy Birthday, Sweetheart...and of course happy St. Valentine's Day as well!

Mixed Feelings About Warm Winters of Late

Here we are entering the middle of February, and I hear there are snowstorms in the northeastern part of the country.  Meanwhile, here in Gainesville it is a sunny, clear 78 degrees...little indication of winter as many trees and shrubbery continue with their greenery, unlike in years past when pretty much all you saw were bare branches everywhere.  And I also used to be able to go from late November until early March without the need to mow the lawn...forget that now, as well.  As far as I can remember, early 2011 was the last time we had a cold winter...I know that because back then my car's horn would get stuck around 28 degrees and suddenly go off honking uncontrollably in the early morning hours on a number of occasions.  Well, there's no danger of anything like that happening here anytime soon.  And then there was the first half-marathon I ever ran, the Five Points of Life Half-Marathon here in Gainesville on the morning of February 14th, nearly seven years ago: the temperature at starting time was a frigid 25-27 degrees.  The 2017 edition of this race will be held in less than two weeks, and I expect much warmer conditions.  Don't get me wrong: I'm not complaining too much about it being warmer, but I'd at least like for the highs not to rise too much beyond 70, at least for this season.  But of course, I'll take this current weather any day over the snow and ice in the north...

Watching the Grammys Right Now on CBS

I've been doing something this evening I have steadfastly avoided over previous decades: watching the Grammy Awards on TV.  It started at eight and, at this writing, there is still about an hour and a half left.  Late night talk show host James Corden is doing a good job hosting it...so far I've only heard one direct political barb against our new president, with Corden inserting it into an almost undecipherable opening rap/rant.  The nominees, by and large, are the usual bunch of established acts like Adele, Bruno Mars, Beyoncé, Alicia Keyes, Carrie Underwood, Kanye West, Justin Bieber, Keith Urban, while a few new ones...most notably (to me) Lukas Graham and Twenty One Pilots, are talented and have some good music out there.  Most of the winners this year are no surprises...literally, they've been announced in advance, maybe so that an astonished, dismayed, and drunken Kanye West won't once again rush up onstage in anger in case Beyoncé fails to win in a category...as a matter of fact, I haven't yet seen our first declared candidate for president in 2020.  But there are a few categories, it seems, that will have to wait for the final announcement...so Trump's successor Kanye may be waiting in the wings somewhere.  As for Beyoncé, she is a consummate, talented performer with a great singing voice; my problem is how so intensely many seem to idolize her...then again, I grew up during the Beatlemania years and some folks were more than a little nuts over them, too.  And sorry, I've never been able to figure out Adele and her popularity...I think Regina Spektor should instead be a number one hits superstar, up for multiple awards. Unfortunately, she seems to be nominated for nothing this year in spite of her great album from 2016 titled Remember Us to Life.  I was very heartened to find out that the late David Bowie won multiple awards, including one for best rock song, Blackstar, which to me is truly the best song from 2016.  He also won for best alternative rock album, also titled Blackstar...

No, I don't care for much of the music being aired here on the Grammys...but I believe that the way this show has been conducted (so far) is far classier and more professionally done than were the MTV Video Awards a few months ago, one of the more unpleasant (putting it lightly) spectacles ever to disgrace my television screen...

Just Finished Reading The Ethical Assassin by David Liss

A few days ago I was browsing the shelves of my local public library and happened to come across a David Liss novel.  Never having heard of him, I decided to check it out and see how good a writer he is.  Well, I just finished reading The Ethical Assassin and...yes...Liss is a good writer, the book was enjoyable...and I left it feeling a little unsettled...

About sixty years ago, a blockbuster film, Giant, came out starring Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, and James Dean.  It was ostensibly a love triangle intrigue about two young men in the old oil drilling days in Texas, vying against each other not only to strike oil, but also for the woman they both loved.  But a funny thing happened in this movie as it progressed: it turned into a different film, about a completely different subject...and the characters were also seen in a different light regarding how they treated it.  Something similar happened with The Ethical Assassin: it is initially a tale about a young man, Lem Atlick, selling encyclopedias to fund himself for college, who in a run-down trailer park witnesses the sudden, brutal gunning down of a couple with whom he was successfully closing a deal. But the assassin leaves him alone, although he forces him to leave his fingerprints on the murder weapon in order to ensure his future silence.  The rest of the story deals with the strange, nervous developing friendship between the two, the nefarious goings-on in that rural north Florida community...and that "different" subject I alluded to before, which turns out to be the key to the mystery about the assassin's motives, as well as to that unsettling feeling I got...

David Liss, with this book, gives me the impression that he is very familiar about northern Florida...especially the outlying rural areas and the culture of the people living there.  But as far as I know, he never lived here...although his Texas residence may also provide some insight and material.  It was still interesting to read about a hog farm on the outskirts of Gainesville...and the heart of the story takes place in a rural area a few miles from Jacksonville.  This is definitely not a promotion for my home state: as a matter of fact, the protagonist repeatedly stresses how much he hates it here and can't wait to leave.  But I'm not taking umbrage at his invective...Florida does have its crappy aspects, sorry to say...

Liss, in this book, also uses a device I've notice lately in several novels...including that Fall of Hyperion science fiction book I mentioned that I was reading: much of the story is told in the first person by the protagonist, but then other sections are told in third-person narrative form while getting into the mind of different other characters.  This third-person "mind-probing" writing approach dominates a lot of literature...George R.R. Martin swears by it in his Song of Fire and Ice ("Game of Thrones") series.  I wonder though, whether The Ethical Assassin could have been written completely in the first person, with insights into the other characters provided through the protagonist's experiences with them.  But I also recognize that, with at least one of them,"B.B", Liss had a side issue to bring out that necessitated this character's viewpoint to be fully expressed through his thoughts...

So by all means read The Ethical Assassin by David Liss.  You may or may not like it, but it isn't too long of a book and does provide some memorable characters, exposes and discusses an important issue, and brings to life some of the not-so-enjoyable aspects of living in northern Florida...

Quote of the Week...from Vince Lombardi

Confidence is contagious...so is lack of confidence.     ...Vince Lombardi.

The immortal (meaning he's dead) Green Bay Packer football coach Vince Lombardi is well-known for his words of wisdom that have inspired many, not only in the sports world, but also in business, education...and life in general.  Tying them all together is the importance he placed on people taking personal responsibility for their actions, instead of going through life passively and playing the blame game for their failures.  The above quote is in harmony with this worldview in that confidence is an attitude which one can freely choose to adopt...or reject.  It's easy to ride the waves of momentum, when everything around you is working in your favor...but when they come crashing down and you're knocked off your position and left floundering, you need something deeper to draw from.  And, in keeping with the sport of football, that's how I saw the outcome of last Sunday's Super Bowl contest between Atlanta and New England.  The Falcons built up their early lead with a lot of momentum, but could not sustain their level of confidence...while the Patriots, led by their supremely-confident quarterback Tom Brady, never lost it...even when things were seriously going against them.  And when things started to turn against Atlanta, a little lack of confidence turned into a tsunami...

A lot of quotes I put up here weekly are about individual decisions, but Coach Lombardi's quote concerns itself with how we deal with each other in a social setting and how our words and actions closely affect those of others around us.  If they are positive, empathetic, and supportive, then this will be reflected among the people...and if not, that will also be the case, albeit for the worse.  Sometimes I feel that what I say and do is pointless and irrelevant to others, but if Lombardi is right, then it's nearly impossible to go through life without strongly affecting the lives of those I encounter...even unwittingly.  So why not choose the attitude of confidence?

2/5 Sermon on the Life of Joseph, Part 4

At The Family Church here in Gainesville, Pastor Philip Griffin has an ongoing Sunday morning series titled Upcycling: Trash to Treasure and which examines the trials and triumphs of the Old Testament figure of Joseph, with the aim of deriving lessons we can apply from them to our own lives.  Today's sermon, When Life Isn't Fair..., focuses on the section of the story in which Joseph is wrongly imprisoned for attempting to sexually assault the wife of his master Potiphar...for which he is completely innocent.  The passages are Genesis 39:20-40:23, which you can read at the end of this article.  In looking at Joseph's response to his imprisonment, Pastor Philip states the importance of ministering to others where you are and to look for growth opportunities, even if you are, for a season, in a dungeon...even if it is a figurative one.  But while glorifying God through your adverse circumstances, realizing that your character is thus growing deeper roots that will ultimately make you stronger and more resilient in the long run, you still should not settle for remaining down in that dungeon, either.  And ultimately, after all is said and done, realize that life on this world isn't necessarily fair and that you shouldn't depend on fairness as a guide to how you react to others or choose to conduct your own life.  Instead, as our pastor stresses...accept that God is good, even through the storms...and that he is faithful and fair "even when others aren't"...

This message made an impact on me, as I could easily sink into an attitude of utter cynicism and even despair for the way I perceive myself having being treated in my past by others, especially as a child.  Yet here I am, with the choice to live in the present and rely on God for his true fairness.  You can see it for yourself by clicking on the following link to The Family Church Videos website on YouTube: [link]...

And here is that passage from Genesis 39:20-40:23, in the NIV and courtesy of Bible Gateway:

³⁹²⁰ Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined.
But while Joseph was there in the prison, ²¹ the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden. ²² So the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there. ²³ The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph’s care, because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did.

40 Some time later, the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt offended their master, the king of Egypt. ² Pharaoh was angry with his two officials, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker, ³ and put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, in the same prison where Joseph was confined. ⁴ The captain of the guard assigned them to Joseph, and he attended them.

After they had been in custody for some time, ⁵ each of the two men—the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were being held in prison—had a dream the same night, and each dream had a meaning of its own.
⁶ When Joseph came to them the next morning, he saw that they were dejected. ⁷ So he asked Pharaoh’s officials who were in custody with him in his master’s house, “Why do you look so sad today?”
⁸ “We both had dreams,” they answered, “but there is no one to interpret them.”
Then Joseph said to them, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell me your dreams.”
⁹ So the chief cupbearer told Joseph his dream. He said to him, “In my dream I saw a vine in front of me, ¹⁰ and on the vine were three branches. As soon as it budded, it blossomed, and its clusters ripened into grapes. ¹¹ Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand, and I took the grapes, squeezed them into Pharaoh’s cup and put the cup in his hand.”
¹² “This is what it means,” Joseph said to him. “The three branches are three days. ¹³ Within three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your position, and you will put Pharaoh’s cup in his hand, just as you used to do when you were his cupbearer. ¹⁴ But when all goes well with you, remember me and show me kindness; mention me to Pharaoh and get me out of this prison. ¹⁵ I was forcibly carried off from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I have done nothing to deserve being put in a dungeon.”
¹⁶ When the chief baker saw that Joseph had given a favorable interpretation, he said to Joseph, “I too had a dream: On my head were three baskets of bread.¹⁷ In the top basket were all kinds of baked goods for Pharaoh, but the birds were eating them out of the basket on my head.”
¹⁸ “This is what it means,” Joseph said. “The three baskets are three days. ¹⁹ Within three days Pharaoh will lift off your head and impale your body on a pole. And the birds will eat away your flesh.”
²⁰ Now the third day was Pharaoh’s birthday, and he gave a feast for all his officials. He lifted up the heads of the chief cupbearer and the chief baker in the presence of his officials: ²¹ He restored the chief cupbearer to his position, so that he once again put the cup into Pharaoh’s hand— ²² but he impaled the chief baker, just as Joseph had said to them in his interpretation.
²³ The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph; he forgot him.

Not a Political Party-Liner

I wonder if you've had this experience: you're at work, school, church, a store, or out in a coffee shop...and an individual starts to go off on a political rant, repeating talking points he or she heard from the radio or television, complete with the exact same derisive nicknames their media "hero" levels at members of the "other" political party.  I've had this happen quite a lot, actually, and it is disturbing.  Here's why...

In our system of political government, we have to deal with the reality of a binary choice between the Republican and Democratic parties.  Now as an individual citizen of our great country, I have different opinions on various issues, some of which directly affect my livelihood, some of which I believe concern my country's general welfare...and some of which are more philosophical and ethical in nature.  My positions, from issue to issue, will vary from one party's stance to the other...and sometimes neither party will take "my" side.  So when I look at the "good guys vs. bad guys" mentality of today's political discussions, with folks acting as brainless robots cheerleading their own party while personally demonizing those leaders and opinion makers on the "other side", I feel discouraged...not just at our political leaders, but at the gullible, intellectually lazy dunces who seem to control the political dialogue in America, among our leaders, media figures...and especially the populace.  Discussions should not be personally aimed but rather issues-oriented, with the aim of educating and persuading others about problems and proposed solutions.  And there's nothing wrong with admitting a lack of knowledge on an issue and asking someone to explain it for you.  But when someone I'm with suddenly goes off into a lot of recycled invective against a particular party without actually conveying anything of substance, well, that leaves me cold...

I've stated before that I was focusing my attention on a couple of different media opinion makers, radio's Mark Levin on the conservative side and television's Rachel Maddow on the liberal side.  Levin repeatedly espouses the principles that guide his take on the issues and politics and he is by no means a cheerleader, either for the Trump administration or the Republican Party.  On the other hand, although I appreciate her show, Rachel Maddow has sadly shown little proclivity to enunciate any guiding principles of her own other than the party line, and her presentation is exactly in lock-step conformity with the Democratic Party, whatever the issue.  Nothing inherently wrong with that per se...after all, she is refreshingly civil in her demeanor to others with differing opinions, and I'll continue to enjoy her show.  But I'm thinking of following someone else on the political left...someone who takes on the issues, lets people know where they're coming from, and isn't afraid to stray from the "party line" when they feel that it is appropriate to do so.  My choice: Bill Maher...

Just Finished Reading 11th Hour by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro

The book 11th Hour continues the "count" down the Women's Murder Club series, by this point a well-established collaboration between James Patterson and Maxine Paetro.  I just finished reading it, and it was enjoyable and flowed easily and quickly.  The two main story lines were a rogue cop ambushing drug dealers and the discovery of seven unearthed female skulls, dug up from a garden at a famous actor's estate.  Lindsay (homicide investigator), Claire (medical examiner), Cindy (newspaper reporter), and Yuki (assistant d.a.)...close friends and members of the informal Women's Murder Club, progress along with their respective personal lives as well...it's probably a good idea for me not to share the details in case you might be interested in pursuing this series.  But I will say that the protagonists are very likeable and I can easily sympathize with their different struggles and rejoice in their victories...although, of course, they're all completely fictional.  Lindsay Boxer is the main character and works for the San Francisco Police Department, so in reading these books I'm also getting a flavor about what it's like out there in 49ers country...

One thing I like about this series is that the books, along with being comfortably short, present mysteries that make me try to put together different clues and guess the solutions.  Sometimes I'm on target with my conclusions, and sometimes...well, the authors always get the final say on things, don't they...

I'm sure I'll be reading the next Women's Murder Club book soon...titled "12th Something or Other", but in the meantime I'm going to start on my first David Liss novel, titled The Ethical Assassin.  I'm also still reading the science-fiction Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons and have started Frank Peretti's The Oath...

Unprecedented Super Bowl Choke Leads to Patriots Win

Leading by an apparently insurmountable 28 to 3 in the third quarter of yesterday evening's National Football League Super Bowl, it looked like an unexpected rout in the making for the underdog Atlanta Falcons and their first ever league championship.  But their defense, which had an edge over the New England offense for most of the game, was tiring...and from then on, in spite of still harassing Patriot quarterback Tom Brady on a number of occasions, it was the New England offense that was the driving force in the game.  That still would have left Atlanta with a victory had they not made a number of crucial mistakes, the worst being with just a few minutes to go in the fourth quarter and their MVP quarterback Matt Ryan having guided his team into good field goal range, within the Patriots' 25-yard line.  All he had to do was then repeatedly hand the ball off and try to pick up a couple more yards...but even just staying put would have given the Falcon placekicker a highly probable field goal and would have put Atlanta up 31-20, with time running out for their opponents.  Instead, Ryan foolishly dropped way back to pass...about 15 yards...and was sacked.  The following play Atlanta was called for holding.  Eventually they had to punt and the Patriots put on their game-tying drive, eventually winning in overtime after they won the coin toss, received the kickoff, and methodically drove straight down the field for the final touchdown...

I'm not a New England fan, but I admire how they played together and how poised Tom Brady was under such pressure and adversity.  I agree with him: it was his greatest victory.  Fortunately, I'm not an Atlanta fan, either...although I wanted them to win yesterday.  Hey, maybe they'll be so demoralized after this loss that they will flub up next year and Tampa Bay will win their division.  Why not...after all, Carolina screwed up this past season after their disappointing Super Bowl result the year before...

Leicester City's Rollercoaster Ride Through English Soccer

I began to follow English Premier League professional soccer in the fall of 2014...its season is like that of basketball and hockey, a hyphenation of two years.  So this 2016-17 season is the third that I've been a fan of this sport as it is played on the most elite level.  And without a doubt, the dominant story so far has been the tumultuous run of the Leicester City Football Club, nicknamed the "Foxes"...although West London's Chelsea team, which stands poised to win its second league title in three years, might want to argue with that conclusion...

In most pro soccer leagues in the world, including here in the United States and Canada, there is a hierarchy of leagues, with the top-flight premier league at the top, naturally sporting the best teams.  Then there are leagues #2, #3, and so forth...depending on how many a country may have.  England's soccer establishment is so entrenched that it has more than 20 levels.  Well, in most countries (but not ours) there is movement between these leagues: for example, each year the three worst finishers in the twenty-team English Premier League are relegated (demoted) to England's second-tier league, which is deceptively called "Football League Championship"...and that league in turn promotes its top three finishers up to the Premier League to replace them.  In the 2013-14 season Leicester City, traditionally a second-tier team, ran away with the Championship title, which earned them promotion into the Premier League the following year.  But in 2014-15, they were struggling greatly, and as late as April were deeply mired in twentieth (and last) place, almost certain to be relegated back to their former league.  And then inexplicably they caught fire and won seven of their last nine games, earning them a 14th place finish and a pass to play again among the "big boys"...

Which brings us to last year: for the 2015-16 season Leicester City hired a new manager, Claudio Ranieri, and they quickly surprised everyone by rising to lead the league from the start.  Part of this early season success was due to a scoring frenzy by their striker, Jamie Vardy, at one stretch having scored 13 goals in 11 games.  Eventually, though, it was thought that the Foxes would finally settle down to a lower place in the standings...instead, their defense took hold and they coasted easily to the title even as their offense cooled off.  And since there is no playoff system in English league soccer, Leicester City won the league championship with 23 wins, only 3 losses, and 12 draws.  And now we come to this 2016-17 season...

With the same manager and core lineup of players, Leicester City has floundered in mediocrity.  The same Jamie Vardy, after 24 games, has only one goal to his credit and, what's even worse, that intimidating defense of theirs has completely disappeared.  They have not only been losing games, but they have been losing them by embarrassing margins.  Leicester City's record at this writing is only 5 wins, 13 losses, and 6 draws.  But even more ominous is that they are in 16th place and only one point ahead of the dreaded relegation zone.  And they are on a four-game losing streak at that...

Next week Leicester City will play Swansea, currently in 17th place.  Should the Foxes fall to them, it is considered a certainty that Ranieri will be fired...and Leicester City may well be on the way to relegation, just one year after they won the entire Premier League championship and three after they were promoted.  What a rollercoaster ride!

You can follow English Premier League soccer on NBCSports and NBC.  Check out your TV schedule for the channels in your area...Gainesville has them on Cox Cable channels 33 and 9, respectively.  The games are shown live on Saturday and Sunday mornings, with another usually shown on Saturday afternoon...

Supreme Court Vacancies During Presidential Election Years

Last Tuesday President Trump announced his choice for the U.S. Supreme Court seat vacated by the late Antonin Scalia in February of 2016: federal judge Neil Gorsuch.  I myself don't have much of a problem with this nomination other than my feeling that it should have been the previous president, Barack Obama, to make and that his selection of judge Merrick Garland was unfairly shunned and rejected by the Republican Senate majority led by Mitch McConnell.  Their claim that it is a tradition for vacancies within the highest court to not be subjected to election-year politics made me want to look into the past record in this area...so here are my results...

Here is a list of the past United States Supreme Court vacancies that have arisen during a presidential election year.  At the end of each entry is indicated whether the political party of the sitting president at the time of vacancy was the same or different from that which controlled the Senate: (note: this list looks better on a laptop or desktop screen)

            DEPARTING JUSTICE                                  NEW JUSTICE                   PARTY
1800 12/15   Oliver Ellsworth (resigned)          1801  2/04    John Marshall           same
1804  1/26    Alfred Moore (resigned)               1800  5/07   William Johnson       same
1828  8/25    Robert Trimble                              1829  3/07   John McLean            different
1844  4/21    Henry Baldwin                              1846  8/04   Robert Grier              same
1852  7/19    John McKinley                              1853  3/53   John Campbell          same
1860  5/31    Peter Daniel                                   1862  7/16   Samuel Miller           same
1864 10/12   Roger Taney                                  1864 12/15  Samuel Chase           same
1872 11/28* Samuel Nelson (retired)                1872 12/11  Ward Hunt                same
1880 12/14* William Strong (retired)                1880 12/21  William Words         different
1888  3/23    Morrison Waite                             1888 10/08  George Shiras            different
1916  1/02    Joseph Lamar                                1916   6/01   Louis Brandeis         same
1916  6/10    Charles Evan Hughes (resigned)  1916   7/29   John Clarke               same
1932  1/12    Oliver Wendell Holmes (retired)  1932  3/02   Benjamin Cardozo    different
1956 10/15   Sherman Minter (retired)              1956  3/22   William Brennan       different
2016  2/13   Antonin Scalia                                ---?????----                                    different
* vacancy occurred after election

First note that, given that there have been 104 total vacancies so far that required a Senate confirmation process for the successor (including the position of Chief Justice), only 15 have occurred during presidential election years...if this were a random process, around one fourth, or 26, would have happened.  And this discrepancy, already notable as it is, has drastically increased during the last 80+ years...within that long span, until Justice Scalia passed away last year, there was only one election-year vacancy: Sherman Minter's retirement in October of 1956.  In that year, Dwight Eisenhower was running for reelection when the vacancy occurred less than a month from the election.  He announced his pick to be William Brennan, reportedly hoping that his nominee's Roman Catholic affiliation would help him in some of the northern states...but Brennan wasn't confirmed until the following year.  In 1932 then-president Herbert Hoover, a Republican, deliberately chose a Democrat, Benjamin Cardozo, to fill that election year vacancy...he was promptly confirmed by the Democratic-controlled Senate. You would have to go back to 1888, when Grover Cleveland had his election-year nominee George Shiras confirmed in October by the opposition-lead Senate, to find another example of an opposition Senate confirming a president's Supreme Court pick during an election year.  But keep in mind that back then the election campaigning began much later and closer to the election...now it begins in the first half of the previous year.  In 1880, that nomination occurred after the election and in 1828 the vacancy happened in the thick of the campaign...in late August: the succeeding president filled it right after he took office the following year...

So if the same party as the president's controls the Senate, then election-year filling of Supreme Court vacancies isn't that big of a deal...it's just that this scenario hasn't happened since 1916.  If Supreme Court justices die while in office, they have during the past century had the good luck to do it in off-election years...until Scalia's passing last year.  Usually nowadays they choose to retire first, and in doing so they deliberately avoid setting up a situation like that we found ourselves dealing with in 2016.  But I don't like what Senator McConnell, Judiciary Committee Chairman Grassley, and the rest of the Senate Republican caucus did to Obama's nominee Merrick Garland by denying him even a hearing. They were also preemptive in categorically rejecting any approaches that the sitting president made toward them in regard to candidates that they might find acceptable.  There is hardly any sort of tradition against election-year Supreme Court appointments and confirmations: any such tradition, if at all, comes from the justices themselves when they choose the best time to retire. I'm afraid that this sort of unprecedented action...or should I say inaction...will come back to haunt the Senate Republicans and only ratchet up the already-unacceptable level of confrontation and partisanship that has not served our Congress well in recent years. And in the immediate future, it has placed a dark cloud over the confirmation process for Neil Gorsuch...

Quote of the Week...from Albert Einstein

Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.  ---Albert Einstein.

The great physicist Albert Einstein lived from 1879 to 1955...I don't know when he made the above statement, but even if it was during his last days on earth, it now seems just a little bit antiquated. For the idea of life-long learning has caught on, at least in Western society, as life expectancy has increased and people often find themselves in old age with reasonably good health and plenty of time to pursue their interests. A more traditional view on the subject of education has it confined to school...from kindergarten on through college...and then it's on to the "work years" and forget about all that learning stuff.  But Einstein not only promoted deliberately growing intellectually long after school is over, but also said that it starts in infancy, long before formal education begins.  My parents were strong advocates of informal preschool education, and my sister Anita and I both were reading well before starting school.  I have always separated in my mind the ideas of going to school and learning...the former is bounded by time, place, and curriculum while the latter is much vaster and penetrates every area of my life and the reality around me.  Very often, as a matter of fact, I felt when a student back then that I'd rather be learning other things from what was in the official program of study.  And now we have such ready access to information and educational resources through the Internet that anyone with that access can truly grow intellectually on a scale that Professor Einstein in his day could not have imagined...and that dude's imagination was something other-worldly...

1/29 Sermon on the Life of Joseph, Part 3

At The Family Church here in Gainesville last Sunday morning, Pastor Philip Griffin continued his series he titles Upcycling: Trash to Treasure and which discusses the life of Joseph from the book of Genesis...and the lessons we can derive from it.  The scripture for today's message comes from Genesis 39:7-18 and is about Joseph's encounters with the wife of Potiphar, the Egyptian for whom he is bonded to serve.  Potiphar's wife continually approaches Joseph with the aim of sleeping with him...but he resists the temptation to comply with her desires, ultimately running away from her as she is holding on to his robe.  Pastor Philip, from the passage, came up with six steps for us to resist the diverse temptations in our own lives: just say "no", know that succumbing to them is sin against God, keep in mind that with resistance the temptations may increase, set appropriate boundaries, and as a last resort, openly flee them.  And if one is persecuted on account of resisting a temptation, then he or she can look for defense from God.  As for the robe, Joseph twice in his life has his stripped from him...but ultimately wears a king's robe, bestowed by God, and which he will never lose...

The title of this series refers to things that were once refuse, deemed generally worthless, but with love and care were turned into "something beautiful", as our pastor has said.  Throughout this series, up on the church's stage and on the wall behind it have been exhibited paintings and sculptures that were done using essentially trash...a good visual analogy to the transformational work that God can do with us if only we allow it.  As to the scripture for this message, I've presented it at the end of this article, again in the New International Version by way of Bible Gateway.  The Family Church is located at 2022 SW 122 Street and holds its Sunday morning services at 9:30 and 11.  The sermons have all been saved on YouTube and you can see this one by accessing The Family Church video site on it...here is a link: [link]...

BIBLE PASSAGE FOR MESSAGE: GENESIS 39:7-18

⁷ and after a while his master’s wife took notice of Joseph and said, “Come to bed with me!”
⁸ But he refused. “With me in charge,” he told her, “my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. ⁹ No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” ¹⁰ And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her.
¹¹ One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. ¹² She caught him by his cloak and said, “Come to bed with me!” But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house.
¹³ When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the house, ¹⁴ she called her household servants. “Look,” she said to them, “this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us! He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed. ¹⁵ When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”
¹⁶ She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home. ¹⁷ Then she told him this story: “That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me. ¹⁸ But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”

Just Finished Reading Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens

Barnaby Rudge is one of the early stories that celebrated Victorian-era English author Charles Dickens published, and it is a historical novel at that, concerning itself with the infamous anti-Catholic Gordon Riots that occurred in London in 1780...and I just finished reading it.  The title refers to one of the characters, a pleasant young man whose mental abilities are at about the level of cinema's Forrest Gump...in today's highly-charged politically-correct parlance, he might be called an "innocent".  Barnaby, however, is not the central figure in this tale...actually no one is.  Instead, Dickens flits back and forth in his narrative among five families: the Willets, who have an inn on London's outskirts, the wealthy and virtuous Haredales, the Vardens with their locksmith business, the also-wealthy and upper-class Chesters with the villainous father, and of course the Rudges.  There are two romances in the story, as well as a number of subplots...including a mysterious stranger, an unsolved murder, two father-son rifts, and a simmering lower class rebellion that ultimately finds its expression in, as I had mentioned earlier, anti-Catholic riots manipulated by a real historical figure: Lord George Gordon.  And like Forrest Gump with his number of presidential encounters, our hero Barnaby unwittingly finds himself drawn into the middle of this real historical event.

This novel probably would have meant more to me were I alive in England at the time of this novel's publication in the early 1840s.  Back then there were evidently growing tensions between the rigidly-defined social classes as well as religious divisions between Protestants and Catholics going back centuries.  So in this sense Barnaby Rudge was educational and enlightening...although sadly not very entertaining.  It was the lack of a strong central character, the book's title notwithstanding, that makes me want to go on to read some more of Charles Dickens' works in search of something better: I have, after all, "great expectations" of this renown writer...

My January 2017 Running Report

I wrote the day before yesterday how I have been sidelined from my usual running due to sickness and a nagging cough, including missing out on two races I had wanted to run in.  Right now I'm taking a break from the activity until my throat is fully healed...it shouldn't be much longer.  So this first month of 2017 hasn't gone too well, and that's a shame: the weather for the past few days would have been ideal for long-distance jogs through my established courses in far northwestern Gainesville, and that 15K race I missed last Saturday morning had perfect weather conditions: very dry and around 40 degrees at its start.  Oh well, let's see what the future holds for me...

In January I somehow managed to accumulate a total of 84 miles run, almost all of it done by running short distances multiple times per day...my longest single run was for only 3.3 miles.  I missed running on seven days, and on several others just ran a minimal amount...my least productive running month in quite a while...

Gainesville's Five Points of Life Half-Marathon, which I ran in 2010, 2014, and 2015, will be held on February 26, and I would like to run in it. But where I stand right now, the near-future is very uncertain, I haven't been training much due to sickness, and this race is for 13.1 miles...not a very promising picture, to say the least.  But I have to live each day as it comes and on its own terms...come the week before the race, I'll assess my readiness and then act accordingly...

I'm also thinking of dividing my physical activity in the future between running, bicycling, and walking. In the long run, this sounds like a wise and enduring path to follow...

Enjoying Putting Together a Good Jigsaw Puzzle

This weekend I began "work" on a new 1500-piece jigsaw puzzle my son Will gave me for Christmas.  It is a picture of several beautiful specimens of shells, starfish, and other "bottom feeders", full of different colors and assorted shapes.  I'm accustomed to do the 300-500 piece puzzles, largely because I simply don't have the large flat surface available to do the larger varieties.  With this one, I've broken down the process to two medium surfaces and some boxes into which I presort the pieces by color.  It looks now like I'm about two thirds of the way to completion, but there are still a lot more pieces to fit together. 

Putting together jigsaw puzzles is a fun activity I've enjoyed doing ever since I can remember...back when I was a little kid we would do some monster-size puzzles by spreading out the pieces on the floor (out of the way of foot traffic, of course) and it would be there for days, if not weeks, at a time...with anyone passing by welcome to work on it.  Naturally, being much closer to the ground at the time than anyone else, I had a decided advantage over everyone in my family except my sister Anita, who is four years my senior.  I especially remember one such puzzle that featured a battle in space between death-ray-firing combatants: except for the bottom left corner, which looked like the moon, almost the entire puzzle was midnight blue with little points of white as stars...nearly impossible to do!

Almost eight years ago, back in March 2008, I wrote another blog article about jigsaw puzzles...here is a link to it [link]...

Reassessing Own Running Goals While Sidelined

I'm writing this at my local McDonalds...the one closest to my house...after having entered my favorite Starbucks at Magnolia Parke and, seeing no available seats and the long line of customers snaking around the back of the store to the door, got back into my car and drove around the corner to this place.  I have grown to like iced coffee...the largest "venti" size that Starbucks offers, with tax, comes to $3.15 while I can get one here at Mickey D's for only $1.48: just as good, but without the long lines while enjoying plenty of seating space...and with free Wi-Fi to boot.  Oh, and I think I forgot to mention that it's a lot quieter here as well, even factoring in the occasional loud child.  Probably should have come here first...

It's approaching the end of January and, had things gone the way I had intended for them to go, I would now be in prime distance-running shape, having run the Ocala Half-Marathon a couple of weeks ago and the Newnans Lake 15K here in Gainesville yesterday...and would be gearing up for the FivePoints Half-Marathon, also held in town, in three weeks.   Instead, I am recovering from the residual effects of an upper-respiratory infection I caught earlier in the month that produced a severe sore throat and a confounding residual cough due to scarring and sensitivity. I don't know how long it will be until all is healed, but this has really set back my running efforts considerably...no, I ran neither race in Ocala or Newnans Lake and it doesn't look as if I'll be ready to tackle that half-marathon course through Gainesville in three weeks.  In short, I've been forced to sideline myself for a while from running.  How long?  I'll be surprised if, in a couple of weeks, I'm not ready to hit the road again...but forget about any racing until at least March...or maybe even later...

In the meantime, I've taken the time to assess where I'm at with my running and, considering my age (60), whether it might not be more advisable to expand my activities into bicycling and (fast)walking.  The idea would be to alternate running with the bicycle on consecutive days, with a good, long walk for that odd seventh day of the week.  It sounds like a reasonable course of action to take, and I could still run in the 5K-10K races that are more available here and which are spread out more throughout the year than are the longer distances.  But first: rest, rest, and more rest!

Yet More Elections (for Gainesville) in March

For all of you out there in my hometown of Gainesville, Florida trying to recover from the fatigue and trauma of last year's election season, I have some news: here comes another election!  Yes, our fair city will be holding city commission elections for three of its seven seats this March 14, with the runoff elections (if a particular election doesn't produce a majority winner) on April 11.  Early voting will be provided March 6-11 at the usual locations.  There is an at-large seat covering the entire city and two districted seats (including my district).  A commissioner's term of office is for three years and they cannot serve more than two terms. Todd Chase, my own district's commissioner, and whom I would have supported had his name been on the ballot, cannot run again due to term limits...so there looks to be a competitive campaign developing for his replacement.  The at-large seat is currently occupied by Helen Warren, who is running for a second term. The other districted seat up for election is now held by Craig Carter, who is also running for reelection.  I'll have to check into the candidates for the races that involve me in order to pick out the best ones for the job.

I really object to Gainesville holding commission elections like this in March, when the turnout is bound to be low.  I've voted in a couple in the past when the registered voter participation was only 12%...how do they realistically expect the commission to be representative of its citizens when such a small fraction of the electorate put them into office?  Of course, a great part of the problem is the apathy...and dare I say, laziness...of that electorate, even when polling places are designed to be close to their homes, voting hours on election day are very flexible (7 am to 7 pm), and early voting is also provided.  It will be interesting to see whether, because of what happened nationally last November, people in this city of mine will be more willing to fulfill their civic duty as citizens and participate in the electoral process...

Quote of the Week...from Elie Wiesel

I write to understand as much as to be understood.    ---Elie Wiesel.



Elie Wiesel, who died last year on July 2 at the age of 87, was probably the world's best known survivor of the Jewish Holocaust in World War II, having devoted the remainder of his life to educating the public about it and why it came about...and how to prevent it from ever happening again.  In 1960 he came out with his book Night, which revealed his experiences as a teenager in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald Nazi concentration camps where he lost his sister and both of his parents...before finally being liberated at Buchenwald by the Americans on April 11, 1945.  Unfortunately, there have been efforts from some quarters to deny that the Holocaust, responsible for the deaths of some six million European Jews, never happened.  And there have tragically been other holocausts since then: in Cambodia, Rwanda, and Bosnia, to name just three.  Wiesel is no longer with us, but we do have this day in history to continue to remind us of the Holocaust: since 2005, the United Nations has designated January 27, the date in 1945 when the Soviet Red Army liberated Auschwitz, as International Holocaust Remembrance Day...

I chose the above quote of Elie Wiesel because it resonates so strongly with me.  Many times I sit down to write and initially feel a sense of inadequacy about what I plan to express, as if I don't know what I'm writing about.  But in a way, this can impart a sense of freshness to my writing as I work out, both in my mind and by doing research, those areas about which I am lacking in knowledge and understanding.  I think it was Stephen King who wrote something about how important it is to write about things you don't know.  How many of us would rather stay quiet instead of risking others thinking that we were ignorant about something?

1/22 Sermon on the Life of Joseph, Part 2

This past Sunday at The Family Church in Gainesville, Pastor Philip Griffin delivered his second message in the ongoing series about the life of Joseph of the Old Testament, titled Upcycling: Trash to Treasure.  In this message he used two scripture passages from Genesis, 37:12-36 and 39:1-6, appearing below in the New International Version by means of Bible Gateway:

¹² Now his brothers had gone to graze their father’s flocks near Shechem, ¹³ and Israel said to Joseph, “As you know, your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shechem. Come, I am going to send you to them.”
“Very well,” he replied.
¹⁴ So he said to him, “Go and see if all is well with your brothers and with the flocks, and bring word back to me.” Then he sent him off from the Valley of Hebron.
When Joseph arrived at Shechem, ¹⁵ a man found him wandering around in the fields and asked him, “What are you looking for?”
¹⁶ He replied, “I’m looking for my brothers. Can you tell me where they are grazing their flocks?”
¹⁷ “They have moved on from here,” the man answered. “I heard them say, ‘Let’s go to Dothan.’”
So Joseph went after his brothers and found them near Dothan. ¹⁸ But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him.
¹⁹ “Here comes that dreamer!” they said to each other. ²⁰ “Come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams.”
²¹ When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. “Let’s not take his life,” he said. ²² “Don’t shed any blood. Throw him into this cistern here in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him.” Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father.
²³ So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe—the ornate robe he was wearing— ²⁴ and they took him and threw him into the cistern. The cistern was empty; there was no water in it.
²⁵ As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt.
²⁶ Judah said to his brothers, “What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? ²⁷ Come, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.” His brothers agreed.
²⁸ So when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt.
²⁹ When Reuben returned to the cistern and saw that Joseph was not there, he tore his clothes. ³⁰ He went back to his brothers and said, “The boy isn’t there! Where can I turn now?”
³¹ Then they got Joseph’s robe, slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe in the blood. ³² They took the ornate robe back to their father and said, “We found this. Examine it to see whether it is your son’s robe.”
³³ He recognized it and said, “It is my son’s robe! Some ferocious animal has devoured him. Joseph has surely been torn to pieces.”
³⁴ Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and mourned for his son many days. ³⁵ All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. “No,” he said, “I will continue to mourn until I join my son in the grave.” So his father wept for him.
³⁶ Meanwhile, the Midianites sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard.

1 Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there.
² The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. ³ When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, ⁴ Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. ⁵ From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. ⁶ So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph’s care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate.
Now Joseph was well-built and handsome...

Pastor Griffin continued to describe inherited prisons that people find themselves confined to in their lives, prisons that if not recognized and liberated from are in danger of being passed on to the next generation and beyond.  He listed three more types: rejection, betrayal, and deception.  The older brothers of Joseph lived in constant rejection from their father Jacob in favor of Joseph.  They themselves then rejected Joseph as their brother and then went on to betrayal, as they seized him, initially intending to kill him but eventually selling their younger brother off to slavery for a bag of silver. Again, this is generational: Jacob betrayed Esau, the family's first-born, out of his inheritance.  Also, Pastor Philip pointed out the similarity between the brothers' betrayal of Joseph and that of Judas against Jesus...both for some silver coins.  Finally there is deception here: the brothers deceived Jacob that Joseph had been killed by a wild beast...Jacob many years earlier had deceived his father Isaac by pretending he was his brother when the inheritance was given.  So it seems that these "prisons" of rejection, betrayal, and deception are all interrelated and are symptoms of dysfunctionality in relationships...

But Joseph broke free of the bondage of these generational prisons, as the second passage illustrates, by placing his trust in God and not his circumstances...especially those circumstances resulting from rejection, betrayal, and deception.  He chose to be different and not a passive victim of his situation.  We can also choose to be different and break free from our own prisons.  I can relate strongly to this message as I very clearly remember the figurative prisons I was forced to live in as a child and with which I am still in a state of struggle...long after the circumstances and people that defined them have all gone.  I have a feeling that a lot of us are in the same boat, with just the details differing among us...

The Family Church is located at 2022 SW 122nd Street and holds its Sunday morning services at 9:30 and 11.  They also have family and discipleship groups, and the praise music during the services...along with the complimentary coffee they provide...is tops.  If you can't attend but would like to hear the morning message, they have a YouTube video channel...here is a link to it: [link]...