Weekly Short Story: Successful Operation by Robert Heinlein

Twentieth century science fiction writer Robert Heinlein is probably best known for his novels Starship Troopers, Stranger in a Strange Land, and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, but he also wrote a multitude of short stories.  Being a strong anti-fascist when Hitler and Mussolini had their followers in America before World War II,  Heinlein put his philosophy of liberty into his stories and never wavered from it after the war when he became equally anti-communist.  Successful Operation was one of his earliest works...from 1940...and is also very short, four pages long.  I'm happy to be the proud owner of Off the Main Sequence (SFBC Books, 2005), which is an extensive collection of short stories that tended to be left out of other collections of Heinlein's...this tale started off the book...

Heinlein had Successful Operation first published with a different title, "Heil!", in a pulp fiction magazine under a pseudonym, "Lyle Monroe".  That original title gives a hint about the story, as a racist dictator meant to be Adolf Hitler is in a health crisis with an undesirable solution.  His pituitary gland, which is located at the base of the brain, is diseased and he will only survive with a transplant.  The only surgeon available who can perform the operation, however, is Doctor Lans, who is implied to be Jewish and is in a concentration camp.  Lans and the Leader meet, and the doctor lays out his conditions for the operation, which include the restoration of his fortunes, passports for his family and himself, and that the operation take place on foreign land away from the Leader's control.  Begrudgingly, the dictator accedes and the operation is set.  The healthy pituitary gland to be transplanted belongs to a fellow inmate of Lans, and the donor agrees that he would rather have a sick pituitary and be free than have a healthy one and be under oppression.  Then the operation takes place and it's a success...only one problem, though, the Leader and the donor have both been secretly whisked back to their country.  And thus is the setup for the predictably outrageous ending for such an abbreviated story...

If our consciousness and identities are based within the strict confines of our own bodies, then where are they located there?  The obvious choice would be the brain...but beyond that it's an open question.  Robert Heinlein takes a deep dive off the board of speculation and comes up with an answer that would easily fit well in a Twilight Zone episode...I wonder whether that might in fact have been done... this story just seems familiar to me, as if I had already experienced it or something very similar before.  And now you can read it through the creative commons license via this link to the Free Speculative Fiction online site: [link]...

Tuesday's List: Olympic Games Sites Since 1968

You may be wondering why the following is a list of the sites of the Summer and Winter Olympic sites since 1968...why that year, considering that the former began in 1896 and the latter in 1924?  It's because 1968 is the year I began following the Olympic Games, at the age of eleven: I watched Peggy Fleming win the gold medal for the USA in figure skating.  So this list is more like a personal life memory project for myself: some of these Olympics I vividly remember...like the 1968, 1972, 1976, 1984, and 1996 Summer Games, while others slipped by almost unnoticed.  Of course, the United States boycotted the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics because of the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan the previous year and most folks here agreed that they couldn't care less about that one.  Corresponding to my 1968,1972, and 1976 interest in the Summer Games was my following of the Winter Games those years, as well as the Lake Placid Winter Olympics in 1980.  Through 1992, the Summer and Winter Olympics were held the same year, but in 1994 the Winter Games started during even-numbered off-years, the same year that the men's World Cup in soccer takes place...

It's interesting how during the Cold War, the communist bloc nations staged essentially professional Olympic athletes while strict rules of amateurism were enforced for the rest of the world...an offensive double standard, in my opinion.  Ironically, it was after the Cold War ended that standards for professionals competing in the Olympics were relaxed and suddenly you began to see all these multimillionaire pro athletes competing while at the same time being featured on commercial breaks...I see very little amateurism anymore and that's sad...

Well, here's that list...another one that probably works better for me than you, the reader.  The Summer Olympics sites I highlighted in red, the Winter in blue...

1968 Summer  Mexico City, Mexico
         Winter     Grenoble, France
1972 Summer  Munich, West Germany
         Winter    Sapporo, Japan
1976 Summer  Montreal, Canada
         Winter     Innsbruck, Austria
1980 Summer  Moscow, USSR
         Winter     Lake Placid, NY
1984 Summer   Los Angeles, CA
         Winter     Sarajevo, Yugoslavia
1988 Summer  Seoul, South Korea
         Winter     Calgary, Canada
1992 Summer  Barcelona, Spain
         Winter     Albertville, France
1994 Winter     Lilliehammer, Norway
1996 Summer   Atlanta, GA
1998 Winter     Nagano, Japan
2000 Summer   Sydney, Australia
2002 Winter     Salt Lake City, UT
2004 Summer   Athens, Greece
2006 Winter     Turin, Italy
2008 Summer   Beijing, China
2010 Winter     Vancouver, Canada
2012 Summer   London, United Kingdom
2014 Winter     Sochi, Russia
2016 Summer   Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
---------------------------------------------
-----------(Future Games)---------------
2018 Winter     Pyeongchang, South Korea
2020 Summer  Tokyo, Japan
2022 Winter     Beijing, China
2024 Summer   Los Angeles, CA

Texas Church Massacre Just Five Weeks After Las Vegas Massacre

A young Texas man, dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Air Force and with a history of domestic battery, opened fire Sunday morning at a small town church that was holding its weekly services, killing 26 and injuring 20 more...before apparently taking his own life after a high-speed chase by two brave heroes.  The immediate verdict I'm hearing about the perpetrator of this massacre of the congregation at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs is that he was mentally ill, deranged as President Trump put it.  Oh, I didn't know Donald Trump was qualified in diagnosing mental illness...

When you consider somebody like the Las Vegas shooter or the Sutherland Springs creep, it's easy to take the mental illness route of explanation...after all, how could anyone in their right mind commit such terrible atrocities?  I'm afraid that this argument, however, has two counterproductive consequences.  One, it paints a picture of those suffering from mental illness as being more violent and a danger to society, when in fact they are much more likely to be the victims of others.  Two, it ignores the concept of evil as it infests the souls of people throughout their lives.  These two men, whose names are beneath mentioning, made a deal with that evil and deliberately killed and injured scores of innocent people.  They were not only evil, but also cowards...this last one dressed up in military costume and gunned down a baby, children, women, and old people.  I get where the mental illness arguments are coming from, but in the end when do you stop going down that road and start to hold people responsible for their own actions?

University of Florida Football's Perennial "Hot Seat"

After Jim McElwain was fired from his head coaching job at the University of Florida following his football team's humiliating 42-7 loss to rival Georgia eight days ago, speculation quickly arose as to who would eventually take his place while Randy Shannon served out the remainder of the 2017 season as interim coach.  Gator quarterback legend Tim Tebow weighed in on the matter and, to me, put it best: "It’s a program that can ascend very quickly to the top few in college football, but also what it is, it is a very hot seat." He then went on to claim that Florida's greatest two coaches, Steve Spurrier and Urban Meyer...who combined guided them to lots of SEC titles and three national championships...were both finally worn out by the job and sought employment elsewhere.  And that's the problem: usually, the term "hot seat" is used to describe the position a coach is in when his team isn't doing well and he's about to be canned.  But with the University of Florida football program, every day as head coach is the hot seat...and as Tebow added, it will take someone with a very strong, unwavering personality to fill it without suffering burnout.  Gator fans come in all shapes and sizes and follow their team with varying degrees of fervor.  But there seems to be a more abundant supply of fans with very demanding and unrealistic expectations, more so than with other schools.  If two coaching icons like Spurrier and Meyer reached their own breaking points here, then something's terribly wrong...

Tim Tebow believes that the next coach will be the right fit for Florida, but as far as I'm concerned that means someone who will have a very thick hide and stand for little criticism.  Because no matter how well or poorly Florida does, there will always be a quantity of "bad fans" around.  For myself, I just want whoever does get the job to consistently put on the field a complete team, both offensively and defensively, recruiting not just star high school players but also creating depth in the roster for those inevitable injuries that take out starters.  And please, please, no more of these ridiculous scandals among the players: it's the coach's responsibility to provide some leadership here.  I don't expect the Gators to set the football world on fire every single year, but wanting them to be consistently competitive winners isn't asking too much.  And we've had too many games in recent years where they've been given little-to-no chance of winning.  At least field a team that doesn't go out there and humiliate themselves on a regular basis...

Selective With Even My Favorite Musical Acts, TV Shows, and Movies

Although I like rock music, television, and movies, in truth whenever I have the opportunity to listen to my favorite musical acts, or watch a TV series or movie I like, I find myself rejecting most of my choices...

With rock music, I may like a particular act...but usually, with very few exceptions, I have little-to-no interest in hearing most of their material.  It got worse this year when I listened to new album releases from artists I have recently preferred: Arcade Fire, Kasabian, Sufjan Stevens, Spoon, and Gorillaz.  I listened through each their new LPs' tracks and concluded that I didn't care for any of them.  I've recently heard Twenty One Pilots on the radio, and because I liked some of the songs decided to check out their most recent album...most of that stuff didn't cut it, either.  Even with classic bands and solo acts from the past, the overwhelming amount of their recordings don't resonate with me...I'd rather listen over and over again to their very best works and scrap the rest...

When I'm checking the program listings for a favorite TV series, I take care to note which episode is showing before I decide to watch it.  No matter what the series...even the original Star Trek, the early Andy Griffith, All in the Family, Columbo, Mary Tyler Moore or Twilight Zone...all series that I like a lot...chances are that whatever episode they're showing is one I don't want to watch.  Turns out that most of even my favorite series' episodes I could do without...

And with movies, you'd be correct in assuming that if I owned the DVD for a particular movie, then it would be one of my favorites.  So here I am with the Lord of the Ring series (extended version), The Godfather, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Polar Express, The Producers, A Beautiful Mind, and You Only Live Twice...to name a few.  Yet whenever I am watching one of these movies I find myself skipping most of the scenes and confining my viewing to just a few, leaving the rest of the movie unwatched...

I wonder whether others are like me in this regard, becoming more and more selective as to what they will watch and listen to.  Now there are some things that I am much more open to, though: classical music, ongoing sports events like football, soccer, hockey, and baseball, the U.S. Senate floor proceedings, and live coverage of major news and weather stories.  With these, however, my attention isn't completely riveted to what I am hearing and/or watching and I can be engaged in other activities while they are going on...

Quote of the Week...from Sue Grafton

Books are like movies of the mind and it's better to leave Kinsey where she is.
                                                         ---Sue Grafton

Sue Grafton is the author of the successful ongoing "Alphabet" mystery novel series featuring Kinsey Millhone as the resilient, blue collar Californian private eye.  Each successive book, starting with "A" is for Alibi, progresses further down the alphabet...we're now close to the end with "Y" is for Yesterday just recently published.  Grafton has stated that with the "Z" book, her series will conclude.  She has also insisted that as long as she lives she will never allow it to be adapted to movies or television...

I can sympathize with Sue Grafton's opposition to any film adaptation of her Kinsey Millhone mysteries.  Look at all the great Stephen King stories that made it to the big (or small) screen and how so many of them were drastically altered. The author himself allowed much of that to happen, but as a reader I still feel a bit put out by it, especially when some of those changes (like in The Mist and The Shining) directly affected the outcome of the story and the message I received from it.  Even when adaptations work well, as in the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings series, an enormous amount of background material, large sections of the story, and even some characters may be trimmed in order to fit the movies into a reasonable time length: e.g. three successive chapters in The Fellowship of the Ring (which included the very interesting character Tom Bombadil) were completely omitted from the movie version.  But The Hobbit adaptation was a travesty, with entire subplots and new characters added with impunity...that was disgraceful.  I recognize that a lot of folks, while capable at reading, really don't like doing it for pleasure and would prefer a cinematic experience instead.  For me, though, when I read books, they are, as Grafton said, like movies of the mind...my mind...and I visualize for myself the various characters and scenarios, which to me is more fulfilling than having it already done for me on the screen...

As for "Y" is for Yesterday, its release back in August flew right by me...now I'm on a long waiting list to check it out from my public library...
 

10/29 Sermon on David, Part 7

Senior pastor Philip Griffin of The Family Church concluded his series about King David of Israel with Part 7, titled The Ingredients of an Unhealthy Home.  Not exactly a positive-sounding title, is it? Well, that's because David himself gave a multitude of examples of poor parenting...and these weren't just his shortcomings: we have to deal with the same issues today.  The scripture of focus was 2 Samuel Chapters 13-18...you can read it through the following link to Bible Gateway: [link]...

Pastor Philip listed five ways in which parents can create an unhealthy home for their children as well as for themselves: setting a bad example, refusing to discipline, denying problems, avoiding reconciliation, and not expressing true feelings.  In the selected passages, David set a very, very bad example to his children through his adultery with Bathsheba and murder of her husband: Amnon, one of his sons, raped his own half-sister Tamar.  When her full-brother Absalom found out, he expected his father to punish Amnon...but David refused to discipline him.  So a severe family problem came into being, and Absalom lured Amnon into a deadly ambush...with David willfully oblivious to the developing crisis.  After Absalom fled, he was allowed to return to Jerusalem but David made no effort to meet with his son: no reconciliation ever happened.  The embittered Absalom then usurped David's throne and publicly slept with his wives...it wasn't until Absalom's eventual death at the hands of his old enemy Joab that David expressed contrition toward his now-diseased son: but it came too late...

Although the example of David and his sons is very dramatic and moving, all of us have our own dual memories and responsibilities with our families.  With our childhood families, we not only remember how our parents treated us, but we tend to unconsciously copy them as we in our own turn become parents, for better or for worse...sometimes even things we know that our own parents did wrong.  Pastor Philip laid out some very constructive principles to help guide us to become more Christ-like in our parenting roles and apply the ingredients of a healthy home: setting a good example, choosing to discipline, acknowledging problems, welcoming reconciliation, and expressing true feelings...

Although I usually hear the weekly sermon at church on Sunday, sometimes I'll click on their YouTube video website to brush up on some of the speaker's points.  You can watch this week's message, too, through the following link to YouTube: [link].  The Family Church meets each Sunday morning at 9:30 and 11, with the  weekly message, music, prayer, fellowship, hospitality, and opportunities for discipleship and learning.  Oh, and the complimentary coffee isn't bad, either...

Weekly Short Story: The Pedestrian by Ray Bradbury

One of the late Ray Bradbury's more important stories is a very short one: The Pedestrian, five pages long, which he published in 1951 and appears in the retrospective anthology Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 14 (1952).  When I first read it, I instantly knew that Bradbury had nailed it perfectly.  Although it was written many years ago, its significance has if anything increased over the years.  And why not?  Its setting is in the future, in the year 2053...

In a time when a young Sanford, Florida man couldn't walk home alone in his neighborhood from a nearby convenience store without being scrutinized, accosted, and ultimately killed by a "do-gooder" vigilante driving around the subdivision, the message of The Pedestrian is clear: if you're inside enclosed walls, that's cool...it's also okay if you're outside, as long as you are safely enclosed within the confines of your motor vehicle.  But don't you dare get out on the street and walk down it...why, then you're a menace to society.  The irony of all this is that, while people who are taking walks are the least likely folks to present a danger to others, it is those driving around in vehicles who potentially could present the much greater threat, what with their mobility, insulation, ability to transport and hide weapons, and room to abduct victims.  In my frequent runs around my neighborhood and the nearby ones, I have often experienced cars (and worse, vans) creeping up on me, sometimes even stopping down the road before taking off again.  It's obvious that I was their target of interest: were they George Zimmerman wannabes, are maybe they were just your garden-variety Ted Bundy sort of predator...it's easy to get carried away with these thoughts when you're out there, vulnerable to whatever comes by.  And then, of course, there is always the fortified security-minded neighbor, probably with an arsenal of guns in his house, who keeps in his yard ferocious attack dogs that from time to time get loose and wreak havoc up and down the block with anyone who has the nerve to walk, run, or even ride their bicycle down it. Finally, the police themselves, when patrolling an area, are much more likely to look down suspiciously on pedestrians...especially men...as potential criminals, especially within residential areas where home invasions are feared possibilities...

On the plus side, walking as a fitness activity seems to be on the upsurge, and I like seeing people out there improving their own lives with exercise.  Being a pedestrian boils down to the most basic form of human locomotion: walking, and if you can't freely walk around in public anywhere and anytime you want without suffering some sort of harassment or unwarranted scrutiny and suspicion, then you aren't truly free...

And now YOU can read The Pedestrian for yourself...just click on the following link: [link]...

My October 2017 Running Report

In October my total running mileage substantially increased to 83 miles.  My longest single run was 4 miles and I ran on every day of the month.  October was a better month for my health as I suffered no sickness or injury.  Having switched my shoes seems to have helped to ward off foot pain.  Also, I have been generally eating better and have lost some needed weight...

In November, Gainesville will host two races: the Tom Walker Memorial Half-Marathon on the 11th and the 10K Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day.  The half-marathon event will start and end at Boulware Springs Park in southeast Gainesville and covers a section of the Hawthorne Trail.  The Turkey Trot will take place at Tacachale, which is a residential center for the developmentally disadvantaged off Waldo Road in northeast Gainesville.  I think at my current state of fitness that I can cover the 10K race, but I have questions about the half-marathon.  But if I tackle the longer race by running and then regularly taking short walking breaks...as marathon guru Jeff Galloway teaches...I should be able to get through that one, too.  I think the biggest difficulty I will have with either race, assuming I can keep myself free of injury during the next few weeks, is getting myself up so early in the morning when I'd rather just sleep in.  Going to bed early the night before isn't an option: I'm scheduled to work then and end my shift at midnight...

Tuesday's List: Ted Cruz's Seven Tax Reform Goals

If you are a political conservative, Ted Cruz should be someone you pay close attention to, as his take on the various issues is almost always in line with that philosophy.  Tax reform, which Congress is now taking up, is no exception and the junior Texas senator last September laid out seven elements of what he sees as constructive, effective tax reform...I heard him just last week restate it all on the Senate floor.  In making this list, he emphasizes that his guiding principles are growth, simplicity, and fairness.  For Democrats and others more on the left of the political spectrum, that last one...fairness...seems to be by far the most important, and they have long accused the Republicans, Senator Cruz included, of being very, very unfair with their legislative proposals.  And I agree with them to an extent, especially in the way most of the G.O.P. was willing to wreck health care insurance protections for millions just to score a political victory.  But many on the left have a problem recognizing growth as an essential element in a healthy economy...an element that touches upon all of us...and see things in a more static framework, and in terms of the "haves" and "have-nots".  I think that growth is paramount to improving our standard of living and pushes employment and wages upward.  And our national tax policy discourages it to the extent that its corporate tax rate is highest in the world...and Cruz points out a couple of other areas that need change to enable our companies to stay home along with their money.  That's not to say that I don't see a bit of hypocrisy in what Ted Cruz is saying.  For one, pointing out that because other countries levy lower corporate taxes, we should follow their example while at the same time disregarding the fact that most of these also have successful universal health care systems is a bit disingenuous.  For another, when Obama and the Democrats were running things a few years ago, Cruz's one big overriding issue was to reduce the national debt...where is that consideration in his proposals other than a vague implication that overall growth will compensate for lower rates and increase net tax revenues?  That aside, I'm listing his seven ideas for tax reform, some of which I'm inclined to agree with and others that I admittedly don't understand very well.  So, without further ado, here they are, as Rachel del Guidice reported on the conservative The Daily Signal website:

1. A LOW, FLAT RATE.
2. THE ABILITY TO FILE TAXES ON A POSTCARD.
3. IMMEDIATE EXPENSING.
4. A LOW CORPORATE RATE.
5. ENCORAGE REPATRIATION.
6. ABOLISH THE DEATH TAX (ALSO CALLED THE ESTATE TAX).
7. END THE ALTERNATIVE MINIMUM TAX.

Of the above, I strongly believe Cruz is right on #2, #4, and #7.  Our income tax process is way too complicated for the average American and needs simplification.  I've already expressed that I feel we need to bring our corporate tax rate to the same level as that in competing nations.  And the alternative minimum tax discourages hard-working Americans from making "too much" money to avoid falling into this dreaded category, a cruel joke in our tax code. I doubt that getting #1 to ever become law is a moot point as too many people would regard it as being very unfair to those with lower incomes.  As for #6, when you hear the two sides of this argument debating, it almost sounds as if they are speaking about two separate issues, but I'm inclined to see Cruz's argument: for those passing down less than $5.49 million in assets the tax doesn't apply anyway, but many farms and small family-owned businesses are affected by this tax, which threatens their very enterprises should a death occur.  And that leaves #3 and #5: the way Cruz argues for them makes sense, but I need to study the subject and hear the other side to form a reasonable opinion.  In any event, I put Ted Cruz's proposals on this blog not to endorse them, but rather to try and get people thinking more in terms of issues and less of personalities.  We can all easy idolize or despise a public figure, but it takes a bit more mental finesse and discipline to listen to what they are saying without automatically accepting or rejecting everything wholesale just because of which "side" they are on... 

Just Finished Reading Under the Dome by Stephen King

Several years ago, not long after Stephen King's very long novel Under the Dome was first published, I began to read it...but stopped in frustration about a third of the way through.  I was tired of all the political references, with the good guys seeming to support then-President Obama and the bad guys against him.  I also took exception to the way evangelical Christianity was being negatively portrayed in the novel: after recently picking it back up and reading it all the way through, I realize why King did what he did but still feel that he could have done more to balance out the equation on both political and religious fronts.  Since I was already attuned to these issues, I could put them in the background as I read and enjoyed the unfolding story.  Turned out to be a pretty good story, after all...

Just before noon on an October Saturday in the fictional small Maine town of Chester's Mill, a thin, transparent, and impermeable barrier suddenly materializes, separating everybody and everything on both sides of the town's borders.  A plane crashes against the dome as do cars, trucks, and multitudes of birds...many deaths occur in those first few minutes of its existence.  Dale "Barbie" Barbara, the story's chief protagonist (and it contains many protagonists) is close to leaving town after a violent altercation with town ruffians the night before...he just misses getting out in time as the car he was hoping to hitch a ride with doesn't stop as it exits.  So now Barbie has to go back to Chester's Mill, which is full of small-town society and politically dominated by a demagogue, "Big Jim" Rennie, who is a manipulative used-car salesman with no scruples when it comes to enhancing his own power and wealth.  As the dome remains over Chester's Mill, the struggle is on between Rennie's forces and those in the town who want to prevent a dictatorship...

The dome cannot be physically crossed, but the other side is both visible and audible, and radio and the Internet still pass through the barrier.  Barbie is informed by his former Army superior from Iraq that he has been reinstated and promoted to corporal from his former captain rank...and that he is expected to take control of Chester's Mill.  Thus ensues a power struggle with Rennie.  But these characters, although crucial to the story, are just a few of the many that King follows in Under the Dome.  As I said before, it contains many protagonists and subplots...and quite a few villains as well.  I'll leave what happens in this speculative tale to you, the prospective reader, and instead focus on a couple of my own reactions to it...

I can't help but feel that with this story Stephen King was alluding to our planet Earth as a sort of enclosed system that is susceptible to environmental abuse.  The indiscriminate burning of fossil fuels and the release of pollutants into the atmosphere threatens the fragile system that supports our own lives, and like the folks living under that dome, we have nowhere else to go.  I also understand the author's example of how people tend to deny the rights of other species of life to simply be able to live out their own lives...he used the example of kids setting fire to ants with a magnifying glass, regarding them as not really being alive anyway.  What if some alien beings had the same attitude about us that we have toward "lower" creatures?

So in the end, I give a "thumbs up" to Under to Dome.  Be prepared for a long reading excursion, though...it's more than a thousand pages long.  As for the television series, I haven't seen it and don't have any plans in that regard.  There are some sections to this novel that are unforgettable: the strange friendship that develops between Andy Sanders and Phil "Chef" Bushey was totally unexpected.  And Stephen King was brilliant with the dialogue throughout...

Jim McElwain Fired As Florida Football Coach

I didn't think things were going well with this year's edition of the University of Florida football, and they worsened when starting quarterback Luke Del Rio suffered a season-ending injury, the third year in a row in head coach Jim McElwain's short tenure in which his best hope at that crucial position was taken out early in the season.  But against Georgia yesterday afternoon, the Gators were downright embarrassing, although the defense as usual displayed signs of life with little-to-no help from the offense.  Coupled with McElwain's disturbing but unproven revelation last week of death threats against him and his staff, his team's apparent inability to grow and improve under his direction may have been what pushed the powers-that-be at Florida to fire him today.  And for some reason, he's had a bit of difficulty with keeping his players out of trouble...well, that's all over now...

Florida's defensive coordinator Randy Shannon will be the interim head coach for the rest of the 2017 season.  I'm disappointed that their offense remained stagnant...their redshirt freshman quarterback Feleipe Franks, highly touted when they recruited him out of high school, doesn't seem to have been able to learn the skills necessary to effectively play his position on a major college level...maybe he would be a better fit at a smaller school.  I wrote before that a head coach should be allowed time for his own recruits to fill the starting lineups before judging his job performance, but there doesn't seem to be any sign at all that improvement for the Gator offense is in the works...and it is the offense that McElwain singled out at his hiring for a major overhaul.  Well, that didn't happen and now he's gone...

Florida is now 3-4 for the season, with the Southeastern Conference East Division title beyond their reach.  But if they can win at least three of their last four regular season games, they will once again be eligible for a bowl game.  Here's that schedule, all games to be played on Saturday:

11/04: at Missouri
11/11: at South Carolina
11/18: hosting UAB
11/25: hosting Florida State

I'll still be pulling for the Gators, win or lose...

Just Finished Reading Astrid and Veronika by Linda Olsson

Linda Olsson, born and raised in Sweden and now living in New Zealand, just happened to write her first novel Astrid and Veronika (originally titled Let Me Sing You Gentle Songs) about two Swedish women, one of whom lived for a while in New Zealand.  But these women, 81-year old Astrid and 32-year old Veronika, have widely divergent histories, experiences...and personalities...as they meet and become close friends and confidants...

Astrid is a recluse in her rural Swedish village whose husband, whom she detests and had wed in an arranged marriage brokered by her father decades earlier, is dying in a nearby nursing home.  Rarely going out, she notices a new neighbor in the house facing her, a young woman.  Veronika, an aspiring writer, has just moved back to Sweden from New Zealand.  The two women inevitably cross paths and meet, and discover each other's tragic life stories as they enjoy their walks and meals together.  Although very different in temperament, they reveal that each one lost her mother in childhood, Astrid's through death and Veronika's from abandonment.  Astrid did have an early love in her life, but he tragically died.  Veronika was in love, too...well, maybe you should read this book to get all the details, I don't want to reveal everything...

I didn't particularly enjoy Astrid and Veronika, but then again I don't believe that's always necessary in order to get something of value from a book.  It gave me a model of what a good, mutual friendship based on empathy and prioritizing the other's preferences and feelings can look like...and the people involved can be different.  Courtesy does not always mean formality...it can help people come together who otherwise would be inclined to keep to themselves.  There was honesty in both women when they discussed their pasts, and they respectfully, patiently, and sympathetically listened to each other...even during some very difficult sections.  The story was set in our present time, but there were many flashbacks as Astrid and Veronika told their stories...

I think the author did a good job of delineating each woman's personality and making it consistent with their past and present behavior...not always an easy thing to do.  Astrid and Veronika is not escapist literature and as such may not attract the kind of reading audience that flocks to more popular works.  I'm glad I read it...you may find yourself loving it or hating it, it's that type of book...

Quote of the Week...from Ted Cruz

I'm not serving in office because I desperately needed 99 new friends in the U.S. Senate.
                                                                    ---Ted Cruz

Last week I quoted progressive Democratic senator Al Franken, who has recently come out with a new book, Giant of the Senate.  In it he largely disparaged the approach that junior Texas senator Ted Cruz had taken to relations with him and his fellow senators.  Almost immediately after taking office in January 2013, Cruz would often bluntly confront his Senate colleagues with very little consideration for courtesy and tact...two of the more offended senators were Diane Feinstein (D, CA) and Mitch McConnell (R, KY), the latter being Cruz's own caucus "boss".  This public grandstanding rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, including me.  And then he ran for president for the 2016 election...and my opinion of Ted Cruz dramatically changed...

Yes, Ted Cruz is very theatrical with his oratory, and if you disagree with a lot of what he is saying...as I do...he can come across as smug and patronizing.  Yet I am not one of his colleagues: I'm just one of 300 million+ Americans, and if I look at him from that viewpoint Cruz imparts respect to me.  I was particularly impressed with the gracious manner with which he dealt with the unprecedented viciousness of rival candidate Donald Trump's attacks against him during the campaign. I am also thoroughly perplexed as to why much of the important core base of political support from conservative evangelical Christians jumped over to support someone with an unapologetically degenerate character instead of Cruz, who would have been their ideal president (or Marco Rubio, for that matter).  As the campaign wore on and it looked as if Trump would get the nomination, Ted Cruz did not resort to personal attacks against his primary opponent but rather continued to run on the issues and directed his criticism primarily at the Democratic opposition...talk about grace in the face of adversity.  And then his speech at the Republican National Convention was nothing short of brilliant...

Whenever I watch the floor proceedings of the U.S. Senate and Ted Cruz pops into view, either serving as the presiding officer, giving a speech, or casting a vote, I continue to scrutinize him to see if my newfound respect for him is correct...or if he really is that obnoxious dude I saw just a few years ago.  I suspect he's a little of both: one-on-one, he is not very likeable...but he's one of the smartest people in the Senate and an excellent orator.  The other day he spoke in the Senate about seven planks of what he deems to be a formula for success with tax reform if they are implemented: my leanings toward the Democrats notwithstanding, a lot of what Senator Cruz said made sense to me.  Without any hint of a doubt, I would feel much, much more secure and confident about our future here in America...in spite of my political differences with Ted Cruz...were he now our sitting president instead of what we've been handed...

10/22 Sermon on David, Part 6

Last Sunday at The Family Church here in Gainesville, senior pastor Philip Griffin continued his series about David, King of Israel.  The focus for discussion was repentance, both as it applied to David and to us as we overcome our own transgressions.  The primary scripture reference was Psalm 51: 1-13...you can read it by clicking on the following link to Bible Gateway: [link]...

In his message Pastor Philip identified five areas of importance as they pertain to the process of repentance, which is the turning away from sin in favor of righteousness: God wants us to move past our mistakes, admit our guilt, use our brokenness to grow ourselves, leave our old ways behind, and turn our repentance into ministry to others.  Identifying and admitting guilt is obviously necessary in order to purposefully change behavior, brokenness leads to dependency on God's empowering through the Holy Spirit to enable that change, dispensing with the old ways...as Philip pointed out...through actual behavior and not just rationalizing.  And when this is accomplished, true repentance can serve as a positive, encouraging example for others to follow...

The scripture refers to the sin David committed against God by taking Bathsheba from her husband and then sending him to his death. His confession, brokenness, and repentance of this sin, from what we know, was final and without any backtracking.  In our own lives, though, repentance can be more of a process of listening to God's direction, progressing, then slipping, being convicted, and turning again in the right direction.  Bad ways can be bad habits, but God can change anything for his own purposes in those of his people who trust in him...

You can view Pastor Philip's message via the church's YouTube video site...here's a link to it: [link].  The Family Church is at 2022 SW 122nd Street, on the western outskirts of Gainesville, and holds its Sunday morning services at 9:30 and 11.  Coffee, sermon, praise music, coffee, friendly folks, prayer, coffee...sounds like a good thing to me...

Wednesday's Short Story: Time is the Traitor by Alfred Bester

I first read Time is the Traitor, by Alfred Bester, back in the late 1980s along with many other short stories, but this one has stuck with me over the years for a couple of important reasons.  It appears in the anthology Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 15 (1953), published by DAW Books in 1986.  It is set in a distant future when humankind has settled more than 700 worlds and huge corporations dominate the interstellar economy.  John Strapp has the gift of intuition that enables him to make Decisions with an 87% probability of being correct...for the companies this is a very valuable commodity and he makes a fortune selling them to his clients who span the stars.  But Strapp has a couple of quirks to his personality: he goes into a murderous rage against anyone named Kruger and he aggressively, predatorily pursues women who line up with certain very specific physical specifications of his...what's going on here?  His staff is concerned that these issues may bring down his (and consequently their) enterprise, so they get amiable ex-heavyweight fighter Frank Alceste to befriend him and get to the bottom of the problems.  Alceste does and...well, here is that expected moment when I say you'll just have to read the rest for yourself...

Those two reasons that made Time is the Traitor memorable to me are the following: we live in an age when scientific research, by its nature highly technical and difficult to understand even by other scientists outside a particular specialty, nevertheless carries great importance from its conclusions about different issues.  The world's climate is warming at an alarming rate due to man-made carbon emissions, we are told...and we must act now to counteract it.  This is based on studies done by specialized scientists...to accept their conclusions requires a kind of faith in science without knowing the exact reasons. John Strapp's method of using his intuition had nothing scientific to back him up...just his own gut feelings and a record of 87% accuracy.  So which of these best predicts the future and which would you follow...precise, empirical data leading to a conclusion by trained specialists or an individual with a consistent record of good hunches?  I don't have the answer to this question.  The second thing about this story that stuck with me was near the ending, which I'm not giving away.  I'll just share this much: it's interesting how people's memories can play tricks on them to the point where something long missed and desired can come back and yet they themselves have changed so much that they are incapable of recognizing it as what they had been pursuing all along.  Well, I guess you're now going to have to read Time is the Traitor to know what the heck I'm talking about...

Tuesday's List: I Rank the Harry Potter Books

With all the times they keep showing Harry Potter movies on TV these days, it might be easy to forget that in years past, Harry Potter was first and foremost a great adventure in reading, widely lauded for encouraging children with this activity.  One day in 2000 I went to my local Books-a-Million for my usual daily flavored coffee, planning to browse around the store.  Instead the place was packed with kids and employees dressed and made up like characters in J.K. Rowling's popular series about the young English wizard.  Why all this hullaballoo? Book Number Four, titled Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, had just been released and the store was holding a big celebration as fans came in to pick up their preordered books.  I did manage to find a seat in the café and, looking around me, decided I'd better get on the Harry Potter reading train.  So that year I caught up on the first four books...and waited for the next one to come out.  Meanwhile, the first Harry Potter movie hit the theaters and I wondered...as I am wondering now about George R.R. Martin's delay in publishing the next volume in his A Song of Fire and Ice "Game of Thrones" series after it was adapted to an HBO series...if the movies weren't holding up the release of Rowling's next book.  Finally, it came out and I kept up with the written series, even going to the final two book parties at Books-a-Million.  And I watched all the movies as well...

I strongly recommend the books over the movies, although the latter did a generally good job at holding to the story lines and portrayed the characters well.  The books had a great amount of background story material that the movies omitted...you miss a lot if you skip them, so I'm glad I first read the books before starting in on the movies.  There were seven in all, and I have my own preferences that I will list below...with a little commentary, of course.  Each book's title begins with the words "Harry Potter and", which I left out of the list.  Oh, by the way, I liked ALL of the books, even my least favorite one...

1 THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN (Book 3)
   One of the best time-travel stories I've read, and the Marauder's Map was a brilliant gift for young Potter, a compulsive snoop.  And the mystery of the four animagus Hogwarts students Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs...

2 THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE (Book 6)
   Severus Snape's role as the series' wild-card character, the flashbacks to Voldemort as Hogwarts student Tom Riddle, the mysterious potions book, and the introduction of Professor Slughorn, collector of students...

3 THE GOBLET OF FIRE (Book 4)
   Probably the most convoluted of all the Potter tales, the book reveals much, much more than the movie.  Harry, Ron, and Hermione are shown entering adolescence, with their change in personalities and interests.  The Quidditch World Cup and the Triwizard Tournament,  features only of this book, dominate the story...

4 THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS (Book 2)
   Students, a cat...and even a ghost...are found in catatonic states at Hogwarts, and the trail seems to lead back to Harry, who always seems to be at the scene of the crime and has the very suspicious ability to converse with snakes.  The very seedy and sinister Knockturn Alley, right next to the more reputable Diagon Alley, captured my imagination...

5 THE SORCERER'S STONE (Book 1)
   Originally called Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, it introduces Harry Potter and the secret world of magic, full of wizards and magical creatures and places, that exists parallel to our own and has its own school for young wizards: Hogwarts.  I didn't quite get the ending, though...

6 THE DEATHLY HALLOWS (Book 7)
   All final books in a long series can be a little bit long on explanation and resolution and short on new, innovative material...Rowling made this book a delightful exception to that rule with the three Deathly Hallows.  The resolution of the conflict at the end differs in detail with the movie version, though...

7 THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX (Book 5)
   There is a plausible explanation given later as to why Harry Potter is always angrily yelling at everyone in this book...but it began to get under my skin after a while.  Also, the whole premise of Voldemort's plot made absolutely no sense whatsoever to me...what difference does knowing the special prophecy's message make in the struggle between the Dark Lord and the good guys?

Loyal to Own State's College Football Teams

The other day I wrote about how I was rooting for Florida State and Miami to win their football games while my hometown school, the University of Florida, had a much-needed bye week in anticipation of playing against long-time rival Georgia next Saturday.  When I grew up in Hollywood...just a few miles north of Miami...the idea of supporting all Floridian teams whenever they weren't playing each other was very common.  But since I moved to Gainesville, I noticed that the prevailing sentiment seems to hate the other two major college teams for all it's worth.  I was disappointed in FSU's last-minute loss to Louisville, even though I'll be fervently pulling for the Gators when they face off later this year.  And I was equally elated when the "Cardiac 'Canes" pulled out another win, this one against Syracuse.  But my allegiance to my home state in no way transfers to that for the other teams in the Southeastern and Atlantic Coast Conferences...

Outside of Florida, there are few teams that I consistently support...and a couple that I vehemently oppose, both in Florida's own SEC: Alabama and Georgia.  The Crimson Tide I dislike only because I dislike their coach, who deserted my Miami Dolphins in mid-contract after the 2006 season to coach his "dream team".  With the Bulldogs, I don't dislike them per se...they just seem to be Florida's natural rival with a long history of bitter losses and glorious victories in their regular season games at Jacksonville...

There are other teams besides the "big three" in Florida: South Florida, Central Florida, Florida A&M, Bethune Cookman, Florida Atlantic, and Florida International.  Of these, USF and UCF are enjoying particularly good seasons in 2017: I'll have to keep an eye on them...

 

Just Finished Rereading Stephen King's Book On Writing

In the months immediately before and after a distracted van driver struck Stephen King while he was walking on the shoulder of a rural Maine road and nearly killed him in June, 1999, the famed author took a detour of his own from writing fiction and instead composed On Writing, which is part autobiography and part helpful hints for the aspiring writer.  It's a small book by his standards, but packed with interesting and sometimes very helpful information.  Stephen King believes that his advice, properly implemented, cannot make a great writer out of a good one, nor can it make a competent writer out of a poor one...but it can make a good writer out of a competent one.  Well, I see myself as being in the general category of "competent", so I thought that checking out the recommendations of one of the most successful writers of our age couldn't hurt...

First of all, Stephen King's own personal story paints the picture of someone who was into writing and storytelling from a very early age, and his mother strongly encouraged him.  Having support from those close to you has got to be a big plus, but sometimes this is beyond one's control.  Still, King distilled some lessons he learned from his early writings and the many rejections he received from publishers.  One is that the story reigns supreme...you want to develop your characters, descriptive language, and dialogue, but don't let them get in the way of the story.  Two is that it is a very good idea to establish a regular time and place to write...a setting removed from distractions from others, television...even open windows to the outside can present a problem.  The rationale is that, if you train yourself this way, then the creative thoughts will more easily come to you.  Three is that story is not the same as plot, which there is no need to even consider when writing a story.  Thinking in terms of advancing the plot creates awkward writing and implies that the ending has already been mapped out in advance, something that King is usually opposed to doing...this is the one piece of his advice that I am uncertain about.  Four, in the first draft of a story, write, write, write freely to your heart's content...then when you're finished, put it aside for a few weeks.  Then return to it and read what you've written, making technical corrections...and then have a trusted "ideal" reader go over it and give you needed feedback.  And five, there's something in editorial circles called the "10 %" rule, meaning that generally the amount of words in a story can and should be reduced by that amount in order to curtail redundancy and make the text more readable.  There are a few other gems of advice that King dispenses...this is a pretty handy book...

Above everything Stephen King stresses that if anyone wants to be a serious writer, there are two things they have to spend a lot of time doing: reading and writing.  For most of us, the writing part seems obvious, but a lot of reading can help to indicate what works in a good story and what doesn't...and also what's already been done before.  Not that you should read for those reasons alone...no, read for the enjoyment!  After all, that's how you'll want anyone reading your own stories to approach them...

Saturday Afternoon with Starbucks and Football

I'm sitting outside for a few minutes on this late Saturday afternoon at the brand-new Starbucks off NW 43rd Street in far northern Gainesville, the closest one to my house.  As a matter of fact, I am looking out across the street at one of the running routes I would regularly take a few years ago when I was training for the marathon and put in several 15-plus-mile runs.  I'm not in shape now for any runs that long, but would like to get back up to that level.  I do know that if I were in good enough condition for it, this weather would be perfect: overcast skies, a nice little breeze, and moderate temperatures.  Finally it looks as if we are going to start getting autumn weather conditions: temperatures will be dipping into the 40s next week and peaking in the 60s...now that's the way u-huh u-huh I like it...

Speaking of late Saturday autumn afternoons, it's the middle of football season and my Florida Gators have a bye week before they head off to Jacksonville to try and upset Georgia.  I wish them well without my hopes getting too high.  UF isn't the only Florida school with football issues this season: Florida State, initially ranked number three in the country, fell today to 2-4 after losing a heartbreaker to Louisville 31-28, after it looked as if the Seminoles were in position to close out the game with an easy field goal...but their talented freshman quarterback James Blackman fumbled the ball away and the Cardinals went downfield to win it.  The University of Miami is still holding on to a 13-6 lead over Syracuse...I root for all my in-state teams as long as they aren't playing against Florida.  With the Hurricanes, though, it feels a little awkward after all the years of pulling against current UM coach Mark Richt when he was in charge of Georgia.  In the pros, the Miami Dolphins seem to have finally woken up and are playing some pretty good football of late...especially on the defensive side.  Their next game will be a rematch with the New York Jets, which they lost to miserably the first time around 20-6...

Well, I think I'll get up, go down to Publix and pick up some groceries, and then head on home...