Just Finished Reading The Rooster Bar by John Grisham

The Rooster Bar, a 2017 legal fiction novel by John Grisham, examines the world of for-profit schools, in particular law schools. Mark, Todd, Zola, and Gordon are all classmates at seedy Foggy Bottom Law School in Washington, D.C., racking up hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt while soon to receive essentially worthless degrees. In the meantime, their school has done little to prepare them for the bar exam needed for them to legally practice law, so they are looking ahead at a mountain of debt with little-to-no means of paying it back.  Gordon, Zola's boyfriend, is the first to crack up, and with his bipolar personality has constructed an elaborate conspiracy theory around a reclusive investor who has gained control over eight for-profit law schools, including Foggy Bottom.  His friends try to save him in his crisis, intervening to look for his doctor, but to no avail with a tragic end.  Now it is just Mark, Todd, and Zola...she is distracted by the fact that her entire Senegalese family has been arrested and are to be deported back to Africa.  After seeing how some lawyers hang around courtrooms and offer their services to different accused parties without their legal credentials ever being called into question, Mark hits upon the idea of winging it as a lawyer and Mark and Zola join him, leaving Foggy Bottom and taking on new identities.  The story develops from there as they naively stumble through one foolish mistake after another.  With all that is going against them, their situation seems more and more hopeless.  Yet...

The last ongoing prime time television series that I followed while it was going on was The Pretender, where Jared, an escapee from a school for specially gifted children, successfully takes on different roles, even once as a surgeon.  The Rooster Bar is something like that, although Mark, Todd, and Zola in the end come out looking comically clueless in their endeavors to hoodwink those around them.  But they are very sympathetic characters and I (hope to) to see them in another Grisham novel: a sequel is in order here.  As for the staggering student loan situation in this country, it is bad enough with the legitimate schools. But these for-profit institutions strike me as legalized con rackets and should be much more tightly regulated and scrutinized... 

2018 Midterm Results, Comments

Now that it seems we can finally report on the Florida election results after recounts, ballot design controversy, impromptu election fraud accusations, and tabulating machine breakdowns have headlined news stories of late concerning the two very close races for governor and United States Senator.  Regarding what happened in south Florida, I'm all for the votes all getting counted...but for the entire state, not just those counties that were going for one party over the other.  And it is wrong to take ballots and "assume" the voters' intentions when they are not explicitly stated...we went through all this nonsense before in the presidential election of 2000 as well as the very close Democratic primary for governor in 2002.  And what fool in Broward County designed the ballot to put the all-important Senate race at the bottom of the first column following the long, boring instructions section...apparently many thousands of voters (I'd call them fools as well) just skipped on to the next column and didn't vote on the Nelson-Scott contest, to Nelson's detriment since this county was polling 2-1 for the Democrats.  Well, now that all this nonsense is over, I feel I can finally get on to reporting on the different results for this 2018 midterm election...

For Florida governor, Republican Ron DeSantis won a tight race over Andrew Gillum, and incumbent US senator Bill Nelson lost his contest to Rick Scott...a flip for the Republicans in that body.  Republican incumbent Ted Yoho breezed to reelection against Democrat Yvonne Hayes Hinson in my Congressional District 3. Keith Perry won another close race in my own state senate District 8 over strong Democratic challenger Kayser Enneking.  My own state house district wasn't on the ballot...incumbent Clovis Watson ran without opposition.  Democrat Marihelen Wheeler won the Alachua County Commission District 2 seat and the judge retention questions all went "yes".  For the state cabinet positions, all went to the Republican candidates except for Agriculture, which went for Democrat Niki Fried. Gloria Walker won for circuit judge as did Meshon Rawls for county judge.  For the twelve state constitution amendments, only Amendment 1 was rejected (and narrowly at that).  Locally, the only defeated measure was the one proposing outside control of the GRU utility...

Regarding judge retention and constitutional questions, I believe a lot of voters weren't interested or informed about these items and tended to just bubble in "yes" or "no" on them according to their own general dispositions.  I heard from somewhere that this midterm election saw nationwide a 49% voter turnout...much higher than usual but still, in my opinion, abysmally low.  Well, we have our results: the US Senate, with next month's Mississippi runoff election almost certainly going to the Republican incumbent, will be a 53-47 Republican majority while right now it looks as if the Democrats have flipped the US House of Representatives with about 233 seats to the Republicans' 199...3 others yet to be resolved.  So I suppose now that this election is over with, all the buzz in the media will shift to the 2020 election for president: it just never ends, does it...

Trump's Interesting Strategy About House Speakership

Well, the Democrats regained voting control of the U.S. House of Representatives, effective at the beginning of next year.  A few of them have openly declared their opposition to reelecting Nancy Pelosi as the new Speaker of the House...I am solidly in her camp, but alas I'm not in Congress so I don't get a vote.  However, unlike the U.S. Senate, where the Majority Leader sets the agenda and is elected only by his or her own party, with the House of Representatives the Speakership is a Constitutionally-based position and is chosen by the body as a whole, with both the majority and minority parties participating.  Usually, the two parties will first choose their own "champions" and then the final floor vote will fall into party lines, the majority ultimately getting their Speaker.  But President Trump has just shrewdly thrown a monkey wrench into this process...

In an informal announcement outside the White House, Trump restated his respect and admiration for Nancy Pelosi and claimed that she...like himself...was suffering harassment.  He then went on to offer his own support in leaning on Republican representatives to support Pelosi in a final floor vote if she doesn't have enough votes from her own Democratic Party to put her over.  That's pretty clever, I think...either Pelosi refuses that support from the President and possibly loses to an outside candidate, making the position probably a weaker one, or she will be compromised in her leadership as she and everyone else will know that she needs opposition (and presidential) support to remain there.  And since Trump wants to reduce the check on his administration that the new opposition-run House will provide, it's an intriguing strategy.  Will it work?  

I happen to agree with Donald Trump in that Nancy Pelosi is the best option of Speaker of the House...I, too, have long admired her and believe that she has a special knack for reducing whatever issue she is discussing to its most significant points.  My own best-case scenario would have her supported by enough Democrats to prevent Trump's suggestion from ever seeing the light of day. But should she not get the needed support from her own party, I sadly will accept their chosen alternative should she step down from her candidacy.  But should her own party reject her, Nancy Pelosi would be compromising the integrity of her party's important role in standing up to the current administration should she remain in the Speaker race and depend on Republican votes for election.  In any event, Trump's strategy strikes me as brilliant...

Quote of the Week...from Mick Jagger

The past is a great place and I don't want to erase it or to regret it, but I don't want to be its prisoner either.                                                                       ---Mick Jagger

Mick Jagger, of course, is the world-famous lead singer and lyricist for the British rock band Rolling Stones.  Anyone who has been through all that he has over the years and still remains in pretty good shape at age 75 has learned some important life lessons...the trick is to discern which ones have a more universal application and which ones worked only for the one individual.  The above quote is obviously of the former type, although the way Jagger worded it his past of glory, fame, and excess may not exactly be the kind of past many people seemed obsessed with...

I think it was around 1975 and my father mentioned to me that he thought this whole "bad guy" image that the Rolling Stones were putting out was nonsense...after all, Mick Jagger was a health freak, working out and watching his diet.  So the dude was taking care of himself even back then and not letting the turbulent and exciting early years of his band define his own reality for him.  Being rooted in the present doesn't mean, though, that we shouldn't draw upon our past experiences in helping us in our lives...we just don't "live" back there.  Have you ever written a list of grievances about your own life, and upon looking at it realize that many if not most of the items were regrets or bad experiences from the past that don't really affect how you live in the present? If so, then you just might be living a little too much in your own past.  I realize that in today's world of pop psychology and self-help a lot of advice is given about examining one's own past to determine the causes of whatever problems they are experiencing in the present.  For example, we tend to unconsciously model much of our behavior after what we observe in others...especially our parents.  I admit that recognizing this might be helpful, but why not instead just cut to the chase and determine what works now and what doesn't and just work to change it without getting muddled in memories?  I think a lot of us have become so brainwashed into thinking that every time we suffer a problem we have to then go back in time to determine their root causes and dwell on it all...wouldn't it be better to work on solving the problem as it exists in real time right now?  I think Jagger might agree with me on that one, although as his longsuffering collaborator Keith Richards no doubt would agree, he would also probably find something about this article to get snitty about...

11/11 Sermon on Wisdom, Part 3

Last Sunday at The Family Church here in Gainesville, senior pastor Philip Griffin delivered the third installment of his Wisdom message series, focusing on the Old Testament book of Proverbs.  The topic was about raising children...unfortunately I was unable to attend, and the usual link to a video recording of the message wasn't available on YouTube.  Instead, I viewed a recording of the live broadcast, which did not feature the sermon notes.  Consequently, this summary will be a little less formal...

Proverbs 15:6 reads as follows: The house of the righteous contains great treasure, but the income of the wicked brings ruin. Pastor Philip chose the first part of this verse to focus on, and he applied it to how children need to be brought up. Many parents want their children to be happy...don't we all...but the main aim in their development should be to raise them to be Godly, not necessarily happy.  And that means not trying to avoid the inevitable unpleasant conflict scenarios that can happen whenever discipline and correction are necessary. So how do parents accomplish this? By demonstrating through their own example their faith in the Lord and displaying the Godly behavior and speech that they want to impart to their own...after all, as our pastor continued, the children are always watching their parents and will find themselves adopting their behaviors later on in their adult lives, even without intending to do so.  In other words, example is stronger than admonition, and admonition if not accompanied by a constructive, discerning discipline will not work since children in general are masters of noting what is not enforced.  And since they often play one parent off against the other, a united front is also needed regarding the rules and consequences for violating them.  Throughout his sermon Pastor Philip kept going back to that Proverbs verse and the treasure of the house of the righteous: our children need that treasure that only a Godly home will provide them.  And, he added, we cannot outsource the spiritual upbringing of our children as we would with karate or piano lessons: church is not an adequate substitute for the home as mothers and fathers carry much more influence over them than even pastors...

The Family Church is located at 2022 SW 122nd Street, holding its Sunday morning services at 9 and 10:30.  There is the weekly message, wonderful praise and worship music, prayer, lots of friendly folks, and a hospitality room featuring free coffee before and between services. You can join small groups and discipleship classes that take place other times on Sunday and during the week.  And in connection with this particular message about children and parents, I'd like to add that our church has some foster families who shared their outlooks and experiences, encouraging others to follow suit...our pastor considers this to be a kind of home-community missions work that doesn't necessarily require travel abroad...

Weekly Short Stories: '40 Sci-Fi, Part 1

Today I begin to discuss classic science fiction short stories as I move to those from the year 1940, as selected in the anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 2 (1940). Editors Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg had been touting how important writer Robert Heinlein had been this year and had planned to include three of his stories...apparently he didn't agree to the arrangements and they didn't appear.  Maybe at some future time I'll discuss these stories and others of his.  Instead, the book's first four stories are as follows...

THE DWINDLING SPHERE by Willard Hawkins
Presented as a diary of sorts spanning many years, this story describes the success of a new "clean" energy process that converts ordinary matter to energy through fission.  Two consequences: the process is so perfect that it stymies further scientific endeavor and leads to a stagnant theocratic society run by dogma.  But even more significant is that it eventually changes the very nature of the planet.  Written five years before the atom bomb was exploded, The Dwindling Sphere is a treatise on how humanity needs to consider the broader consequences of their innovations, which may at first provide many benefits but in the long run can be harmful...

THE AUTOMATIC PISTOL by Fritz Leiber
This could more properly be labeled as a spooky crime story, with some hoods smuggling booze during the Prohibition era and engaging in their typically "hoodsy" banter.  One of them has a special gun that he has put a hair trigger on...and he seems strangely obsessed with it, talking to it constantly in what seems to be a different language.  One of his partners gets interested in the pistol, and the two criminals almost come to blows.  Then, the gun owner gets rubbed out and the other ends up with the gun.  But the gun seems to have ideas of its own...not exactly one of my favorite stories...

HINDSIGHT by Jack Williamson
It is well into the future and our solar system has been explored and settled to the outer planets.  Holding it all together is trade, and a dictatorial pirate organization called the Astrarchy controls everything...and wants to control the different worlds, including Earth.  Bill Wells leaves his friends on Mars to join this group as their leading scientist...he develops a special process that he believes will give them the needed edge to destroy the spaceships defending Earth.  What happens in the subsequent battle leads him to implement a process he had developed to go back in time and change one pivotal event.  Instead, he discovers that the future is as set as is the past...

POSTPAID TO PARADISE by Robert Arthur
A man discovers in his possession a set of large, exotically pictured postage stamps with El Dorado as the country on them.  He soon discovers that simply by addressing something and sticking one of the stamps on it, it will be quickly transported away to that mystic land.  After his old and sickly cat gets sent there...and back due to insufficient address, but now appearing much younger and healthier, the man's friend, seeing a beautiful young woman on one of the stamps, decides to mail himself there.  What will happen?...guess you'll have to read it to find out.  I thought this would be a good Twilight Zone episode, but it's more fantasy than science fiction.  In my daydreaming, I have a special door that I can walk through to other places...the author's use of the postal system was original and innovative...

More stories from 1940 next week.  Oh by the way, I didn't check but if you cut and paste the titles of these stories onto a search engine, you just might get them on the Internet to read...I imagine that the copyrights on many of them have expired and they are now public domain...

Tuesday's List: Current Standings of Mexican and English Premier Soccer Leagues

There are three leagues of professional soccer that I have been consistently following since 2014.  Not surprisingly, these leagues are the very ones whose games I get on TV: the English Premier League, Mexico's Liga MX, and Major League Soccer, which features teams scattered across the United States and Canada.  MLS is currently holding its playoffs for 2018, Liga MX is almost finished with its Apertura split season, and England is in the middle of its season for 2018-19...its regular season champion is THE champion since it doesn't have playoffs.  Mexico has the Liguilla, which takes the top eight finishing clubs and stages two-match elimination rounds until there are only two teams left for the championship round.  The team Tigres from Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon, or UANL, has won the Liguilla in the Apertura season for the last three years and appear to have made it again to the tourney again this year, largely due to their high positive total goal differential...it's also the team I've followed the most.  In England, last year's champion Manchester City seems to be in a good place again this year...I root for Leicester City, an average team, and Arsenal, which usually contends each year while falling short of the championship.  Here are the current standings in each league: Liga MX has only one more week in its 17-game regular split-season while the English Premier League will play a total of 38 matches for each team.  Following each team's name I have first listed their points and then their win-loss-draw records...

MEXICO LIGA MX 2018 APERTURA

1 CRUZ AZUL                33 [10-3-3]

2 AMERICA                    30 [8-2-6]

3 UNAM PUMAS           29 [8-3-5]

4 SANTOS LAGUNA     29 [8-3-5]

5 MONTERREY              27 [8-5-3]

6 UANL TIGRES             26 [7-4-5]

7 TOLUCA                       26 [8-6-2]

8 MORELIA                     25 [7-5-4]

9 PACHUCA                    23 [6-5-5]

10 QUERETARO             23 [6-5-5]

11 GUADALAJARA       20 [5-6-5]

12 PUEBLA                      19 [5-7-4]

13 LEON                           17 [5-9-2]

14 BUAP                           16 [4-8-4]

15 TIJUANA                     16 [4-8-4]

16 NECAXA                     14 [3-8-5]

17 ATLAS                         11 [2-9-5]

18 VERA CRUZ               10 [2-10-4]

ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE 2018-19 

1 MANCHESTER CITY     32 [10-0-2]

2 LIVERPOOL                    30 [9-0-3]

3 CHELSEA                        28 [8-0-4]

4 TOTTENHAM                 27 [9-3-0]

5 ARSENAL                        24 [7-2-3]

6 BOURNEMOUTH           20 [6-4-2]

7 WATFORD                      20 [6-4-2]

8 MANCHESTER UNITED  20 [6-4-2]

9 EVERTON                       19 [5-3-4]

10 LEICESTER CITY        17 [5-5-2]

11 WOLVERHAMPTON   16 [4-4-4]

12 BRIGHTON & HOVE ALBION 14 [4-6-2]

13 WEST HAM                  12 [3-6-3]

14 NEWCASTLE                 9 [2-7-3]

15 BURNLEY                      9 [2-7-3]

16 CRYSTAL PALACE      8 [2-8-2]

17 SOUTHAMPTON           8 [1-6-5]

18 CARDIFF CITY              8 [2-8-2]

19 HUDDERSFIELD           7 [1-7-4]

20 FULHAM                        5 [1-9-2]

Some Comments About Running Recently

I've been enjoying the shift in weather here in northern Florida for the last couple of days, with temperatures getting cool at night and remaining pleasant through the day.  It's good running weather, too, but circumstances seem to have been stymying me from going out on long runs.  I was planning to run the Tom Walker Memorial Half-Marathon in southeastern Gainesville yesterday morning, but car difficulties changed my priorities and I spent the time at the auto shop instead.  Last minute developments like this are why I don't like to sign up and pay for races in advance, instead preferring to pay a little extra and register on race morning.  Unfortunately, the Cupcake race coming up this Sunday at Depot Park and the Hawthorne Trail, which features a number of distances including a half-marathon, does require advance registration...I'm passing it up for that very reason.  Instead, I'm thinking of running once again the 10K (6.2 mile) Turkey Trot at Tacachale Center on Thanksgiving morning...

I let slip by my monthly running report for October...not much to write about as it was.  I only ran 44 total miles for the month and missed 8 days.  My longest run was for 6.6 miles.  My mileage has picked up some this month, but I currently don't feel comfortable entering a half-marathon...maybe a 10K for now and the longer event in January or February...

Evening Trolley Tour in D.C.

During our visit to Washington, D.C. last month, Melissa and I spent one evening on their Monuments by Moonlight trolley tour. It was a worthwhile experience and I recommend it to anyone stopping by there, especially first-timers...

First of all, we walked from our hotel just south of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, cut across the mall, and walked down Louisiana Avenue to Union Station, one of the must-visit places in town.  This grand work of architecture not only feeds into the city's Metro train line, but is also a major Amtrak depot, where travelers can easily board trains to northeastern cities.  Our trolley's location was easy to find once we entered the cavernous building, and we had a short dinner at one of their many food court eateries before getting in line for our bus tour.  Monuments by Moonlight uses several trolleys...I think we hit the jackpot with ours because of our excellent driver/tour guide, an elderly gentleman who calls himself "H.W.".  Our bus had windows with clear plastic hanging flaps for windows...helpful for protection against very cold conditions but an impediment to good photography, so we collectively decided to roll them all up and make it an open-air experience.  Starting in the eastern Capitol/Supreme Court Building/Library of Congress end of the Mall, we eventually wound our way around the various museums, monuments, and other sights (including loads of massive administrative buildings) with H.W. making incisive, interesting comments along the way.  When we came to the Lincoln Memorial, the trolley stopped and we all got off for a few minutes as we climbed the many steps to reach ol' Abe and shoot some pics.  Looking out we saw the Washington Monument past the Reflecting Pool and the distant Capitol Building beyond it.  Time constraints kept us from visiting the nearby Korean Memorial...instead we went for the famous Vietnam Memorial, not only catching the statues of the three soldiers but also the wall with the names of the fallen and a nearby stature dedicated to nurses in war.  After we reboarded, H.W. took us across the Potomac River into Arlington, a city with a towering downtown (unlike Washington, no height restraints for buildings there) and into the Arlington National Cemetery, where we somberly looked out the window at the seemingly endless rows of graves.  Then we made a brief stop at the Iwo Jima Memorial, a large beautiful statue recreating the famous flag-planting scene from that World War II Pacific battle.  Upon reentering the nation's capital, the trolley made one final stop, at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial...what a special experience that was, with many of Dr. King's great sayings inscribed into a wall and the juxtaposition of the Mountain of Despair with the Stone of Hope...and the Reverend's statue rising out of it.  And facing the King Memorial across an inlet was the Jefferson Memorial.  After getting back on the bus, we rode by the World War II Memorial and made our way to the area of town north of the Mall and east of the White House.  The White House was a major disappointment on this tour because it is now ringed by so many layers of security that we could only see it briefly, from a distance.  As we made our way back toward Union Station, H.W. pointed out the Trump International Hotel, Franklin D. Roosevelt's original very small memorial at a street corner, and the Newseum, among many other sights.  And then H.W. let us and a woman and her daughter out early before returning to the station, making our return walk back to the hotel much shorter and direct...what a class act!

After experiencing this tour, Melissa and I decided to spend the next day at the nearby (to our hotel) Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian, largely from H.W.'s intriguing commentary on the place as we rode by on our trolley tour.  But more about that in a different article.  If you're going to visit Washington D.C. for a few days, I recommend you first get on a tour trolley in order to give you a better sense of what's out there and to help you with your itinerary.  This particular tour, Monuments by Moonlight, was a great, memorable experience...

Just Finished Reading The Whistler by John Grisham and Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson

This week I finished reading two books that have recently been published, but which are very different from each other: The Whistler by John Grisham and Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson...

John Grisham's 2016 legal novel The Whistler is set in the Florida panhandle as an obscure, small Indian tribe gains federal recognition and builds its own very lucrative casino.  A state board of lawyers is investigating a local judge on tips from a whistle-blower: this judge may be collaborating with an organized crime network in the area that is also suspected of being the power behind the casino.  Lacy Stoltz and Hugo Hatch, the very likable protagonists here who work for the board, don't realize the extent of trouble and danger they're in for as they stumble onto something much bigger than they could have imagined.  Like most Grisham stories, this one gets a strong "thumbs up" from me...and I also appreciate that it wasn't too lengthy, something I can't say about the next book...

Fantasy author Brandon Sanderson is currently in the middle of writing a long series, The Stormlight Archive, with very, very long books.  His 2017 Oathbringer, which I just finished reading, is a whopping 1248 pages in the hardback version...and Sanderson reportedly had to whittle down much of what he had written to get it that short.  This series is very intriguing with humans and a humanoid race called the Parshendi in a state of conflict with each other on the planet of Roshar.  Although the technology is typically at the relatively primitive level found in most fantasy series, there is something called "stormlight" which, caused by strange, massive storms that periodically sweep the land, infuse special light into gems that certain gifted people can draw from to achieve special powers.  There are nonmaterial entities called "spren" that bond with people in a similar way to the "demons" in Philip Pullman's His Dark Material series. The heroes and their adversaries have varying degrees of ability in using stormlight...which is tied in to the spren...and tend to specialize, much like the Marvel Comics superheroes.  I don't mind the length of the books, but it is pretty difficult to keep up with all the characters and special "rules" that govern stormlight, gems, and spren, not to mention the very detailed history that the author keeps bringing up.  My main goal is to try and remember the gist of what happened in Oathbringer so that when the next installment comes out, probably in 2020, I won't be completely lost...

I've also begun reading my first Tom Clancy novel, which is also his first: The Hunt for Red October.  Never saw the movie, nor any other Clancy film adaptation for that matter.  But I like his writing so far.  I'm also plodding through Joe Abercrombie's Last Argument of Kings, which should close out his First Law trilogy...unless he was lying about it being a trilogy.  And I'll probably be starting another John Grisham book soon...

Quote of the Week...from a Wyoming Woman at a Trump Rally

I can't really say that anything he says is true, but I trust him.    ---Wyoming woman attending a recent rally by President Trump.

Well, the 2018 midterm elections are over and there are mixed results to muse upon.  For me as an American who is very distrustful of this current presidential administration, I am gratified that the House of Representatives has gone over to Democratic Party control...at least one part of our three branches of government will be able to act as a check on the executive branch, the way the framers of our Constitution had intended...don't look for any help from the Republicans in that regard.  It looks, however, as if the U.S. Senate will add as many as three seats to the Republican majority there, due in large part to the effect that Donald Trump had on the numerous states that were in play and which he chose to hold repeated rallies in.  His message was one of rage and fear: rage that Brett Kavanaugh had been treated unfairly in his confirmation process and fear that the caravan of asylum-seeking refugees currently traipsing through southern Mexico poses a grave threat to our national security.  Combining this with the bald-faced lie that Republicans were also for enforcing health insurance for those with pre-existing conditions...something that they have never done in Congress but which they actually repeatedly fought against...it all worked to convince enough dupes to give his candidates in Florida and Arizona razor-thin Senate victories while possibly tipping the balance in Texas.  On the other hand, in spite of Trump's extensive campaigning in Nevada and Montana, the Senate races in both states went Democratic.  And then again, millions upon millions of Americans...like the woman espousing the above quote...don't care whether or not Trump is lying to them since they idolize him.  There is definitely a very, very creepy cult of personality surrounding this president, and although I am disappointed at the Senate losses I am at least grateful that he won't be able to run roughshod all over this country to the extent that he has for his first two years.  Even with as many as three additional seats to their side, the Senate Republicans won't be able to do any more than they've already been doing...after all, they just confirmed a very controversial Trump Supreme Court nominee by a 50-48 vote. And for at least a couple of years we won't be seeing awful legislation rammed through the House and Senate...anything that makes it to the President's desk for his signature (or veto) will need to have a bipartisan consensus of support.  One potentially big problem: the "old" Republican-controlled House of Representatives still has nearly two months to do mischief before the new one is sworn in at the beginning of next year...don't be surprised if Trump and his cohorts try to slip some really bad stuff through during this lame duck period. And only a day after the elections the President fired his attorney general Jeff Sessions, against whom he has carried an irrational grudge for properly recusing himself from investigating Russia's role in the 2016 campaign, and replaced him with a political loyalist who has openly been highly critical of the Mueller investigation...

Now I'm seeing that there's a big brouhaha here in Florida about the Senate race between Rick Scott and Bill Nelson, in which the Republican governor is currently holding a 15,000 vote lead.  The Republicans are alleging election fraud and Scott has filed suit...looks like there will be a recount.  As for me, I wanted Nelson to win and retain his Senate seat, but I think he truly lost the election and Scott should replace him in January...

BUT WAIT, I spoke too soon! Apparently, in Arizona the slow vote-counting has switched the lead from Republican to Democrat in that state's US Senate race.  Maybe I should reconsider what's going on in Florida, too...is the counting still going on there as well?

11/4 Sermon on Wisdom, Part 2

At The Family Church here in Gainesville, our senior pastor, Philip Griffin, continued his sermon series about wisdom as the Bible presents it...primarily through the Old Testament book of Proverbs. The topic for last Sunday was anger, a subject that has many scriptural references.  The opening, core verse that began this message was Proverbs 29:8: Mockers stir up a city, but the wise turn away anger. Pastor Philip examined anger's destructiveness, the difficulty it causes, and how to defuse it, noting that while the current climate in our country seems to one of anger, it is also present in our homes and lives...

In discussing the destructive nature of anger, Philip brought up three aspects: it destroys one's  relationships, damages the body, and dominates life.  When we hold on the anger, it starts to holds onto us. Anger always has a target...often it is someone close by and not the original reason. Stored anger can lead to eruptions of disproportionate rage.  There are many ailments aggravated by buried anger.  It can distort our own judgment as we try to justify it. Anger's difficulty consists of the fact that it can neither be vented, buried, nor held on to...venting doesn't reduce anger but rather only feeds the flame. Burying anger is like holding on to a live bomb when we really need to get rid of it as quickly as possible. But there is good news at the end: this insidious emotion, which can become a bad habit to the point where it is an obsession, can be defused. How? Well, as our pastor concluded, by depending on God's grace and power we can choose to overlook offenses, submit to the Holy Spirit's control, and extend to others what Christ has given us. The memories and experiences of different offenses we'll still continue to note, but we can decide not to dwell on them.  Anger grieves the Holy Spirit and prevents him from working in our lives.  And we readily and liberally forgive others their offences as Christ, who first loved us and forgave us ours.  All of these points Pastor Philip brought up in a very powerful, thought-provoking message...

You can watch this sermon through the church's YouTube video link...just click on it: [TFC Videos].  The Family Church, at 2022 SW 122nd Street, holds its Sunday morning services at 9 and 10:30.  They open with praise and worship music, then proceed to the weekly message and opportunities for prayer.  Discipleship courses are available through the week as well as small groups where the previous message is discussed.  Free coffee is there as well, before and between services in the hospitality room the right of the entrance.  And there's lots of very friendly people...

Weekly Short Stories: '39 Sci-Fi, Part 6

I concluded my reading of the retrospective science fiction anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 1 (1939) with four tales.  One deals with a future apocalypse, one with the nature of personal identity, one with the limitations of power, and the last an optimistic look ahead at space exploration and settlement...a pretty decent range of themes.  By the way, this will be the first and last of the Asimov Presents books that feature Robert Heinlein stories: the next one, for 1940, was to include three more but were blocked from publication.  Maybe someday I'll review them, too.  Anyway, here are the final four short stories in the 1939 book...

RUST by Joseph E. Kelleam
X-120 is a robot, built for combat, one of only a few still functioning on an Earth of the future, now completely devoid of human life.  His companions G-3a and L-1716 are in worse shape than X-120, the former slowly hobbling on one remaining leg and the latter with broken arms.  Only humans, who had created them, could also maintain and repair them.  Why did the humans die out? Well, I'll give you a clue: watch the Matrix or Terminator movie series for similar themes.  This brief story is special in that it presents the world through the viewpoint of a machine...much like Eando Binder's I, Robot that opened this book.  But whereas the robot in that story was benevolent toward humanity, well...

THE FOUR-SIDED TRIANGLE by William F. Temple
This is a story about a romance triangle between three inventor/scientists: erratic and ingenious Bill, the steady and dependable Will, and Joan, with whom Bill and Will are in love.  Their current project is to exactly duplicate objects, but Bill wants to go a step further and duplicate life...his efforts are fruitless as all the "exact" duplicates of the rabbits he is working on turn out to be nonliving.  In the meantime, Joan has married Will and Bill is beside himself with grief over losing her.  But if he could make an exact copy of Joan after he solves his problem of keeping the duplicates alive...an interesting story premise.  But I was disappointed in the ending...I think the author missed out on a great opportunity here...

STAR BRIGHT by Jack Williamson
A harassed husband and father meekly tries to give his unappreciative spouse and (well, his daughter seems to understand him) whatever they want, but can never get their respect.  One night he wishes on a shooting star for miracles...and the tiny meteor hits him in the forehead and lodges in his brain.  Then he discovers that he can create things by willing them into existence...his only impediment is his own imperfect knowledge of their composition.  He foolishly lets his family in on his new powers and his problems cascade. The story's ending revealed a fair amount of insight on the part of the author about how codependent behavior can harm all of the concerned parties...take away the enabler and see what happens...

MISFIT by Robert Heinlein
Heinlein liked to write optimistic, upbuilding stories about space exploration...this is one of his earliest.  A crew of young volunteers, misfits in their life on Earth, are recruited to land on a small asteroid, build a base on it, and move it to a strategic orbit between Earth and Mars.  One of the young men is revealed to be a mathematical prodigy: his mental calculations eventually save the expedition from destruction.  Misfit was written without taking into account the revolution in computers and digital technology that has become commonplace in today's world, making such an ability redundant if not obsolete.  This genius who saved the day in Heinlein's fictional tale, without extensive training in programming and systems, would probably still be regarded as a devalued "misfit" in our real time...

Next week I'll start on the best short science fiction from 1940...

Tuesday's List: The U.S. Capitol Building's Statues by State

On our visit to Washington, D.C. last Wednesday we took a tour of the Capitol building.  Our tour guide was very informative and gave us a lot of background information about the sights...including the many statues there, some ringing the National Statuary Hall (next to the Rotunda, which is the room directly under the dome and which itself is ringed by famous historical paintings) and others in different locations, including the very large visitors entrance section.  Each of the fifty states is allotted two statues to send and display in the Capitol building and the District of Columbia gets one.  From time to time a state may opt to change one of their statues, sometimes because a historical figure becomes unpopular and sometimes because a better figure is chosen to replace the former.  A special at-large statue has also been added to the National Statuary Hall: that of civil rights activist Rosa Parks (see above photo). I accessed a great list on Wikipedia...here's a link to that site: [Capitol Statues].  It was interesting how diverse the selections were...they weren't all politicians, but also included people from all walks of life who had distinguished themselves, including several Native Americans.  Here's a shortened form of that list, by state...

Alabama
HELEN KELLER
JOSEPH WHEELER

Alaska
EDWARD LEWIS "BART" BARTLETT
ERNEST GRUENING

Arizona
BARRY GOLDWATER
EUSEBIO KINO

Arkansas
URIAH MILTON ROSE
JAMES PAUL CLARK

California
RONALD REAGAN
JUNIPERO SERRA

Colorado
FLORENCE SABIN
JACK SWIGERT

Connecticut
ROGER SHERMAN
JONATHAN TRUMBULL

District of Columbia
FREDERICK DOUGLAS

Delaware
JOHN MIDDLETON CLAYTON
CAESAR RODNEY

Florida
JOHN GORRIE
EDMUND KIRBY...to be replaced by
MARY MCLEOD BETHUNE

Georgia
CRAWFORD LONG
ALEXANDER HAMILTON STEPHENS

Hawaii
FATHER DAMIEN
KAMEHAMEHA I

Idaho
GEORGE LAIRD SHOUP
WILLIAM BORAH

Illinois
JAMES SHIELDS
FRANCES E. WILLARD

Indiana
OLIVER P. MORTON
LEW WALLACE

Iowa
SAMUE JORDAN KIRKWOOD
NORMAN BORLAUG

Kansas
JOHN JAMES INGALLS
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER

Kentucky
HENRY CLAY
EPHRAIM MCDOWELL

Louisiana
HUEY PIERCE LONG
EDWAR DOUGLAS WHITE

Maine
WILLIAM KING
HANNIBAL HAMLIN

Maryland
CHARLES CARROLL
JOHN HANSON

Massachusetts
SAMUEL ADAMS
JOHN WINTHROP

Michigan
LEWIS CASS
GERALD FORD

Minnesota
HENRY MOWER RICE
MARIA SANFORD

Mississippi
JAMES ZACHARIAH GEORGE
JEFFERSON DAVIS

Missouri
THOMAS HART BENTON
FRANCIS PRESTON BLAIR, JR.

Montana
CHARLES MARION RUSSELL
JEANNETTE RANKIN

Nebraska
WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN
J. STERLING MORTON

Nevada
PATRICK ANTHONY MCCARRAN
SARAH WINNEMUCCA

New Hampshire
JOHN STARK
DANIEL WEBSTER

New Jersey
PHILIP KEARNY
RICHARD STOCKTON

New Mexico
PO'PAY
DENNIS CHAVEZ

New York
GEORGE CLINTON
ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON

North Carolina
ZEBULON BAIRD VANCE
CHARLES BRANTLEY AYCOCK

North Dakota
JOHN BURKE
SAKAKAWEA

Ohio
JAMES A. GARFIELD
THOMAS EDISON

Oklahoma
SEQUOYAH
WILL ROGERS

Oregon
JASON LEE
JOHN MCLOUGHLIN

Pennsylvania
ROBERT FULTON
JOHN PETER GABRIEL MUHLENBERG

Rhode Island
NATHANAEL GREENE
ROGER WILLIAMS

South Carolina
JOHN C. CALHOUN
WAKE HAMPTON

South Dakota
WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON BEADLE
JOSEPH WARD

Tennessee
ANDREW JACKSON
JOHN SEVIER

Texas
STEPHEN F. AUSTIN
SAM HOUSTON

Utah
BRIGHAM YOUNG
PHILO T. FARNSWORTH

Vermont
ETHAN ALLEN
JACOB COLLAMER

Virginia
ROBERT EDWARD LEE
GEORGE WASHINGTON

Washington
MARCUS WHITMAN
MOTHER JOSEPH

West Virginia
JOHN EDWARD KENNA
FRANCIS HARRISON PIERPONT

Wisconsin
JACQUES MARQUETTE
ROBERT M. LAFOLLETTE, SR.

Wyoming
ESTHER HOBART MORRIS
WASHAKIE

At Large
ROSA PARKS

A Few Final Notes Before Tuesday's Midterm Elections

Well, election day for the 2018 midterms is finally upon us...I plan to vote, how about you if you're registered and haven't already through absentee ballot or early voting?  I have repeatedly hammered through the idea that if people as an electorate would regularly and dutifully get out and vote, regardless of the intensity of their own feelings about the election and its candidates and issues, then we would have a much smoother-running and more representative government with greater continuity.  Instead, the off-year elections (midterms) see voter turnout precipitously drop off, especially among the younger, 18-29 age group.  It's ludicrous that Democrat Barack Obama could win Florida in 2008, Tea Party Republican Rick Scott eek out a razor-thin victory for governor in 2010, Obama win Florida again in 2012...and Scott get reelected two years later!  Had folks not stayed at home for those mid-term elections in 2010 and 2014, I doubt that Scott would have ever had a chance for election.  And regarding the increasingly hostile, toxic atmosphere now permeating close races...

Let's take two races going on in my local area: the US House of Representatives District 3 seat, which includes Gainesville, is currently held by Republican Ted Yoho, who is running for reelection.  His Democratic opponent is Yvonne Hayes-Hinson.  But since Yoho seems comfortably ahead in this race, you see nary an ad...much less an attack ad...from either side.  But in our State Senate District 8, the incumbent, Republican Keith Perry, is in a closer race against Democratic challenger Kayser Enneking.  Both strike me as very nice, decent people who want to implement their respective ideas for the greater good...but you wouldn't know this through their ads vilifying each other.  So why be mean like this?  Some will blame the political campaign consultants and the politicians...I blame the people out there who won't bother to vote unless they can get an emotional rush out of the experience.  And in a close race, the easiest way to ratchet up your side's turnout is to raise their irrational anger, fear, and contempt levels against the other side.   And, sad to say, it often works...sure did in 2016!

As to how well President Trump will do in urging voters to support his Republican Party candidates, keep in mind that he himself has publicly stated that this election is all about him.  But in 2016, both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton had very large disapproval ratings...ultimately what won it for Trump was that more voters disliked Hillary than him in a very small number of key states.  But voters aren't choosing between Clinton and Trump for president this time around: it's Trump and whether you like him or not...he's not as likely to be as appealing standing on his own.  On the other hand, I'm not convinced that pro-Democratic voters will actually rise up in the numbers they need to swing the election enough to give that party control of the House of Representatives. And they might as well forget about retaking the Senate: the Republicans are due to gain some seats there.  No, like Michael Moore, I'm pretty skeptical about what will happen this Tuesday...

Since Tuesday is Election Day, I think I'll conclude by making a prediction...partially formulated by what happened in 2016.  It's this: regardless how the elections turn out, President Trump will claim personal victory and total credit for himself...and then go on to state that it all was rigged and that there was massive voter fraud.  Then he'll order another phony investigation, just like he did in 2017.  You know it's coming...

Just Finished Reading The Runaway Jury by John Grisham

Having served on a jury earlier this year (and not liking it one bit), when I ran across John Grisham's 1996 legal novel The Runaway Jury I couldn't resist and decided to read it.  After all, when stuck in the courthouse I myself felt like running away...but from the jury, not with it.  Grisham's meaning, though, was to describe a jury whose deliberations and decisions went way beyond the parameters expected by both the judge and the opposing attorneys.  Another difference is that my jury experience was of a criminal trial and this book concerned a civil one, with big business, money and publicity playing major roles...

The trial in The Runaway Jury has the plaintiff, the widow of a longtime chain smoker, suing the tobacco company making and selling his favorite brand of cigarette.  It's all seen as a test case for the tobacco industry and anti-smoking litigation, and as such both sides employ extraordinary means to create a jury that will deliver them a favorable verdict.  It seemed pretty creepy to me that there are consulting firms for investigating people in jury pools, even following them around and interviewing neighbors and coworkers concerning their lifestyles, habits, and opinions...what an invasion of privacy!  Grisham exposes not only this form of manipulation but also delves into jury tampering during the trial as well.  But what makes his story special is that he has inserted a mysterious wild card jurist, Nicolas Easter, into the picture.  Just who exactly is Easter, a young man with no discernible past who seems determined to throw the proceedings into complete chaos?  And what about Marlee, a young woman who seems to know everything going on with the jurors...even after they are sequestered? 

I'm getting to be quite a fan of John Grisham...he might now be my second favorite author behind Stephen King.  I heard they made a movie based on this book in 2003, starring among others John Cusack, Gene Hackman, and Dustin Hoffman.  But the trial in the film isn't based on smoking litigation but rather a shooting, making me not even want to watch it.  But do read the book: it's one of Grisham's better ones...

Some Reactions to Visiting Washington, D.C.

Our trip to Washington, D.C. last week made an strong impression on me...mostly favorable.  We as Americans truly have a very classy capital city, and we should all be proud of it...even if we're not too enamored with some of the elected politicians working there.  Here are a few of my reactions to the visit...

One of the things that immediately struck me as I began to walk the streets of Washington was the immensity of its buildings...everything there seems to be built on a grand scale.  Whereas in most major cities the downtown administration area is clustered with skyscrapers, our nation's capital city has an established ordinance that prohibits new buildings from exceeding in height that of the Statue of Freedom standing atop the Capitol building.  The result has many, many very long and wide government buildings and businesses sometimes occupying entire city blocks...and even going underground as well...

I live in Gainesville, Florida, and although the major intersections have pedestrian crosswalks with walk/don't-walk signals and numerical countdowns on the "walk" phase, it just seems dangerous crossing streets because...well, frankly a lot of drivers here either just don't look out for pedestrians and bicyclists or they act like they shouldn't be there.  In Washington, though, pedestrians rule: the intersections don't even have a button that crossers need to push, and they usually give a very generous amount of crossing time...

When Melissa and I got off the plane at Dulles International Airport in northern Virginia, we used an inexpensive bus line to take us to an outlying Washington Metro train station...we got on the Silver Line and it let us out just a short distance from our hotel a block from the Mall.  I have to say that I love the whole concept of the Metro...mostly underground...it's too bad that more cities refuse to invest in this sort of transportation that serves the people so well.  The only problem I had with it was that sometimes the entry points above ground are hard to find: Saturday morning, on the way back to the airport, we finally found our station while walking around in the rain after overshooting it and having to backtrack.  But yes, I really dig the Metro.  I also thought that Union Station, a few blocks north of the Capitol, was extraordinary...you can board Amtrak trains to other cities there as well as connect with the Metro and the architecture is stunning...

Well, that's some of my reactions to visiting Washington. More to come...

Quote of the Week...from Mark Twain

Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference. 
                                                                      ---Mark Twain.

This quote indirectly came to me from a friend's post on Facebook as he related his workplace experience arguing some points with someone...somebody else showed him a paraphrase of Twain's above quote. Actually, the great American author may have derived his own saying from a Proverbs verse...more on that and its interesting accompanying verse later.  First of all, I don't think anyone is completely a fool...each of us has areas in our lives in which we behave foolishly or entertain foolish thoughts. But the quote pertains when someone we encounter is in the midst of their particular foolishness...the temptation to react and correct them can be overwhelming.  But if their beliefs are irrationally and/or emotionally based and, after a bit of back-and-forth exchange with them, it is obvious that nothing positive is coming out of the discussion, it is better to politely step back out of it without trying to hammer your own points onto the other.  Else, as Twain said, onlookers may not be able to discern who is the greater fool...

As to the verses found in the Old Testament book of Proverbs, we look in Chapter 26, first at Verse 4: Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be just like him.  Good, that seems to reflect the sentiment of this article, doesn't it?  But wait...read on what it says in Verse 5: Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes.  So the Bible seems to be giving us a choice: which is more important, not looking like a fool to others or convincing another of his own error?  I say it's okay to express my disagreement with someone by expressing my case as being my own sentiments, not making it all sound like some kind of immutable universal law that must be obeyed and believed, and then change the subject or walk away. That way, I've at least planted a seed in his or her mind as well as those of any onlookers.  By the way, graciously letting the "fool" have the last word is a good idea as well, although for a lot of us that may be pretty difficult...

10/28 Sermon on Wisdom, Part 1

At The Family Church here in Gainesville, senior pastor Philip Griffin began a new message series about wisdom, drawing from the Old Testament book of Proverbs as well as other books in scripture.  Last Sunday's sermon was titled Three Stages of Marriage and the core Biblical verse of focus was Proverbs 24:3...click on the passage to read it through Bible Gateway...

Marriages can be broken down into three stages: the Honeymoon stage, the Chaos stage, and the Enduring Love stage.  Pastor Philip listed some words that describe each one:

Honeymoon: intensity, idealism, infatuation, ignorance.
Chaos: disagreements, defensiveness, disapproval, disappointment.
Enduring Love: commitment, consideration, communication, confidence.

One of the problems, Philip pointed out, with going through these stages...and all marriages either go through them or end in divorce...is that when that middle "chaos" stage begins, one or both of the partners may long for that "honeymoon" stage and seek it with others outside the marriage.  And you often see people who will marry, then move into chaos, divorce, remarry, move again into chaos, divorce again...and the chain continues through multiple marriages. 

Couples who are undergoing the Chaos stage should take solace in that it is universal.  Keeping our eyes on God, we can receive his love and grace and turn our attentions not to our own selfish interests as if marriage were a consumer relationship, but rather elevate our spouse's over our own in a truly covenant relationship.  This growth parallels the covenant relationship between Jesus, the groom, and his bride, the church.  As believers we also see these three stages of Honeymoon, Chaos, and Enduring Love in a spiritual sense, the last reflected in our maturity in the faith...

You can watch this sermon through the church's YouTube video website...just click on this link: [TFC Videos]. The Family Church is located at 2022 SW 122nd Street and holds its Sunday morning services at 9 and 10:30.  There's the weekly sermon as well as inspiring praise and worship music, prayer, and opportunities to engage in small groups and discipleship throughout the week.  Free coffee is also available before and between services in the hospitality room on the right side of the entranceway.  Looking forward to more wisdom this Sunday...

Weekly Short Stories: '39 Sci-Fi, Part 5

Continuing along with my brief reviews of science fiction short stories from way back in time, I'm getting near the end of the anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 1 (1939).  I read four more tales...next week I'll conclude this book...

HEAVY PLANET by Milton A. Rothman
The genre of science fiction is often divided by fans between stories of a "hard" nature...trying to stick with science, often getting a little bit technical in the process...and "soft" sci-fi, which often gets more into metaphysics and fantasy.  This particular story is of the former type as the author, himself a physicist, speculated what kind of life could live on a planet much more massive than ours, where beings whose matter is very dense could rip through thick metallic spaceship wall as if it were paper.  An Earth ship has crashed on this planet and the mad dash is on between warring camps to retrieve a secret that may help them discover how to finally escape the prison of their world's intense gravity. A very intriguing tale, and quite educational...

LIFE-LINE by Robert Heinlein
A man claims that he can pinpoint to the day when anyone will die and is heckled by an antagonistic body of scientists assembled to hear him.  He skirts the necessary scientific principle of revealing his process so that others can independently test his theory and instead makes a business out of his discovery...in the process making an enemy out of the life insurance industry as his believers and customers grow.  The ending seems to present a moral of sorts...maybe we aren't meant to know when it will all end for each of us...

ETHER BREATHER by Theodore Sturgeon
A humorous story, Ether Breather speculates on the possibility of higher-frequency life in the context of the then-budding technology of color broadcasting.  It seems that some practical joker out there is taking the signals and distorting them into parodies, outraging the people on the receiving end of the broadcasts.  It's all a mystery to everyone...until the end, when the protagonist does something amazingly foolish...

PILGRIMAGE by Nelson Bond
It is 3478 A.D. and humanity...at least in what used to be the United States...has regressed to numerous tribes led by women.  Men are either running around in the wild or being confined and used only for reproduction...and their numbers have dwindled to the point of threatening the species' survival.   Young Meg of the Jinnia tribe, upon reaching womanhood, tells the Mother...that group's leader...that she doesn't want to be assigned to the specialized roles in that society, but rather wants to eventually succeed her as the Mother.  This is agreed to, and Meg's education commences.  The culmination is a long pilgrimage, by Meg alone, to the four gods they worship. The Mother promises her great revelation when she reaches them.  But all is not as it seems, and Meg learns a great deal about their past...men played a much greater role after all.  This story seems the most dated of the four, and gender stereotypes, while examined, are also being reinforced...but we are talking about something written back in 1939.  I could see from early on where the story was going...glad it was short!