Happy Birthday, Melissa!

I'd like to take just a moment to wish my wonderful, beautiful wife Melissa the happiest birthday today...yes, it's St. Valentine's Day, too!

Tuesday's List: Upcoming Running Races in Gainesville Vicinity

Usually this is the time of year in which I am the most likely to enter a running race...or two...or three.  Seeing how I live in Gainesville, Florida, and how this community has embraced running over the years, there are plenty of racing events to participate in.  The following list goes through March, showing races in the Gainesville vicinity.  Notably absent is the Run for Haven 10K that has been held around St. Patrick's Day in Tioga and which I had run the past three years...sad if it's not being held anymore.  In any event, there are plenty of races to choose from.  All races listed are in Gainesville unless otherwise specified...

2/17 Sat   FIVE POINTS OF LIFE 5K & KIDS MARATHON
2/18 Sun  FIVE POINTS OF LIFE MARATHON & HALF-MARATHON
2/24 Sat   JOEY'S WINGS 5K
3/3   Sat   RACE THE TORTOISE 5K (in High Springs)
3/3   Sat   RUN AMUCK WITH THE DUCK 5K
3/10 Sat   ARES VENGEANCE TRAIL RACE: 6H, 13.1m, 5K (in Alachua)
3/17 Sat   CLINT LACINAK/ST. PATRICK'S SHAMROCK 5K
3/17 Sat   DOVES AND SNEAKS 5K
3/24 Sat   GREAT INFLATABLE RACE: 5K novelty run
3/24 Sat   TRAIL OF PAYNE 10K
3/25 Sun  EQUAL ACCESS CLINIC NETWORK 5K

The above list probably isn't comprehensive as there are usually lower-profile races also held in the area.  I'm also holding out hope...slim as it is...that the Run for Haven 10K will take place this year...

Just Finished Rereading the First Three Artemis Fowl Books by Eoin Colfer

A few years ago I began reading Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl series, which is composed of eight books and aimed at a younger reading audience...but that never stopped me.  Back then I got through the third book of the then-ongoing series and forgot about it...now that it's finished (the final book came out in 2012) I decided to revisit this often hilarious fantasy/sci-fi venture into human/fairy history and relations...

The star of Artemis Fowl is the title character, a precocious boy genius who not only follows in his father's unscrupulous ways but plans to become the greatest criminal mastermind the world has ever known.  Each book has him growing a bit older while hatching a new scheme.  Artemis lives on his family's estate in Ireland with his parents, his trusted bodyguard Butler, and Butler's young sister Juliet...who is also in training to become a bodyguard.  In the first book, simply titled Artemis Fowl, Artemis's father has been kidnapped in northern Russia.  Book number two, The Arctic Incident, our young hero's plot revolves around rescuing him.  Oh, before I go any further, I need to introduce a very crucial element of this series: the world of fairies and its most important characters...

Fairies, which call themselves simply "the people" and comprise all sorts of fantasy creatures while referring to us ordinary humans as "mud people", had been the original inhabitants of the world's surface land but were driven underground millennia ago by the humans.  They have a much more advanced society both technologically and magically, and they abide by a special book (which Artemis seeks in volume one) that lays out all of their laws and limitations.  The standout characters here are Holly Short and Foaly...the former is a daring, brave young female elf striving for advancement within that society's police force (the LEP) and...like us mud people...fighting against gender-based discrimination.  Foaly is a centaur who is a digital and technological super-genius...he and Artemis eventually grow a kind of mutual respect for each other's mental abilities.  Oh, and probably my favorite character is a dwarf by the name of Mulch Diggums, a petty criminal who gets around by burrowing underground at high speeds...how he manages this is pure comedy...

Book one, Artemis Fowl, has Artemis encountering fairies and how they respond to him.  Book two, The Arctic Incident, has Artemis on a voyage to rescue his father off the northern Siberian coast from the Russian mafia while a goblin rebellion seeks to overthrow the fairy society...with a couple from the latter manipulating the goblins (they also have criminal masterminds down there).  And book three, The Eternity Code, has Artemis dealing with an American crime boss who has stolen an invention of his...which he in turn had designed with stolen fairy technology.  The stakes are no less than the survival of the fairies.  No, I'm not going to tell what happens in these stories...besides, you'll enjoy reading them for yourself and the books are pretty short...

There is an enormous amount of humor in this series, but the storyline itself is serious as Artemis, who starts as a totally selfish, arrogant, and amoral eleven-year-old, grows through his two-year experiences in these first three books into someone who is more compassionate and humble.  Whether or not this positive development continues has a lot to do with what happens at the start of the next book, for The Eternity Code's ending...which I won't reveal...nevertheless hinted that Artemis may be due for a return to his old nefarious ways.  Well, since I plan to not stop until I finish all eight books this time around, I guess I'll discover the answer soon enough...

Trump's State of the Union Address and Commentary

Over the span of this blog, I have laid out from time to time my political orientation, which is issues-specific but weighted by how I perceive those issues affect me and my family.  I also believe that the primary Constitutional duty of the president and the executive branch is to provide for the national defense.  Now I realize, both in social media, television, radio, and the print media, the political discussion tends to be binary in nature, with the same people generally going straight down the line on either the "conservative/Republican" side or that of the "liberal-progressive/Democratic".  With the election of the current occupant of the White House, the polarization has taken on a much more personal slant as this individual seems to welcome confrontation and offense while regularly dishing out insults to anyone wounding his hyper-inflated pride and then wondering why so many people hate him.  However, I must in all fairness rise to Donald Trump's defense...so if what I'm about to say offends your political sensibilities, you'd probably better just stick to the channel or website that preaches to your chorus...

I was at work recently when President Trump delivered his first State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court justices.  I listened to the whole thing on the radio...which in itself was a feat since it lasted so long.  A funny thing happened while I was listening to him: I found myself nodding my head in agreement.  On this issue and that...interspersed with call-outs to special audience guests Trump wanted to honor...I thought that the president was spot-on with his delivery and themes: yes, I thought he hit the proverbial ball out of the park.  And then I went home and watched replays and reactions on TV...

With the replays, I instantly became irritated with the smug, smirking Vice-President Pence and the even worse Speaker of the House Ryan sitting behind Trump...and then I looked at the president himself.  Donald Trump, while saying all the great things that I earlier had agreed with without seeing him, looked like he was seething with hostility and aggression, and he had all of those irritating mannerisms as well...especially his patronizing hand gestures.  I suddenly felt like hurling something into the TV to make it all go away...reason won out, though, and I switched the channel.  I also viewed how people on TV reacted to his speech and was flabbergasted to hear it depicted as racist...come again? 

Early in his address, the president had the apparent gall to say that "Americans are dreamers, too".  I didn't take it as refuting the case for the children of undocumented immigrants being given the chance to stay in the country and be able to work (which I and most Americans support), but rather to bring everyone together...to acknowledge that we all have our own aspirations and that he was working on behalf of all of us.  But apparently, some white supremacist had already used that line and so that, in the eyes of some on the left, made Trump's statement racist.  He was also trashed for upholding the virtues of standing for the pledge of allegiance to the flag...something that has been a long-standing tradition in this country.  His critics angrily took him to task for that comment as a backhanded criticism of some NFL players' protests against what they perceive to be racial profiling and brutality by police.  But regardless where one stands on the Dreamers and the NFL protests, the president's presentation in his speech was dignified and inclusive. These were just two instances where Trump was excoriated by his critics; there were more as well.  The problem, of course, is that our 45th president tends to make statements, both in extemporaneous speech and on Twitter, that give fuel to his political adversaries...as well as a couple of his executive orders that took effect immediately and gave those directly affected little to no time to adjust...

It's tough enough for someone like me who voted against Trump in 2016 to have him as my president.  It's even worse when I find myself agreeing with his stance on certain issues...especially those on national defense, border security, and immigration...and then get frustrated when he undermines his own positions by making asinine impromptu comments and pointless Twitter postings (e.g. ban on Muslims entering U.S., "s---hole" countries).  Well, maybe I'm not defending him quite as much as I though I would.  And I'm getting tired of hearing people like Democratic Senator Dick Durbin get up there and condescendingly equate illegal immigration with the legal process that he himself benefited from through his own family line coming here many years ago.  The president's proposal does not turn our country's back on immigration but rather returns it to the legitimate process and more in favor of the frustrated folks who obeyed the law and are stuck on those long waiting lists, as Republican Senator John Cornyn pointed out a few days ago in a rebuttal to Durbin's speech...

Just Finished Reading The Pirate King by Laurie R. King

Laurie R. King's 2011 mystery novel The Pirate King...not to be confused with R.A. Salvatore's fantasy novel with the same title...is another one of those books I picked out nearly at random from my local public library's shelves.  It is part of the author's Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series...yes, turns out that Holmes wasn't a fictional character after all and is married to protagonist Russell, whom he calls...Russell.  The setting is England in the 1920s as the two go around tackling different cases...personally, I wished that Doctor Watson was in it, too.  The installment I read involves Mary Russell taking on an undercover assignment in a pirate movie filming...a movie with a very convoluted plot that sees her and the crew on a treacherous sea voyage after a stop in Portugal to hire "authentic" looking actors to portray pirates...

The mysteries that Russell is hired to solve seemed to be nothing more than a minor afterthought on the author's part...the story's emphasis changes to the ongoing experiences of the actors, film crews, and "pirates"...and to the final destination of the sailing ship they are on.  I can't be more specific without giving away the story, so I'll just enter in some general reactions.  One, the story gave a glimpse at the fledgling movie industry and Britain's attempts to "catch up" with American films produced in Hollywood. Their strategy in this regard was to make blockbuster adventure movies, filmed not in studios but on location instead...hence the convoluted trip out of England to Portugal...and points south.  Two, the Sherlock Holmes of this series...if this book is to serve as a good example...seemed weaker and less defined.  Of course, it's a bit of a mind game to claim within a fictional series that one of its characters was actually "real"!  Three, in spite of the various flaws I saw in the story line, I did very much like the main protagonist, Mary Russell, an Oxford educated woman fluent in several languages.  Her capacity in Arabic was integral in resolving the crisis at book's end...

So although I thought that The Pirate King drifted too much for much of the novel, I think I'll give Laurie R. King a second chance and read another Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes book...maybe one of the earlier ones (the series began in 1994).  After all, I didn't like all of the late Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone mysteries, either.  Oh, by the way, it's not just Sherlock in this series: his competitive brother Mycroft...with whom Russell has an antagonistic relationship...is there as well...

Quote of the Week...from Elon Musk

It can launch things direct to Pluto and beyond. Don't even need gravity assist or anything.
                                                                     ---Elon Musk.

With the successful launch of Tuesday's Falcon Heavy rocket and the soft landing of two of its three booster rockets, SpaceX founder Elon Musk delivered the above reaction in a matter-of-fact manner, making me wonder whether his feet may be planted in 2018 but his mind is somehow off in the more distant future.  Musk picked as the rocket's payload his own private Tesla Roadster car, which will eventually settle into an orbit around the sun near Mars's orbit while playing endless loops (soundless in space) of David Bowie's space songs Space Oddity and Life on Mars.  Kind of reminds me of the dude in that Star Trek: First Contact movie who first develops and tests the warp drive...while loudly playing hard rock.  While the launch of Falcon Heavy marked a much-anticipated milestone within the space community, folks at large may at first have paid it passing attention but quickly put it far at the bottom of their collective priority list, below reality TV and Trump's tweets.  But that's people for you.  After all...

When you consider how different technological advances over the past couple of centuries have dramatically transformed the human condition, you'll notice that with each innovation it quickly gets adapted into society and is soon treated as if it had always existed, be it railroads, electric power, automobiles, airplanes, movies, radio & later television, computers, the internet, smart phones, etcetera.  And speaking of space travel, on only the third manned mission to the moon in 1970, television dropped live coverage for lack of viewer interest...that is, until Apollo 13 developed life-threatening problems creating a dramatic emergency ride back home.  During the next few years, if the launches generally go well as planned, we will witness another major change: people routinely traveling into space and to other worlds.  Initially it will be novel, but I predict (and will probably point back to this very blog article) that before hardly any time at all most people will treat it all as nothing much to get excited about.  That to me is one of the weirdest things about us humans...

2/4 Sermon on Philippians, Part 4

Last Sunday at The Family Church here in Gainesville, senior pastor Philip Griffin delivered Part Four of his sermon series on the New Testament book of Philippians, this particular message titled Joy Through Humility. Tbe Bible passage of focus was Philippians 2:1-11. which you can read by clicking on it.  It all concerns putting aside one's own pride and imitating Christ's humility by putting on the role of a servant, tending to others' interests over one's own...

In opening his message, Pastor Philip brought up an incident a few years ago in the Black Sea when two Russian ships collided head-on after neither's captain would yield to the other.  That epitomizes the problem with pride, he pointed out: contentiousness not only can lead to disaster, but it also steals our joy.  The opposite of this stubborn pride is the humility that Christ practiced and which he exhorts us to adopt...as servant believers.  What is the mind of Christ in this regard? Philip listed three aspects: (1) in order to have a relationship with us, Christ put aside his divine rights and privileges as God's son, (2) in order to lead us he took on the role of a servant to show that true power and true position are to be used in serving others...we as his followers should do the same, and (3) in order to love us, he died the death he did not deserve, motivated by his selflessness...calling us in turn to live sacrificial lives on behalf of others.  In a nutshell, as our pastor stressed, the mind of Christ is about "giving", not "getting".  But all of this requires setting aside one's pride...

Looking at this "pride" issue personally, I find it much easier to notice when someone else is letting their pride get out of hand when they act unreasonably and stubbornly toward others, often with the excuse that they are "proudly" defending the rights of whatever group they identify with, be it an association or some demographic group that emphasizes pride for its members.  I understand the need for each of us to feel a sense of worth and that the sad truth is that, for many of us, the outside world can unfairly put us down because we are perceived to belong to the "wrong" group...in this light, it's important to have a positive sense of self, which can be translated as "pride".  Also, if I am to seek to value the interests of others...and they presumably mine...then we should all be honest with ourselves and others about what exactly constitutes our own interests and not be ashamed of it...that to me is false humility.  After all, if everyone is humbly yielding to each other for who's first in the food line, then none of us are ever going to get around to eating...

You can watch Pastor Philip's message by going to the church's YouTube video website...here's a link to it: [link].  The Family Church is located in far western Gainesville at 2022 SW 122nd Street and holds its weekly services on Sunday morning at 9 and 10:30.  I'm looking forward to another installment in the Philippians series, as well as the great music...and that good coffee.  Prayer, learning, discipleship, friendly folks...all in all a good place to hang out on a Sunday morning...

Weekly Short Story: Cold Spell by Donna Andrews

Departing a bit from my pattern of reviewing mainly older short stories from many decades ago, I picked the 2004 tale Cold Spell, written by Donna Andrews and appearing in the anthology Powers of Detection: Stories of Mystery & Fantasy (Ace Books).  The setting is in imaginary fantasy land ruled by a duke who has a murder mystery to solve.  Already predisposed to suspicion about the magicians under his domain, he is on the verge of banning all magicians after a prisoner of his dies of a stabbing wound that seems completely inexplicable other than from magic.  Master Justinian, the most powerful mage known, is summoned to the duke by means of an bluntly disrespectful character named Reg...Justinian takes along his spunky apprentice Gwynn as he travels to the castle.  While the magician tries to figure out what happened, he sends his aide with Reg to tend to a different problem elsewhere in the castle.  Gwynn then pieces together all of the phenomena they had been experiencing and solves the puzzle...

I really enjoyed Cold Spell, especially the humor spread throughout it.  It has to be tough to develop characters' personalities in such a short span (it's only 21 pages), but I got to like both Justinian and Gwynn (and even Reg to a degree).  The only problem I have with it has to do with the combination of three factors: the story's brevity, the magic and the rules the author assigns it in the story, and that it is in the final analysis a mystery narrative...

One of the cardinal rules of mystery fiction is to present information early enough in the story that can at least give the reader some substantial clues to solve it.  In stories about magic, each author brings to their work their own rules by which it is governed.  But because Cold Spell was so short, Donna Andrews would have had to spell out one of her rules that was crucial to explaining the mystery: had she done that, it might have been too easy to solve.  But by presenting her rule at the end, it came close to violating that earlier-stated principle of letting the reader in on trying to solve it.  Oh well, maybe this means that the best mysteries should be based on real-life situations, and if there is one in a fantasy world with magic, then the story might just need to be a little longer.  That having been said, I still recommend Cold Spell...

Tuesday's List: Aggregrate Mexican Liga MX Standings Since 2014

I've been following Mexican premier league professional soccer (Liga MX) since 2014, watching games on Spanish-language television channels.  Unless my favorite team, UANL (Universidad Autonomo de Nuevo Leon) "Tigres", is playing, I usually just sit back and observe the matches dispassionately but interested.  This league plays two seasons per year: the late calendar year "Apertura" and the early calendar year "Clausura", each one with its own championship playoff series called "Liguilla" comprising the top eight finishers from the league's eighteen teams...Tigres have made the Liguilla playoffs in all seven seasons I've followed them, won the championship in three of them and finished runner-up in two.  Below I've listed the aggregrate standings combining the Apertura and Clausura regular seasons for each year, which goes in a hyphenated manner like our basketball and hockey seasons.  Apertura champions are in capitals and in red, Clausura champions are capitalized and in blue...the team promoted up from the lower Ascenso League is in green, and the team demoted (relegated down) to Ascenso is denoted with "-R"...Thanks to Wikipedia for giving me the info...this is probably one blog entry that is going to be useful primarily just for me...

******2014-15******
1 UANL Tigres
2 CLUB AMERICA
3 Atlas
4 Toluca
5 Monterrey
6 Pachuca
7 SANTOS LAGUNA
8 Chiapas Jaguares
9 Queretaro
10 Cruz Azul
11 UNAM Pumas
12 Tijuana
13 Veracruz
14 Guadalajara Chivas
15 Leon
16 Puebla
17 Universidad de Guadalajara Leones Negros-R
18 Morelia

******2015-16******
1 Monterrey
2 Leon
3 Club America
4 UNAM Pumas
5 Toluca
6 UANL TIGRES
7 PACHUCA
8 Morelia
9 Guadalajara Chivas
10 Puebla
11 Santos Laguna
12 Cruz Azul
13 Queretaro
14 Chiapas Jaguares
15 Veracruz
16 Tijuana
17 Atlas
18 Sinaloa-R

******2016-17******
1 Tijuana
2 UANL TIGRES
3 Pachuca
4 GUADALAJARA CHIVAS
5 Monterrey
6 Club America
7 Toluca
8 Necaxa
9 Leon
10 Atlas
11 UNAM Pumas
12 Morelia
13 Santos Laguna
14 Cruz Azul
15 Queretaro
16 Puebla
17 Vercruz
18 Chiapas Jaguares-R

***2017-18 (SO FAR)***
1 Monterrey
2 Club America
3 UANL TIGRES
4 Morelia
5 Toluca
6 Cruz Azul
7 Leon
8 Tijuana
9 Necaxa
10 Atlas
11 Puebla
12 Santos Laguna
13 UNAM Pumas
14 BUAP Lobos
15 Pachuca
16 Guadalajara
17 Queretaro
18 Veracruz-last in regulation table so far

Some Musings on Commonality of Outlook and Interests

Sometimes when reading a book certain insights float up to my conscious mind a few days later. This just happened to me after recently reading Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. In her novel, a fellowship forms between people who share a philosophy of realism combined with rationalism. They are judges, artists, musicians, engineers, and industrialists, among other professions. Their mutual association is based on their common approach to life...not necessarily on others within their own specialties or who share their specific interests. Although Atlas Shrugged contains some aspects with which I disagree, I feel that it revealed something to me that I should have figured out for myself long, long ago...

The idea of seeking others with my common interests makes sense, at least on the surface. I’m a runner, so why not enter races and hobnob around with fellow runners...we’ve all got that particular interest in common, right? Or if I’m a writer, hang out with other writers. Or since I like to read, go join a book reading group in town. Like playing chess? Then join the chess club. Studying one or more foreign languages? Seek out those with the same linguistic interest. I did something like this in high school when I joined their astronomy club, only to discover that I had absolutely nothing in common with anyone else there. The fact is that my way of viewing life and conceptualizing things can diverge from others to the point where being around them drains me of energy and causes within me feelings of alienation and/or oppression...even if we supposedly like the same things. The immediate impulse I feel in reaction is to just seek solitude and become a recluse. Now I believe there is a better alternative...but it’s a bit more difficult and involves more of a social outreach on my part...

How does one find like-minded people to associate with? First of all, I need to be sure of my own beliefs and orientations. Then I can observe others who, at least outwardly, may display the same general way of looking at things as myself. But only time and continual, proactive and honest engagement on my part will ultimately determine whether they are truly who I think they are or instead just mimicking what they think I may be expecting from them. But I’m certain that I’d feel more commonality with others, even if our respective interests were vastly different, if their basic approach to living resonated with mine...

Patriots' Super Bowl Loss to Eagles Highly Satisfying

Hooray, I have an entire year ahead of me knowing that the New England Patriots are NOT Super Bowl champions, thanks to the Philadelphia Eagles...who produced an impressive team effort tonight in knocking off the evil defending champions, 41-33.  Before the playoffs, I had unjustly written off the National Football Conference's number one seed because of the season-ending injury of their starting quarterback Carson Wentz.  Instead, backup Nick Foles stepped in and had a historic playoff run with a career performance against the hated Patriots, earning the game's MVP award.  Tom Brady can go around smirking all he wants now, I don't care...someone ELSE is the champion.  And don't think I don't appreciate what the Eagles did...I became a strong New York Giants fan purely out of gratitude after they ruined the Cheatriots' "perfect" 2007 season when they beat them 17-14 in that year's Super Bowl...

It's too bad that the team I follow the most in the National Football League, the Miami Dolphins, have basically stagnated over the same years that the Patriots have prospered under Belichick, Brady, and company.  It's also a shame that the Dolphins have been trapped in the same division as the league's most successful franchise of this century.  But they could have been a lot more competitive had they managed their franchise better.  With their mediocre head coach returning next year, I have little hope of success with them.  But for now, GO EAGLES!!!

Just Finished Reading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

I had already long heard of writer Ayn Rand's Objectivism movement, portrayed in novels like Anthem, The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged, but had never gotten around to reading anything of hers.  I heard that folks like former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh, former Congressman Ron Paul, and Rush drummer Neil Peart had each at some point in their lives been followers of Rand's...but it wasn't until I saw an episode of the satirical cartoon series South Park of all things that I finally relented and read her so-called "masterpiece", the gargantuan 1957 Atlas Shrugged...

It was the episode in which police officer Barbrady comes out and admits that he can't read...he then goes back to elementary school to catch up.  At the end, he's literate and is given a copy of Atlas Shrugged.  His reaction? In Barbrady's words, "Yes, at first I was happy to be learning how to read.  It seemed exciting and magical, but then I read this: Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.  I read every last word of this garbage and because of this piece of s--t, I am never reading again."  My reaction upon finishing it was a little more positive, but I have my own criticisms...

The setting of Atlas Shrugged...at least at its beginning...is an America of the mid-twentieth century that initially, at least on the surface, roughly corresponds to what it was really like.  The protagonists are visionary industrialists steel producer Hank Rearden and railway magnate Dagny Taggart. They exemplify the author's ideology of realism and objective reasoning as opposed to the social engineers and mystics around them who try to sabotage their efforts at success.  The political tide turns against "creators" like Rearden and Taggart as "second-handers" and "looters"...neither of which contribute anything real to the economy...take over.  While this is all going on, innovators, rationalist thinkers, and industrial leaders are subtly disappearing...where are they all going?  And who is this John Galt we keep hearing about throughout the narrative?  Mr. Galt finally makes his appearance late in the story...and delivers a monstrously long televised discourse explaining his worldview and why the moochers are doomed to failure...

I'm going to stick to my general pattern of book reviews and avoid telling how it all ends.  I will say, though, that unlike the fictional and hysterically funny Officer Barbrady from South Park, I knew in advance to read Atlas Shrugged more as a treatise of Ayn Rand's ideology than as a traditional novel.  That's a good thing, because the characters came across more as stick figures, with the "good guys" all sounding pretty much like the same person and the villains so similar to each other that they were often only distinguishable by name...and the dialogue was so contrived and unnatural that I found myself laughing at it.  The bottom line is this: Rand believed that pursuing one's own self-interests, especially economic self-interests, is the highest form of morality and that an unrestricted and unregulated economy...based on the gold standard...is the greatest social system ever devised.  Conversely, those who seek to use taxation to fund the government, form labor unions to collectively bargain working conditions and wages, spread any religious or ethical doctrine promoting altruism or social justice, or impose any sort of government regulation are operating from a moral framework of evil...in the author's clearly enounced opinion.  Yeah, I've got lots of problems with the message in this book.  Yet...

I did pick up on a couple of important points that I think Ayn Rand was trying to convey.  There is a blatant degree of hypocrisy in our society as so many openly criticize materialism and those who enjoy the material fruits of their labor while expecting to be handed those same material benefits without having played any substantial role in bringing them about.  Also, on a more personal level, from childhood I have often felt isolated and even shunned whenever I demonstrated special skill, intelligence, and accomplishments in a social setting...the default attitude in this society that outwardly pretends to reward initiative and success but vilifies those responsible for it seems to be that it's okay to achieve or be smart as long as you keep it hidden from others.  That folks would rather seek to be seen as one of the "people" instead of rising above others is a surefire sign of a stagnant, if not sinking, society that exalts mediocrity and conformity over excellence and ambition...

Quote of the Week...from Bessie Coleman

I refused to take no for an answer.             ---Bessie Coleman.

In the employees' entrance hallway where I work (the Gainesville Post Office) is framed a large reproduction of a 1995 postage stamp featuring aviation pioneer Bessie Coleman.  Born in a large family of cotton sharecroppers in Texas in 1892, she later moved to Chicago and became enamored with flying...but couldn't find anyone in this racially hung-up country to teach her how to pilot a plane.  Strongly determined not to take "no" for an answer, she undertook to travel across the Atlantic and received her training, first in France and later in Germany. Returning to the United States with her international license, the first African-American woman to receive a pilot's license (and to our shame she had to leave the country to do it), Bessie starred in a flying circus stunt plane act traveling across America in the early-to-mid 1920s.  Tragically, she died falling from a defective plane that she was trying out on the outskirts of Jacksonville, Florida in 1926...at the way-too-early age of 34...

Let's face it: no matter who you are or where you came from, there are always going to be people in your pathway determined to prevent you from progressing with your dreams...I don't get it, but that's the sad truth.  Maybe they're jealous of your talents and feel threatened and challenged by your drive...or maybe they're just trying to test you to see how badly you want what you're seeking.  I don't care what the reasons are...I'm a lot older in my life than Bessie Coleman was when she left this Earth and I'll never fully understand the pervasiveness of hatred and discrimination she faced as she led her own life as she saw fit, but I'd be grateful to have as much as a tenth of the gumption that she displayed as she didn't just throw her hands up and give in just because some jerks said she "couldn't"...

1/28 Sermon on Philippians, Part 3

At The Family Church here in Gainesville, senior pastor Philip Griffin continued his series Finding Joy, based on a study of the New Testament book of Philippians.  Last Sunday's sermon was titled Joy in Gospel-Living and was based on Philippians 1:27-30...you can read it by clicking on it and going to the Bible Gateway website...

In developing this message, Pastor Philip laid out a four-part contrast between the meanings of religion and the Gospel: (1) Religion is all about what we can do for God, the Gospel is all about what Christ has done for us; (2) Religion is all about obeying so that God will love and save us, the Gospel is all about God loving and saving us so that we obey; (3) Religion leads us to believe God owes us for what we have done, the Gospel compels us to surrender to God for what Christ has done; and (4) Religion leads us to believe our religious actions make us better than others, the Gospel shows us that Jesus's action on the cross makes us equal to others...

The core of Philip's message is that we should live representing the Gospel that has transformed us so that we might experience true unity, Godly teamwork, and confident assurance. Accept the Gospel message of Christ goes diametrically against religious notions of rituals and behavior that cause us to think we're better than others and sow the seeds of division.  Philip also observed how fundamentally divided the church in America is on many levels, not the least of which is how racially segregated too many fellowships still are...this is not a good reflection on the Gospel, by which we should stand together firm in the one Spirit.  Fighting the spirit of teamwork are two worldly, fleshy attitudes: consumerism and egotism.  And finally, our pastor emphasized that the closer we grow to God through the Gospel, the more distant we will grow from the world's value system...

Whew, that was a longer than usual summary...but it was a great sermon, thanks Pastor Philip!  The bottom line comes down to what comes first and then what follows: first good behavior and then a supposedly earned relationship with God (religion) or first a relationship with God through Christ and then good behavior (the Gospel).  I'm opting with the latter...

The Family Church, located at 2022 SW 122nd Street (most easily accessible via SW 24th Avenue or Newberry Road), holds its weekly services on Sunday morning at 9 and 10:30.  There is beautiful praise and worship music, a message full of insight and wisdom, prayer and learning opportunities, a hospitality room before and between services, and loads of friendly people.  Next week we'll start looking at Philippians Chapter 2...

By the way, you can view Pastor Philip's message through the church's YouTube video site...just click on the following link: [link]...

My January 2018 Running Report

This month saw me getting out of my rut of missing races as I finally ran one: the Newnan's Lake 15K last Saturday (here's a link to the results: [link]).  I was only able to manage this after conquering a problem I had been experiencing of gagging after running any appreciable distance...a Zantac about an hour beforehand took care of that.  My Newnan's Lake run was for the third time in four years...it's becoming one of my favorite races.  The racing shirt that came with my registration was nice, but long-sleeved...not at all appropriate for the high humidity and racetime temperatures in the 50's and 60's...

In January I ran a total of 77 miles, that 9.3-mile race distance being my longest single run.  I missed running on only one day in the month, although on several days I only ran a perfunctory distance.  I'm looking forward this coming month to the Five Points of Life Half-Marathon, to take place on Sunday morning the 18th here in Gainesville.  If I enter it, it will be the fifth time I've run it since 2010...

Weekly Short Story: Foster, You're Dead by Philip K. Dick

Renowned twentieth century science fiction writer Philip K. Dick wrote his scathing short story Foster, You're Dead back in 1955, in the midst of the Cold War between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. when bomb shelters were in great vogue and nuclear war seemed inevitable, even to the point where it became a marketing tool.  The story jumps ahead in time to 1972 when our society has structured itself around that notion of inevitability, with companies producing new shelters for consumption...each "new and improved" model rendering the previous one obsolete.  Little Mike Foster is isolated in his own school as all of his classmates' parents are into buying bomb shelters and contributing to civil defense.  His own father, though, sees it all as a shameless sham to squeeze the people by seizing on their fears...he doesn't have a shelter nor does he participate in the almost constant war preparations.  Mike knows there is a public shelter, but even it costs money...fifty cents...and he is penniless.  As anxiety builds up within him, the continual pressure from elders and advertising only exacerbates the problem.  Will Mike's father relent and join the herd of consumerism-driven sheep?  Well, you can read Foster, You're Dead to find out...it's part of a collection titled Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick (Pantheon Books, 2002).  I've also searched for it online...there seems to be a dispute as to whether it is public domain or not: I'm going to err on the side of caution and not put a link to it, although you're free to make your own choice...

I remember back around 1998-99 when I would listen to late night talk radio while at work on the graveyard shift.  There was a show called Coast-to-Coast A.M., hosted by Art Bell.  On it he regularly had on as guests folks espousing their doomsday theories about the upcoming Y2K debacle when all the world's computer systems would fail and we would be sent back into stone age conditions.  One of the show's advertisers sold several months' supplies of storable food, anticipating this possibility and wanting to capitalize on listeners' anxieties.  But that's part of how commodities are routinely marketed: you're not safe until you buy our product...and oh by the way, you need the latest model that really makes you safe, not what you already have.  Philip K. Dick hit the target dead center with his story...

Tuesday's List: My Least Favorite Intersections in Gainesville

If you're not familiar with Gainesville, Florida, please bear with me...I've been here (except for a seven-month hiatus in 1987) for forty years and have formulated some strong opinions about the street layout here.  There are some real nightmarish intersections in town, and a lot of them I find myself traveling through to get where I need to go.  So the following is a list of my least favorite...or, more appropriately, most despised intersections, with the top entries being the WORST...

1 SW 34th STREET & ARCHER ROAD...If you're trying to cross this extremely large, over-congested intersection by walking, running, or bicycling, good look with that, with so many motorists refusing to obey right-of-way laws.  Right now the road surface is uneven and jarring, and the northbound light on 34th sometimes lasts green for just a few seconds.  Cars and trucks are notorious for running red lights here, and there have been many accidents...

2 NW 13th STREET & NW 6th STREET...NW 13th Street and NW 6th Street run parallel to each other until 6th veers west and merges into 13th a mile or two north of 39th Avenue.  Cars merging in on 13th from 6th often do not yield to traffic and cars crossing left over from 13th to 6th often "jump the gun" and misjudge oncoming northbound traffic on 13th.  Going down 13th northbound can be a bit stressful, and riding a bicycle in that direction is much worse as the drivers seem to be blind to my presence on the road...

3 ARCHER ROAD  & SW 35th BOULEVARD...With all the businesses and apartments concentrated here, this intersection is almost always overly congested...just getting to it can be an ordeal.  Ironically, I moved to this area back in 1980 to get away from the crowdedness surrounding the University of Florida campus, but it all drastically changed when a Wal-Mart was built here in 1987...

4 NEWBERRY ROAD & SW 75th STREET (TOWER ROAD)...If you're coming into Gainesville on Newberry Road from the west, you may have a long wait in store for you.  The traffic here backs up so easily that I tend to go out of my way to avoid this area, usually detouring on NW 39th Avenue or SW 24th Avenue...

5 NW 34th STREET & NW 39th AVENUE...This intersection is more dangerous than frustrating.  Close to home, I go through it a lot.  The often heavy north-south traffic is frustrated by a too-short green traffic light, but my biggest problem is that NW 39th Avenue is a truck route and I have witnessed large semis tearing through this intersection at high speeds, running the red light.  Very scary...

6 NW 43rd STREET & NW 16th BLVD/23rd AVENUE...The main problem I see here is that south of it on NW 43rd Street, the traffic builds up too much and interferes with the entering and exiting traffic from the Publix shopping center on the east side.  I often see cars taking chances cutting in front of others.  I'm always careful when passing by this area to look out for drivers making poor decisions...

7 NW 43rd STREET & NW 39th AVENUE...There's a similar problem to #6 here on the south side.  Cars too often attempt to cross over several lanes of traffic from a nearby street, causing confusion and sometimes interfering with the flow.  The lights are poorly sequenced, too.  Vehicles stretching the left lead signal from 39th Avenue westbound are putting themselves directly in the pathway of those turning left from 43rd north when they get the green light, causing danger...

8 SW 34th STREET & WINDMEADOWS BOULEVARD...This intersection in of itself isn't bad; its problem rests with its close proximity to #1, lying only a few hundred feet from it.  Whenever the traffic builds up...and that happens all the time...this intersection essentially shuts down and causes a logjam, with southbound cars on 34th often stuck in the middle of the intersection or trapped in lanes they can't get out off...

9 NW 34th BOULEVARD & NW 53rd AVENUE...NW 34th Blvd cuts across NW 53 Avenue at an oblique angle, making crossing this very close intersection to my house problematic...including for pedestrians.  The traffic backup at busy times is horrendous, stretching down 34th Blvd as much as a half mile at times.  There seems to be a larger than normal number of accidents around this intersection...

10 WEST 13th STREET & UNIVERSITY AVENUE...Originally my least favorite intersection when I moved to Gainesville many moons ago, I still try to avoid it.  The intensity of the traffic at times, combined with the heavy pedestrian flow crossing the street, makes it feel more like I'm in the middle of Manhattan than in "sleepy" Gainesville...and those new hi-rise buildings on the nw side add to the effect...

I'll bet you have some of your own "favorites" if you've been around Gainesville any amount of time.  But I imagine that no matter where you happen to be, there are some intersections that get under your skin the way these do mine...

Just Finished Reading The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

The first time I heard of author David Mitchell was about five years ago when previews of the new movie Cloud Atlas were being shown.  I was so intrigued by them that I read the book...and never did get around to watch the movie in full after seeing that it rearranged the book too much.  Maybe I should...after all, two of my favorite actors were in it: Tom Hanks and Halle Berry.  Instead, I happened upon another of Mitchell's novels while browsing the shelves at my local public library: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.  It's an historical drama centered on the title character, a young Dutch clerk on the island of Dejima, situated across from the Japanese harbor city of Nagsaki during the tumultuous years 1799-1800 when the European powers of Britain and France are vying for superiority on both land and sea.  Jacob, very faithful to his Christian beliefs, becomes isolated among his fellow Dutchman as he stands strongly against corruption, something that the rest of them have accepted as a fact of life.  The Japanese restrict all foreigners to Dejima and are fighting the spread of Christianity in their own land.  Two of the story's other protagonists, the Dejima midwife Orito Aibagawa and the translator Uzaemon, also have strong moral convictions in contrast to many of their own fellow countrymen...corruption apparently is a universally-practiced vice. Orito one day is spirit away against her will to a remote monastery run by the evil Enomoto...both de Zoet and Uzaemon love her, and the latter mounts a rescue campaign.  Later in the story another unlikely protagonist enters the tale as the British Captain Penhaligon takes his warship to Denjima to wrest control from the Dutch and establish his own country as Japan's main European trading partner.  Penhaligon, my second favorite character in the book, is wily and practical...with a touching streak of compassion, not exactly your stereotypical Captain Bligh of this era.  How does it all turn out? Guess you'll need to read it to find out. My favorite character by far was the Dutch physician Marinus, who gruffly refuses to take any kind of nonsense from anyone, either Dutch or Japanese, and establishes a special respect and rapport from all parties.  After a rocky start with him, Jacob de Zoet forms a strong bond and Dr. Marinus becomes his greatest ally and friend...

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet gives an extraordinary look into a special time in history as well as expose many of the customs and attitudes of Japanese society and politics back then.  What gave me a start was how the story appeared to be building up to a big final climax in one area, only for that climax to occur in a completely different, unexpected setting and for different reasons.  I enjoyed it, and being someone sensitive to the characters in the stories I read, I appreciated how well David Mitchell developed them into people that I won't soon forget.  Get a copy and read it for yourself...did I already mention that I checked it out from my own public library?

Tired of Coalition Politics...Instead Look at Issues Individually on Merits and Priorities

One of the problems I see with the political parties today, as well as with the media outlets that promote their respective philosophies, is that they take an "all-or-nothing" approach to issues, opting for coalitions between different interest groups even when those groups don't have a discernible connection.  As an individual American citizen, I have different opinions on different issues facing me, some of them liberal in orientation and some of them conservative.  Some issues affect me and/or others in my family more intimately than do others, and this matters as to which "side" I support when I vote on election day.  And then there are issues that seem to defy the stances that the parties give them, making me wonder how there could be a liberal vs conservative debate on them since they are non-ideological in nature...

As do many of my fellow Americans, I care about a number of factors when deciding whom to support politically. Two that stand out are how strongly they support our national defense and whether or not they pose a danger to my profession and livelihood by opposing the organization I work for and my right to collectively bargain for better conditions and wages.  With the former, the Republicans/conservatives are the better choice, but with the latter it is clearly the Democrats who stand with me.  Then there are all these other areas like immigration, civil rights, taxation, health care/insurance, conservative vs. liberal judges, infrastructure, education, the space program, environmental and financial regulations, foreign relations and trade, entitlements, equality for women, drug policy and treatments, climate change, abortion, corruption, LGBT community, free speech and religion, etcetera.  On some I have more of a conservative bent, but on others I lean toward the left.  I would rather these issues be discussed on their own merits without feeling the pressure to line up politically with advocates I disagree with just because they support "my" most important issues...that wouldn't work with me anyway since I've already stated that my two main issues are split between the two major parties.  Instead, we're seeing more and more a political homogeneity in each party whereby politicians and media opinion makers tend to go down a checklist of "correct" stances on the issues instead of expressing a more mixed outlook as I have (and I suspect most of the American people as well)...

We used to have a considerable overlap in our political representatives between the Republicans and Democrats, even factoring out the overly conservative nature of Southern Democrats before they migrated to the GOP during the final decades of the twentieth century.  Now the most conservative Democrat in Washington is more liberal than the most liberal Republican, and the so-called "non-partisan" crossover votes I see occurring are more often than not the result of a senator or representative trying to appease voters in their evenly-divided swing states or districts rather than because of their own opinions...you see this a lot in the Senate with the West Virginia, North Dakota, and Indiana Democrats up for reelection in their red states this year...

Taking each issue individually and formulating my own opinions, the result which has me sometimes supporting the Republicans and sometimes supporting the Democrats, does not make me a fence-sitter...on the contrary, I want MY party to incorporate my own views on the issues and offer a clear-cut choice for me.  It is THEY who are failing me with their coalition politics and their unwillingness to allow for a diversity of perspectives on the same issues...

Ran Newnan's Lake 15K Race This Morning

It had been a while since I'd last run as far as 9.3 miles...the last time was during last February's Five Points Half-Marathon here in Gainesville.  I had been looking at earlier races this year and in late 2017, but different circumstances prevented me from entering them, one of them being a persistent, nagging problem of me gagging after running for any substantial distance.  I finally got on the Internet and sought a solution through various Q & A sites, finding nothing useful until buried deep down a list of comments someone had written that they took a Zantac about an hour before running and was careful to also drink a lot of liquids.  I took that advice and since then have never had a problem...evidently, acid reflux had been the culprit.  When I signed up for this year's Newnan's Lake 15K, an event I had run before in 2015 and 2016, I was already confident I had surmounted this problem after running for 6.3 miles the week before without any hint of gagging.  Whew, glad that's behind me...

The Newnan's Lake 15K, a few miles east of Gainesville, starts at a boat ramp park off Hawthorne Road on the south end of the lake and skirts Hawthorne Road, then down another road on the lake's west side (good scenic view).  It then veers left down a divided highway...and then the course is reversed back to the finish line.  This was a slight change from when I had run it before...I kind of like the change as the earlier course had a confusing stretch to it.  The temperature at the 8:30 AM race time was 53 and the humidity was an annoying 90%.  I liked not having to shiver at the starting line as I had on colder mornings in bygone races, but I knew that temperatures in the 40s would have helped me more as the race progressed.  As it happened, though, the warmer and muggier conditions didn't bother me at all...

My goal for this race was simply to finish it: run as much as possible, then walk if need be.  And start out slowly...if I felt more confident toward the end, I could speed up.  And so I ran it at an easy pace for the first half.  But as we turned around to make our way back, I realized that I wasn't at all tired and began to push myself...and so continued, all the way to the finish line.  My final finish-line-crossing time of 1:38:41 was a few minutes slower than that of my 2016 race, but I still had plenty of energy at the end...a confidence builder for the upcoming Five Points Half-Marathon on February 18.  My poor feet and lower legs, though, felt very sore with all the road pounding by the end of the race.  I'm writing this a little less than three hours later, and I feel pretty good with no adverse effects...