We don't want an America that is closed to the world. What we want is a world that is open to America. ---George H.W. Bush
I'm not sure when and in what context our 41st president, who just died a week ago, made the above statement, but it is very relevant to what is going on today with the current administration and its "America First" mantra. Bush, for his part as president, was a big advocate for the United States being in networks of alliances and trade treaties...in the Persian Gulf War, he had as allies both Israel and Syria: now that's an accomplishment! Contrast that with Donald Trump's skepticism about standing alliances and trade treaties: he prefers to deal with other nations on a bilateral basis, understanding that in doing so the United States is almost always the stronger party and cannot be voted down by a bloc of others. His trade disputes with other countries, most particularly China, are not based on wanting to isolate or close us from them but rather to confront them with their policies which prevent or greatly restrict our goods being marketed and sold there. He ultimately wants...and I agree with him on this...truly free trade between the countries of the world, not just on our side, and he has been using his speeches, Twitter, and tariffs as a means to pressure these other countries to reform their unfair trade practices. Also, some of these nations steal American innovations without compensation...I guess in that way they're open to America!
As for our borders, I also tend to side with our current president for stronger border security. As an American I can't just pack up and go to any other country I want without documentation or that country's implicit permission...the same should apply for others seeking entrance into my own country, from whatever source it may be...south of our border, England, Russia, China, or elsewhere. I guess in all of this I want a level field between us and the rest of the world and not one in which it almost always seems to be the United States that must make concessions to others. So with regard to our recently departed former president's quote, I would agree with both parts: I don't want America closed off from the world, and I want the world to be open to what we have to offer it. But I don't want us in the process to be ripped off, either...
Friday, December 7, 2018
Thursday, December 6, 2018
President George H.W. Bush, 1924-2018
George H.W. Bush...or simply George Bush as he was called before his son with the same first name became president...passed away last Friday at the age of 94 after a very full, interesting life. Personally, I liked the guy and, as is the case with every president I've followed in my lifetime, I sometimes agreed with his stances and actions and sometimes disagreed with him. Like many in that "Greatest Generation" of Americans who served with courage and sacrifice during World War II, Bush acquitted himself with valor as a Navy combat pilot in the Pacific theater against the Japanese Empire. His father, Prescott, was elected as a U.S. senator from Connecticut and his son aspired to follow him into politics...but suffered electoral defeat early on. George Bush was noticed by President Nixon and appointed first as United Nations Ambassador and later as the CIA Director. With these credentials and others behind him, he sought the Republican nomination for president in 1980 during the primary season against favored Ronald Reagan. Early on he presented himself as a more reasonable, moderate candidate and characterized his opponent's embrace of supply-side theories as "voodoo economics". I was living then in an apartment about a block from the University of Florida's Norman Hall and when his son Neil came there to give a campaign speech for his father, I was impressed...not by George but by Neil. I was saddened when Neil's reputation suffered later in that decade because of the savings and loan scandals. After Reagan got the GOP nomination, he picked Bush as his running mate, which after eight years in the position of vice-president put him as the favorite to represent his party in 1988. Initially low in the public opinion polls, he eventually won the election over Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis in what I though was the dirtiest campaign I've witnessed up to that time...this I admit heavily prejudiced me against Bush as president, something that I never got over as I eagerly supported Clinton over him and rejoiced at his defeat for re-election in 1992. Since he left office, though, I came to respect and admire George Bush more and more...I especially thought that his sky-diving in old age was extremely kick-ass! I'm sad he's gone now but I think he had a great run of a life...
As for George H.W. Bush's tenure as president from 1989 to 1993, there's good and bad stuff, the way I see it. I was very disappointed that he vetoed the FMLA bill passed by Congress that would have given employees unpaid leave from their jobs due to more extended medical issues affecting themselves or their families...incoming president Bill Clinton quickly reversed that and signed the bill into law. As far as foreign policy was concerned, he presided over the fall, first of the Communist Iron Curtain in Europe, the symbolic destruction of the Berlin Wall, and then the dissolution of the Soviet Union while presenting the United States as a unifying force seeking good relations with all parties. Bush was also a war president, invading Panama in 1989 and liberating Kuwait from Iraqi occupation under Saddam Hussein during the Persian Gulf War in 1990-91...I appreciated his decision then to limit the conflict once the initial goal was accomplished, a course his son sadly chose to abandon two years after he assumed the presidency ten years later. I also give him high marks for signing into law the Americans with Disabilities Act, something I wonder whether anyone representing his party would do in our political climate of today. With the United States Supreme Court, he nominated David Souter and Clarence Thomas, the former surprising many with his more liberal-than-expected orientation and the latter turning into a stalwart conservative judge with predictable rulings almost always in lockstep with the Republican Party's positions on issues. The other son of his, Jeb, served credibly as Florida governor for two terms and I thought he would be an obvious choice for president in 2016 until Donald Trump's taunts and insults against this good, decent man resonated with the disturbing meanness of many Republican voters and his campaign quickly faded...
May George Herbert Walker Bush rest in peace and God's blessings and grace be upon his family during this time of mourning and beyond...
As for George H.W. Bush's tenure as president from 1989 to 1993, there's good and bad stuff, the way I see it. I was very disappointed that he vetoed the FMLA bill passed by Congress that would have given employees unpaid leave from their jobs due to more extended medical issues affecting themselves or their families...incoming president Bill Clinton quickly reversed that and signed the bill into law. As far as foreign policy was concerned, he presided over the fall, first of the Communist Iron Curtain in Europe, the symbolic destruction of the Berlin Wall, and then the dissolution of the Soviet Union while presenting the United States as a unifying force seeking good relations with all parties. Bush was also a war president, invading Panama in 1989 and liberating Kuwait from Iraqi occupation under Saddam Hussein during the Persian Gulf War in 1990-91...I appreciated his decision then to limit the conflict once the initial goal was accomplished, a course his son sadly chose to abandon two years after he assumed the presidency ten years later. I also give him high marks for signing into law the Americans with Disabilities Act, something I wonder whether anyone representing his party would do in our political climate of today. With the United States Supreme Court, he nominated David Souter and Clarence Thomas, the former surprising many with his more liberal-than-expected orientation and the latter turning into a stalwart conservative judge with predictable rulings almost always in lockstep with the Republican Party's positions on issues. The other son of his, Jeb, served credibly as Florida governor for two terms and I thought he would be an obvious choice for president in 2016 until Donald Trump's taunts and insults against this good, decent man resonated with the disturbing meanness of many Republican voters and his campaign quickly faded...
May George Herbert Walker Bush rest in peace and God's blessings and grace be upon his family during this time of mourning and beyond...
Wednesday, December 5, 2018
Weekly Short Stories: '40 Sci-Fi, Part 4
This week I completed reading (again) the science fiction anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 2 (1940), which features short stories that editors Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg deemed that year's best. There was one, though, near the book's end that I didn't exactly think stood up to the high standard of being "great"...more on that later. Here are my reactions to the four final entries...
FAREWELL TO THE MASTER by Harry Bates
If you've ever seen the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still (I only saw the 1951 masterpiece), with Klaatu the alien emissary and the terrifying giant robot Gort his "enforcer", you might be interested that it derived from this short story, one with a completely different plot sequence, its robot Gnut not anywhere as destructive, and the final message a complete surprise. In Farewell to the Master, the Earth is not being warned from beyond...no, Klaatu and Gnut's mission is one of friendly initial contact gone horribly wrong when the former is accidentally shot to death upon arrival by an undisciplined trigger-happy soldier (this happens at the beginning, no plot spoiling here). How Gnut reacts to this is revealed by the story's human protagonist, an unstoppable reporter named Cliff Sutherland. The memorable closing line in the story notwithstanding, I still prefer the movie, which probably frightened me more as a child than any other I've seen, then or since...and I have no plans to watch the more recent version as it almost certainly will be a big disappointment in comparison...
BUTYL AND THE BREATHER by Theodore Sturgeon
This is a follow-up sequel to Sturgeon's humorous tale Ether Breather from the previous year, with the attempts to be funny still there but without the innovation the earlier story introduced. Since the compelling mystery of who was playing the practical jokes on color TV broadcasts is already solved, I found myself looking to the story's last page to see how many more I would need to endure reading before it was all over. I like Theodore Sturgeon's writing a lot...his It in the same anthology, which I discussed a couple of weeks ago, is a far better story...
THE EXALTED by L. Sprague de Camp
The author had an ongoing series of stories around this time centering on Johnny Black, a talking bear that has been made intelligent by eccentric scientist Ira Methuen through special treatments. In this story, Methuen has given himself the same treatments in hope of enhancing his own intelligence. It works, but the resulting "genius" thinks he has figured everything out and has decided that nothing really matters, and spends his time devising machines to play practical jokes on those around him. Can they reverse the process and bring Dr. Methuen back to his old, reasonable self? Johnny has the solution, which is utterly hilarious. This story and the series it belongs to would probably fit well as a late night series on the Cartoon Network...
OLD MAN MULLIGAN by P. Schuyler Miller
In the 1939 sci-fi anthology there were two stories about Neanderthals, one of them about such a man who had survived the eons to this day (incidentally authored by the previous story's L. Sprague de Camp). Old Man Mulligan is another of these, with Mulligan the Neanderthal who seems to have participated in just about every historical event and who is continually referring back to them, challenging to fights anyone accusing him of being a liar. The setting is novel: Venus of the future, in its early stages of exploration and settlement. The warm, humid planet of mid-twentieth century imagination, dominated by vast seas and steaming jungles...unlike what we know about it now...is a fertile location drawing pioneers from Earth. Unfortunately, our worldly corruption has followed us there as well, and a seedy character named Hanlon has kidnapped the daughter of the planet's ruling Regent and deposited our cast of heroes out on a rock in the middle of the monster-infested sea, all naked...including old Mulligan. Leave it to our experienced Neanderthal to make like MacGyver and
deftly bring everyone to safety and redemption. One of my favorite tales from this book, and quite funny, too...
Well, that's it for the year 1940...next week I'll start with stories from Asimov's "1941" anthology...
FAREWELL TO THE MASTER by Harry Bates
If you've ever seen the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still (I only saw the 1951 masterpiece), with Klaatu the alien emissary and the terrifying giant robot Gort his "enforcer", you might be interested that it derived from this short story, one with a completely different plot sequence, its robot Gnut not anywhere as destructive, and the final message a complete surprise. In Farewell to the Master, the Earth is not being warned from beyond...no, Klaatu and Gnut's mission is one of friendly initial contact gone horribly wrong when the former is accidentally shot to death upon arrival by an undisciplined trigger-happy soldier (this happens at the beginning, no plot spoiling here). How Gnut reacts to this is revealed by the story's human protagonist, an unstoppable reporter named Cliff Sutherland. The memorable closing line in the story notwithstanding, I still prefer the movie, which probably frightened me more as a child than any other I've seen, then or since...and I have no plans to watch the more recent version as it almost certainly will be a big disappointment in comparison...
BUTYL AND THE BREATHER by Theodore Sturgeon
This is a follow-up sequel to Sturgeon's humorous tale Ether Breather from the previous year, with the attempts to be funny still there but without the innovation the earlier story introduced. Since the compelling mystery of who was playing the practical jokes on color TV broadcasts is already solved, I found myself looking to the story's last page to see how many more I would need to endure reading before it was all over. I like Theodore Sturgeon's writing a lot...his It in the same anthology, which I discussed a couple of weeks ago, is a far better story...
THE EXALTED by L. Sprague de Camp
The author had an ongoing series of stories around this time centering on Johnny Black, a talking bear that has been made intelligent by eccentric scientist Ira Methuen through special treatments. In this story, Methuen has given himself the same treatments in hope of enhancing his own intelligence. It works, but the resulting "genius" thinks he has figured everything out and has decided that nothing really matters, and spends his time devising machines to play practical jokes on those around him. Can they reverse the process and bring Dr. Methuen back to his old, reasonable self? Johnny has the solution, which is utterly hilarious. This story and the series it belongs to would probably fit well as a late night series on the Cartoon Network...
OLD MAN MULLIGAN by P. Schuyler Miller
In the 1939 sci-fi anthology there were two stories about Neanderthals, one of them about such a man who had survived the eons to this day (incidentally authored by the previous story's L. Sprague de Camp). Old Man Mulligan is another of these, with Mulligan the Neanderthal who seems to have participated in just about every historical event and who is continually referring back to them, challenging to fights anyone accusing him of being a liar. The setting is novel: Venus of the future, in its early stages of exploration and settlement. The warm, humid planet of mid-twentieth century imagination, dominated by vast seas and steaming jungles...unlike what we know about it now...is a fertile location drawing pioneers from Earth. Unfortunately, our worldly corruption has followed us there as well, and a seedy character named Hanlon has kidnapped the daughter of the planet's ruling Regent and deposited our cast of heroes out on a rock in the middle of the monster-infested sea, all naked...including old Mulligan. Leave it to our experienced Neanderthal to make like MacGyver and
deftly bring everyone to safety and redemption. One of my favorite tales from this book, and quite funny, too...
Well, that's it for the year 1940...next week I'll start with stories from Asimov's "1941" anthology...
Tuesday, December 4, 2018
Tuesday's List: 2018 College Football Bowl Schedule
Over the past few years I have become more of a college football fan and less of the pro leagues. It was great seeing my University of Florida team rebound, with their new head coach Dan Mullen, from last year's awful season: they're in the Top Ten and going to a major bowl, the Peach Bowl in Atlanta on December 29. Unfortunately, the school they're playing is Michigan (again, ugh), which has a 4-0 record against the Gators head-to-head and routed them 41-7 in 2016. Well, maybe this game can have a different outcome...maybe Florida will win, maybe not: I just want them to be in the game and play on a high, competitive level...
Since I plan to watch a lot of football later this month, I though I would be self-serving and put out a list of the bowl games by date and time (ET) with the teams and the TV network broadcasting them. I deliberately left out the corporate sponsors from the names. I got the schedule from the NCAA website, so they're on the hook for its accuracy. Well, here's that schedule, to which I plan to frequently return to in the coming weeks...
CELEBRATION (12/15, Noon): Atlanta, GA, ABC
North Carolina A&T vs. Alcorn State
NEW MEXICO (12/15, 2 pm): Albuquerque, NM, ESPN
Utah State vs. North Texas
CURE (12/15, 2:30 PM): Orlando, FL, CBSSN
Tulane vs. Louisiana
LAS VEGAS (12/15, 3:30 pm): Las Vegas, NV, ABC
Arizona State vs. Fresno State
CAMELLIA (12/15, 5:30 pm): Montgomery, AL, ESPN
Georgia Southern vs. Eastern Michigan
NEW ORLEANS (12/15, 9 pm): New Orleans, LA, ESPN
Middle Tennessee State vs. Appalachian State
BOCA RATON (12/18, 7 PM): Boca Raton, FL, ESPN
Northern Illinois vs. Alabama-Birmingham
FRISCO (12/19, 8 pm): Frisco, TX, ESPN
San Diego State vs. Ohio University
GASPARILLA (12/20, 8 pm): Tampa, FL, ESPN
Marshall vs. South Florida
BAHAMAS (12/21, 12:30 pm): Nassau, Bahamas, ESPN
Florida International vs. Toledo
FAMOUS IDAHO POTATO (12/21, 4 pm): Boise, ID, ESPN
BYU vs. Western Michigan
BIRMINGHAM (12/22, Noon): Birmingham, AL, ESPN
Wake Forest vs. Memphis
ARMED FORCES (12/22, 3:30 pm): Fort Worth, TX, ESPN
Houston vs. Army
DOLLAR GENERAL (12/22, 7 pm): Mobile, AL, ESPN
Troy vs. Buffalo
HAWAI'I (12/22, 9:30 pm): Honolulu, HI, ESPN
Louisiana Tech vs. Hawai'i
FIRST RESPONDER (12/26, 1:30 pm): Dallas, TX, ESPN
Boston College vs. Boise State
QUICK LANE (12/26, 5:15 pm): Detroit, MI, ESPN
Minnesota vs. Georgia Tech
CHEEZ-IT (12/26, 9 pm): Phoenix, AZ, ESPN
TCU vs. California
INDEPENDENCE (12/27, 1:30 pm): Shreveport, LA, ESPN
Temple vs. Duke
PINSTRIPE (12/27, 5:15 pm): New York, NY, ESPN
Wisconsin vs. Miami
TEXAS (12/27, 9 pm): Houston, TX, ESPN
Baylor vs. Vanderbilt
MUSIC CITY (12/28, 1:30 pm): Nashville, TN, ESPN
Purdue vs. Auburn
CAMPING WORLD (12/28, 5:15 pm): Orlando, FL, ESPN
Syracuse vs. West Virginia
ALAMO (12/28, 9 pm): San Antonio, TX, ESPN
Iowa State vs. Washington State
ARIZONA (12/29, 1:15 pm): Tucson, AZ, CBSSN
Nevada vs. Arkansas State
PEACH (12/29, Noon): Atlanta, GA, ESPN
Florida vs. Michigan
BELK (12/29, Noon): Charlotte, NC, ABC
South Carolina vs. Virginia
ORANGE (CFP NATIONAL SEMIFINAL) (12/29, 8 pm): Miami, FL ESPN
Alabama vs. Oklahoma
COTTON (CFP NATIONAL SEMIFINAL) (12/29, 4 pm): Arlington, TX, ESPN
Clemson vs. Notre Dame
REDBOX (12/31, 3 pm): Santa Clara, CA, FOX
Oregon vs. Michigan State
MILITARY (12/31, Noon): Annapolis, MD, ESPN
Virginia Tech vs. Cincinnati
LIBERTY (12/31, 3:45 pm): Memphis, TN ESPN
Missouri vs. Oklahoma State
HOLIDAY (12/31, 7 pm): San Diego, CA, FS1
Northwestern vs. Utah
GATOR (12/31, 7:30 pm): Jacksonville, FL, ESPN
North Carolina State vs. Texas A&M
SUN (12/31, 2 pm): El Paso, TX, CBS
Pittsburgh vs. Stanford
OUTBACK (1/1, Noon): Tampa, FL, ESPN2
Mississippi State vs. Iowa
CITRUS (1/1, 1 pm): Orlando, FL, ABC
Kentucky vs. Penn State
FIESTA (1/1, 1 pm): Glendale, AZ, ESPN
LSU vs. UCF
ROSE (1/1, 5 pm): Pasadena, CA, ESPN
Washington vs. Ohio State
SUGAR (1/1, 8:45 pm): New Orleans, LA, ESPN
Texas vs. Georgia
CHAMPIONSHIP GAME (1-7, 8 PM): Santa Clara, CA, ESPN
Semifinals Winners
Since I plan to watch a lot of football later this month, I though I would be self-serving and put out a list of the bowl games by date and time (ET) with the teams and the TV network broadcasting them. I deliberately left out the corporate sponsors from the names. I got the schedule from the NCAA website, so they're on the hook for its accuracy. Well, here's that schedule, to which I plan to frequently return to in the coming weeks...
CELEBRATION (12/15, Noon): Atlanta, GA, ABC
North Carolina A&T vs. Alcorn State
NEW MEXICO (12/15, 2 pm): Albuquerque, NM, ESPN
Utah State vs. North Texas
CURE (12/15, 2:30 PM): Orlando, FL, CBSSN
Tulane vs. Louisiana
LAS VEGAS (12/15, 3:30 pm): Las Vegas, NV, ABC
Arizona State vs. Fresno State
CAMELLIA (12/15, 5:30 pm): Montgomery, AL, ESPN
Georgia Southern vs. Eastern Michigan
NEW ORLEANS (12/15, 9 pm): New Orleans, LA, ESPN
Middle Tennessee State vs. Appalachian State
BOCA RATON (12/18, 7 PM): Boca Raton, FL, ESPN
Northern Illinois vs. Alabama-Birmingham
FRISCO (12/19, 8 pm): Frisco, TX, ESPN
San Diego State vs. Ohio University
GASPARILLA (12/20, 8 pm): Tampa, FL, ESPN
Marshall vs. South Florida
BAHAMAS (12/21, 12:30 pm): Nassau, Bahamas, ESPN
Florida International vs. Toledo
FAMOUS IDAHO POTATO (12/21, 4 pm): Boise, ID, ESPN
BYU vs. Western Michigan
BIRMINGHAM (12/22, Noon): Birmingham, AL, ESPN
Wake Forest vs. Memphis
ARMED FORCES (12/22, 3:30 pm): Fort Worth, TX, ESPN
Houston vs. Army
DOLLAR GENERAL (12/22, 7 pm): Mobile, AL, ESPN
Troy vs. Buffalo
HAWAI'I (12/22, 9:30 pm): Honolulu, HI, ESPN
Louisiana Tech vs. Hawai'i
FIRST RESPONDER (12/26, 1:30 pm): Dallas, TX, ESPN
Boston College vs. Boise State
QUICK LANE (12/26, 5:15 pm): Detroit, MI, ESPN
Minnesota vs. Georgia Tech
CHEEZ-IT (12/26, 9 pm): Phoenix, AZ, ESPN
TCU vs. California
INDEPENDENCE (12/27, 1:30 pm): Shreveport, LA, ESPN
Temple vs. Duke
PINSTRIPE (12/27, 5:15 pm): New York, NY, ESPN
Wisconsin vs. Miami
TEXAS (12/27, 9 pm): Houston, TX, ESPN
Baylor vs. Vanderbilt
MUSIC CITY (12/28, 1:30 pm): Nashville, TN, ESPN
Purdue vs. Auburn
CAMPING WORLD (12/28, 5:15 pm): Orlando, FL, ESPN
Syracuse vs. West Virginia
ALAMO (12/28, 9 pm): San Antonio, TX, ESPN
Iowa State vs. Washington State
ARIZONA (12/29, 1:15 pm): Tucson, AZ, CBSSN
Nevada vs. Arkansas State
PEACH (12/29, Noon): Atlanta, GA, ESPN
Florida vs. Michigan
BELK (12/29, Noon): Charlotte, NC, ABC
South Carolina vs. Virginia
ORANGE (CFP NATIONAL SEMIFINAL) (12/29, 8 pm): Miami, FL ESPN
Alabama vs. Oklahoma
COTTON (CFP NATIONAL SEMIFINAL) (12/29, 4 pm): Arlington, TX, ESPN
Clemson vs. Notre Dame
REDBOX (12/31, 3 pm): Santa Clara, CA, FOX
Oregon vs. Michigan State
MILITARY (12/31, Noon): Annapolis, MD, ESPN
Virginia Tech vs. Cincinnati
LIBERTY (12/31, 3:45 pm): Memphis, TN ESPN
Missouri vs. Oklahoma State
HOLIDAY (12/31, 7 pm): San Diego, CA, FS1
Northwestern vs. Utah
GATOR (12/31, 7:30 pm): Jacksonville, FL, ESPN
North Carolina State vs. Texas A&M
SUN (12/31, 2 pm): El Paso, TX, CBS
Pittsburgh vs. Stanford
OUTBACK (1/1, Noon): Tampa, FL, ESPN2
Mississippi State vs. Iowa
CITRUS (1/1, 1 pm): Orlando, FL, ABC
Kentucky vs. Penn State
FIESTA (1/1, 1 pm): Glendale, AZ, ESPN
LSU vs. UCF
ROSE (1/1, 5 pm): Pasadena, CA, ESPN
Washington vs. Ohio State
SUGAR (1/1, 8:45 pm): New Orleans, LA, ESPN
Texas vs. Georgia
CHAMPIONSHIP GAME (1-7, 8 PM): Santa Clara, CA, ESPN
Semifinals Winners
Monday, December 3, 2018
Just Finished Reading Furyborn by Claire Legrand
Author Claire Legrand has begun the Empirium fantasy trilogy for young adults with the 2018 book Furyborn. Once again it's an imaginary world loaded with magic, history, war, and flawed characters searching for their identity and direction...ho-hum. The narrative is split between two women, Rielle and Eliana, as their lives take place a thousand years apart. Rielle's time is permeated with magic, and she possesses enough special abilities that others suspect her of being the fulfillment of a two-part prophecy: is Rielle the much-hoped-for Sun Queen who will rescue the world for its people, or is she the much-dreaded Blood Queen who...well, that title can't bring with it very much good. A thousand years later young Eliana, with special hidden talents, finds herself in a world depleted of magic and working as a paid assassin for the much-feared Emperor. Although her acts are atrocious, her motives are pure: to save her own family from persecution and death. How these two manage to get through their trials, the people they meet...especially their love interests...and the complicating presence of "angels" form the body of the narrative. Rielle's fate seems sealed at the start of the book and her subsequent narrative is presented in the form of a flashback. Eliana, on the other hand, has an open future and seems to hold the key to everything: exactly who is she, anyway?
After I finished Furyborn, I read some of other readers' reactions on the Internet. It seems that folks either liked it a lot or they hated it. To me, though, it's just a story, well-told, that falls into the common fantasy fiction trap of spend too much time discussing rules of magic and the world's intricate concocted history. Well, I knew it was just a trilogy and not a long series before I began it, and Book Number Two is coming out in 2019...so I won't have to wait long (and forget everything I read) before I can continue the series. I am interested in the characters and, although this isn't my favorite series by a longshot, it's good escapist reading...despite me not being a "young adult"...
After I finished Furyborn, I read some of other readers' reactions on the Internet. It seems that folks either liked it a lot or they hated it. To me, though, it's just a story, well-told, that falls into the common fantasy fiction trap of spend too much time discussing rules of magic and the world's intricate concocted history. Well, I knew it was just a trilogy and not a long series before I began it, and Book Number Two is coming out in 2019...so I won't have to wait long (and forget everything I read) before I can continue the series. I am interested in the characters and, although this isn't my favorite series by a longshot, it's good escapist reading...despite me not being a "young adult"...
Sunday, December 2, 2018
My Visit to the US Capitol's Senate and House Chambers
This past October Melissa and I traveled to Washington D.C. and spent much of our time touring the area. On Wednesday the 25th we walked across the Mall to the U.S. Capitol building, walked in though the eastern visitors entrance, went through the expected security check, and enjoyed their guided tour which included a discussion of the many statues there as well as the various large historically-themed paintings ringing the Rotunda. But I wanted more: being an avid C-Span viewer, I wanted to see firsthand what the Senate and House of Representatives chambers looked like from their upper galleries. An employee there helpfully informed us that we could get passes for the Senate gallery...and possibly even for the House...by stopping by the office of one of our two Florida senators. Seeing that Marco Rubio's place, in the nearby Russell Building, was much closer than Bill Nelson's in the Hart Building, we set out there, entered this vast building, and promptly found ourselves totally lost, going up and down the labyrinth of long hallways and following misleading signs. Eventually, though, we managed to stumble upon Rubio's office...the senator wasn't there, Congress being out of session at the time...but it was full of happy, friendly staffers, one of whom graciously reached into a drawer and pulled out Senate and House gallery passes for each of us: Senator Rubio, I'm not a big fan of your politics, but your staff rocks! We returned to the Capitol visitors entrance and were now informed that we had to stand in line outside, several paces from the entrance, and endure scrutiny (including by a sniffing security dog) before we were incrementally allowed in and repeat the security check. Then we went to the Senate gallery doorway and walked in after showing a guard our passes. And there it was, just like I was used to seeing on C-Span-1: the chamber below, albeit empty of senators. A guide was in the process of talking about the history of the Senate chamber, this particular room being used since 1859, just before the commencement of the Civil War. We enjoyed the time sitting there and sat through the next presentation. Then we walked around to the House side, where they went bonkers with security: we had to leave our cellphones...along with anything remotely of an electronic nature, including simple earphones...in a special room and then had to undergo ANOTHER security gauntlet, this one much more invasive than the one for entering the Capitol building. After that, the line of visitors was gradually, again through small increments, allowed into the House of Representatives gallery looking down upon the familiar scene I see on C-Span whenever it is in session. Yet here there was no one to present historical information about this very important place: I felt a bit bummed out about it, although I did enjoy just sitting there looking around. Apparently, the Senate gallery wasn't originally scheduled to be open that day and we got in there without the security inspection. The heightened security might have been partially due to the fact that during that day there was a terrorism alert going on about those mail bombs that were sent to prominent Democrats and their supporters, probably accounting for the added scrutiny after we had returned to the Capitol with our passes...
The opening picture of the Senate chamber from the gallery isn't one I took, picture-taking from the gallery being banned for our visit, but is from the U.S. Senate website. It does look like what we saw that day, though...it's funny seeing a place like this in person for the first time, yet feeling like I've been there for years. Incidentally, we were told while in the Senate gallery that the senators (along with the representatives on their side of the building) enjoy an underground subway system that transports them directly from their office buildings to the Capitol, where they can quickly access the floor for votes and speeches. The Senate offices are on the Capitol's north side, across from Constitution Avenue, in the Russell, Dirksen, and Hart buildings while the House of Representatives offices are on the south side, across Independence Avenue in the Rayburn, Longworth, and Cannon buildings. I wonder what it's like being a senator, taking the subway to the Senate floor from your own office building: must be pretty cool...
Saturday, December 1, 2018
My November 2018 Running Report
November saw my running picking up, clearly coinciding with the cooler weather conditions here in northern Florida. I had anticipated running in one or more races...there were two half-marathons and a 10K event held during the month in Gainesville. Because of scheduling conflicts, a problem with registering for one of the races, and/or health issues I managed to skip all of them. Yet it was a more successful running month for me than previous ones, with my total accrued distance of 76 miles, peak daily runs of 14 and 7.2 miles, and 6 days taken off from running. I've been faithfully traversing my personally-designed training routes around my own subdivision and the adjacent one: yesterday morning I covered 7.2 miles in this manner and plan to adhere as much as possible to that distance each day, schedule and weather permitting. A week from now there's a 15K race in eastern Gainesville...I'll probably wait until it is almost upon me before I decide whether to enter it. I attribute much of my recent improvement to the new running shoes that I purchased from a local running store after their manager analyzed my running style...I've also been doing recommended stretching exercises before running that have helped me, too. So at this writing I'm feeling optimistic about my running...ultimately I want to run in local 15K and half-marathon races scheduled for January and February, respectively...
Friday, November 30, 2018
Quote of the Week...from Ray Bradbury
Writing is not a serious business. It's a joy and a celebration. You should be having fun with it.
---Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) was one of the great science fiction writers of the twentieth century, penning books like Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and Dandelion Wine among others. But my favorite work of his was the short story The Pedestrian, an eerily prophetic piece that hit me close to home...read it through this link to Internet Archive. It's obvious that Bradbury loved to write, but that does not mean that he didn't really take it serious. I think his above quote was meant to say that it's okay to enjoy writing stuff for its own sake...and that he's very serious about this viewpoint! I'm kind of like that with this blog of mine: it's a joy and celebration...and fun. But it does require a bit of mental concentration and effort, and to that extent, it is serious...at least while I'm actively engaged in the process of writing. But although Ray Bradbury made quite a career for himself with his literary output, he correctly implies...as I see it...that writing with the primary motivation to earn money from it isn't a very good idea, nor is it necessarily fruitful to expect other people to all want to read I've written and eagerly anticipate what I'll do next. No, writing should be done primarily as a self-motivated activity that justifies itself...no harm, though, in allowing for that possible fame and fortune as a bonus by-product...
---Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) was one of the great science fiction writers of the twentieth century, penning books like Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and Dandelion Wine among others. But my favorite work of his was the short story The Pedestrian, an eerily prophetic piece that hit me close to home...read it through this link to Internet Archive. It's obvious that Bradbury loved to write, but that does not mean that he didn't really take it serious. I think his above quote was meant to say that it's okay to enjoy writing stuff for its own sake...and that he's very serious about this viewpoint! I'm kind of like that with this blog of mine: it's a joy and celebration...and fun. But it does require a bit of mental concentration and effort, and to that extent, it is serious...at least while I'm actively engaged in the process of writing. But although Ray Bradbury made quite a career for himself with his literary output, he correctly implies...as I see it...that writing with the primary motivation to earn money from it isn't a very good idea, nor is it necessarily fruitful to expect other people to all want to read I've written and eagerly anticipate what I'll do next. No, writing should be done primarily as a self-motivated activity that justifies itself...no harm, though, in allowing for that possible fame and fortune as a bonus by-product...
Thursday, November 29, 2018
11/25 Sermon on Wisdom, Part 5
Last Sunday here at The Family Church in Gainesville Pastor Sean Taylor, who is our praise and worship music leader, delivered the final message in the ongoing series on Wisdom, based on the Old Testament book of Proverbs. The sermon's title was Path to Wisdom and the scripture of focus was Proverbs 9:10: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding...
Pastor Sean structured his sermon around the following points: the path to wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord, which is about reverence and awe as well as fear...and that fear should result in trembling at his word and hating evil. We will understand this spiritually healthy fear when we welcome the words of Godly wisdom, store up his commands within us, train our ears to hear wisdom and gain understanding, and cry out for insight and understanding. Sean concluded by pointing out that fearing the Lord will lead us to knowledge of the Holy One, who is Jesus, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and understanding, and who extends his invitation to us.
You can view this thought-provoking sermon, which contains so much good material beyond my perfunctory summary, by clicking on the church's YouTube video website: [TFC Videos]. The Family Church, located at 2022 SW 122nd Street, holds its Sunday morning services at 9 and 10:30, featuring praise and worship music lead by Pastor Sean, the weekly message, and opportunities for prayer, fellowship and joining small groups and discipleship classes help at other times on Sunday and during the week. There is also a hospitality room adjoining the entranceway where you can get some free coffee and meet and chat with some very friendly people. Senior Pastor Philip Griffin will be returning next Sunday for a new series...
Pastor Sean structured his sermon around the following points: the path to wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord, which is about reverence and awe as well as fear...and that fear should result in trembling at his word and hating evil. We will understand this spiritually healthy fear when we welcome the words of Godly wisdom, store up his commands within us, train our ears to hear wisdom and gain understanding, and cry out for insight and understanding. Sean concluded by pointing out that fearing the Lord will lead us to knowledge of the Holy One, who is Jesus, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and understanding, and who extends his invitation to us.
You can view this thought-provoking sermon, which contains so much good material beyond my perfunctory summary, by clicking on the church's YouTube video website: [TFC Videos]. The Family Church, located at 2022 SW 122nd Street, holds its Sunday morning services at 9 and 10:30, featuring praise and worship music lead by Pastor Sean, the weekly message, and opportunities for prayer, fellowship and joining small groups and discipleship classes help at other times on Sunday and during the week. There is also a hospitality room adjoining the entranceway where you can get some free coffee and meet and chat with some very friendly people. Senior Pastor Philip Griffin will be returning next Sunday for a new series...
Wednesday, November 28, 2018
Weekly Short Stories: '40 Sci-Fi, Pt. 3
I continued my reading of the science fiction anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 2 (1940) with five more tales from that year, all of which I had previously read...
VAULT OF THE BEAST by A.E. van Vogt
Van Vogt is an author noted for his complicated, convoluted stories, often making a mockery of the time travel theme commonly found in science fiction. Although that isn't present here in this story, the notion of beings living in vastly different "speeds" of time is examined, and the mathematics at the end is bizarre, to put it lightly. The essence of Vault of the Beast consists of a shape-shifting, sentient robot sent to Earth to find a great mathematician capable of breaking the code to a vault on Mars imprisoning a monstrous beast from another system. Is the prisoner really a monster or rather a misunderstood alien scientist living in a different time frame? After all the confusing twists, I began not to care...
THE IMPOSSIBLE HIGHWAY by Oscar J. Friend
A biologist, at the prodding of his assistant, goes on a hiking trip with him in the Ozarks...they promptly get lost. As they walk on, they suddenly encounter an extraordinary, smooth highway leading to nowhere. They begin to walk down it and encounter exhibited specimens of Earth life in their chronological order of evolution, presented much the way a museum would. Eventually, after many exhibits of specimens from eons past, they get to the present time...and an open, empty exhibit for "Twentieth Century Man". The subsequent behavior of the biologist...and why he does what he does...is, I believe, the driving force behind this absurdly strange tale...
QUIETUS by Ross Rocklynne
Two highly-evolved, intelligent alien bird creatures from another world are at work traveling through the cosmos, studying planets and searching for other intelligent life forms and to help them if they can. They reach an Earth of our future that has undergone cataclysmic upheaval...only a thin strip of greenness is left visible from space, indicating that maybe here there may still be life. Meanwhile, a young man dwelling there, with a talking crow to accompany him, is convinced he is the only human remaining. One day, though, he sees another person skulking about...and it is a young woman. Naturally, just as everything is about to come together, so to speak, the do-gooder aliens arrive on the scene and gum up the works...
STRANGE PLAYFELLOW by Isaac Asimov
Strange Playfellow, originally titled Robbie but changed by a magazine editor to which it was submitted, was Isaac Asimov's first of his many positronic robot stories. The setting is way off into the future, in 1982 if you can imagine such a distant time. Robots are a burgeoning industry and a father buys Robbie to serve as a playtime companion for his little daughter...but mother does not approve, claiming that the robot could go berserk if its circuits broke down. A battle of wills ensues over Robbie between the two parents, but little Gloria is strong in her adoration for her mechanical friend. When mom wins out, that's when the drama intensifies until the ending, which is heart-turning...
THE WARRIOR RACE by R. Sprague de Camp
A group of human space explorers travel to Proxima Centauri, become very militaristic and disciplined there, and then return to Earth and take over. The rule of the Bozos, as they are called, over the Earthlings, is generally benevolent but rigid and uncompromising. Resentment builds and armed uprisings occur, which are brutally suppressed. But a couple of Americans (naturally) who attended the same history class on Ancient Greece, Baldwin Dowling and Arthur Hsi, learn from their professor how the warlike Spartans were finally brought down...and the two set out to corrupt their unwelcome overlords. I think I saw an original Star Trek series episode in which pretty much the same strategy was used against some aliens from the Andromeda Galaxy that had taken over the Enterprise. But that show was from 1967, I think, and de Camp's story precedes it by 27 years...
Next week I'll cover the final four stories from Asimov's 1940 science fiction anthology...
VAULT OF THE BEAST by A.E. van Vogt
Van Vogt is an author noted for his complicated, convoluted stories, often making a mockery of the time travel theme commonly found in science fiction. Although that isn't present here in this story, the notion of beings living in vastly different "speeds" of time is examined, and the mathematics at the end is bizarre, to put it lightly. The essence of Vault of the Beast consists of a shape-shifting, sentient robot sent to Earth to find a great mathematician capable of breaking the code to a vault on Mars imprisoning a monstrous beast from another system. Is the prisoner really a monster or rather a misunderstood alien scientist living in a different time frame? After all the confusing twists, I began not to care...
THE IMPOSSIBLE HIGHWAY by Oscar J. Friend
A biologist, at the prodding of his assistant, goes on a hiking trip with him in the Ozarks...they promptly get lost. As they walk on, they suddenly encounter an extraordinary, smooth highway leading to nowhere. They begin to walk down it and encounter exhibited specimens of Earth life in their chronological order of evolution, presented much the way a museum would. Eventually, after many exhibits of specimens from eons past, they get to the present time...and an open, empty exhibit for "Twentieth Century Man". The subsequent behavior of the biologist...and why he does what he does...is, I believe, the driving force behind this absurdly strange tale...
QUIETUS by Ross Rocklynne
Two highly-evolved, intelligent alien bird creatures from another world are at work traveling through the cosmos, studying planets and searching for other intelligent life forms and to help them if they can. They reach an Earth of our future that has undergone cataclysmic upheaval...only a thin strip of greenness is left visible from space, indicating that maybe here there may still be life. Meanwhile, a young man dwelling there, with a talking crow to accompany him, is convinced he is the only human remaining. One day, though, he sees another person skulking about...and it is a young woman. Naturally, just as everything is about to come together, so to speak, the do-gooder aliens arrive on the scene and gum up the works...
STRANGE PLAYFELLOW by Isaac Asimov
Strange Playfellow, originally titled Robbie but changed by a magazine editor to which it was submitted, was Isaac Asimov's first of his many positronic robot stories. The setting is way off into the future, in 1982 if you can imagine such a distant time. Robots are a burgeoning industry and a father buys Robbie to serve as a playtime companion for his little daughter...but mother does not approve, claiming that the robot could go berserk if its circuits broke down. A battle of wills ensues over Robbie between the two parents, but little Gloria is strong in her adoration for her mechanical friend. When mom wins out, that's when the drama intensifies until the ending, which is heart-turning...
THE WARRIOR RACE by R. Sprague de Camp
A group of human space explorers travel to Proxima Centauri, become very militaristic and disciplined there, and then return to Earth and take over. The rule of the Bozos, as they are called, over the Earthlings, is generally benevolent but rigid and uncompromising. Resentment builds and armed uprisings occur, which are brutally suppressed. But a couple of Americans (naturally) who attended the same history class on Ancient Greece, Baldwin Dowling and Arthur Hsi, learn from their professor how the warlike Spartans were finally brought down...and the two set out to corrupt their unwelcome overlords. I think I saw an original Star Trek series episode in which pretty much the same strategy was used against some aliens from the Andromeda Galaxy that had taken over the Enterprise. But that show was from 1967, I think, and de Camp's story precedes it by 27 years...
Next week I'll cover the final four stories from Asimov's 1940 science fiction anthology...
Tuesday, November 27, 2018
Tuesday's List: My Favorite Sufjan Stevens Songs
Sufjan Stevens is an American musician, recording albums since 1999, whose music usually falls in the independent/alternative genre...but my local alternative rock station, 100.5 WHHZ, never played any of his songs. It wasn't until 2009, after that station had lamentably switched its format to hard rock, that I sought out alternative stations on the Internet...and heard my first Stevens tune, his biggest hit Chicago. Then I checked out YouTube and realized that this was a very talented, inspired artist and began to collect his albums. The greatest works of Sufjan Stevens were his Michigan and Illinois albums: he lived for a time in each state and they provided the historical, biographical, and spiritual themes for the tracks. By the time I was aware of his music, Stevens had been going through a drought of output, partly due to what he has said was an undiagnosed chronic nervous ailment. I don't care as much for his recent works, although his 2015 Carrie and Lowell album was very good. I'm very skeptical about the bigshot music celebrities nowadays who get all the publicity and acclaim...here's someone whose music is much better than anything I've heard on the Grammys or MTV Video Awards...
And so, here's a list of my top thirty favorite Sufjan Stevens songs, each entry followed by its album...
1 DETROIT, LIFT UP YOUR WEARY HEAD...Michigan, 2003
2 JACKSONVILLE...Illinois, 2005
3 CASIMIR PULASKI DAY...Illinois
4 NIAGARA FALLS...Michigan, 2003 (bonus track, and no, it is not in "Michigan"))
5 FOURTH OF JULY...Carrie and Lowell, 2015
6 COME ON FEEL THE ILLINOISE...Illinois
7 ADLAI STEVENSON...The Avalanche, 2006
8 FLINT...Michigan
9 DECATUR...Illinois
10 PITTSFIELD...The Avalanche
11 CHICAGO...Illinois
12 SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER...Carrie and Lowell
13 ALL GOOD NAYSAYERS, SPEAK UP!...Michigan
14 THE HENNEY BUGGY BAND...The Avalanche
15 CONCERNING THE UFO SIGHTINGS...Illinois
16 IMPOSSIBLE SOUL...The Age of Adz, 2010
17 JASON...A Sun Came, 1999
18 FOR THE WIDOWS IN PARADISE...Michigan
19 DEATH WITH DIGNITY...Carrie and Lowell
20 I WALKED...The Age of Adz
21 YEAR OF THE DOG...Enjoy Your Rabbit, 2001
22 IN THE DEVIL'S TERRITORY...Seven Swans, 2004
23 DEAR MR SUPERCOMPUTER...The Avalanche
24 BLUE BUCKET OF GOLD...Carrie and Lowell
25 THE AVALANCHE...The Avalanche
26 I WANT TO BE WELL...The Age of Adz
27 ARNIKA...All Delighted People
28 OH GOD, WHERE ARE YOU NOW?...Michigan
29 THE UPPER PENINSULA...Michigan
30 THE BLACK HAWK WAR...Illinois
And so, here's a list of my top thirty favorite Sufjan Stevens songs, each entry followed by its album...
1 DETROIT, LIFT UP YOUR WEARY HEAD...Michigan, 2003
2 JACKSONVILLE...Illinois, 2005
3 CASIMIR PULASKI DAY...Illinois
4 NIAGARA FALLS...Michigan, 2003 (bonus track, and no, it is not in "Michigan"))
5 FOURTH OF JULY...Carrie and Lowell, 2015
6 COME ON FEEL THE ILLINOISE...Illinois
7 ADLAI STEVENSON...The Avalanche, 2006
8 FLINT...Michigan
9 DECATUR...Illinois
10 PITTSFIELD...The Avalanche
11 CHICAGO...Illinois
12 SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER...Carrie and Lowell
13 ALL GOOD NAYSAYERS, SPEAK UP!...Michigan
14 THE HENNEY BUGGY BAND...The Avalanche
15 CONCERNING THE UFO SIGHTINGS...Illinois
16 IMPOSSIBLE SOUL...The Age of Adz, 2010
17 JASON...A Sun Came, 1999
18 FOR THE WIDOWS IN PARADISE...Michigan
19 DEATH WITH DIGNITY...Carrie and Lowell
20 I WALKED...The Age of Adz
21 YEAR OF THE DOG...Enjoy Your Rabbit, 2001
22 IN THE DEVIL'S TERRITORY...Seven Swans, 2004
23 DEAR MR SUPERCOMPUTER...The Avalanche
24 BLUE BUCKET OF GOLD...Carrie and Lowell
25 THE AVALANCHE...The Avalanche
26 I WANT TO BE WELL...The Age of Adz
27 ARNIKA...All Delighted People
28 OH GOD, WHERE ARE YOU NOW?...Michigan
29 THE UPPER PENINSULA...Michigan
30 THE BLACK HAWK WAR...Illinois
Monday, November 26, 2018
Some Comments About My Running
At the start of November I had big plans for my running, with three local long-distance races available to enter: the Tom Walker Memorial Half-Marathon on the 11th, the Cupcake Half-Marathon (or 10K if I chose that distance) on the 18th, and the Turkey Trot 10K on Thanksgiving morning, the 22nd. I didn't run any of them, for various reasons. I did accomplish a 14 mile practice run earlier in the month (taking very small, slow "old man" steps) and since Thanksgiving have begun a regular morning regimen of running the course I designed, up and down streets in my subdivision and the neighboring one, time constraints and weather permitting. My basic course is 3.3 miles long...I made an agreement with myself that the bar for success is to simply cover the course, be it through running, walking, or a combination of the two. So far I've mixed my running with a little walking at the start while during the second half I've run the rest of the way. My goal is to progressively lengthen the course until I reach seven miles, which I want to make my daily, regular training distance. This will put me within easy shot of any of the distances I like for future races (10K, 15K, and half-marathon). There is a 15K event scheduled on Saturday, December 8th in SE Gainesville, but I'm not exactly enthusiastic right now about entering it...we'll see. My main current goal is to establish a better outdoor running routine...the cooler weather couldn't have arrived at a better time...
Sunday, November 25, 2018
Congrats to 2018 Gator Football Team
The 2018 University of Florida football team finished its regular season yesterday afternoon with a convincing 41-14 road win against rival Florida State. First year head coach Dan Mullen has transformed this team into a cohesive, disciplined unit that not only is capable of coming from behind against its opponents but also one that is capable of bouncing back from defeat, avoiding the terrible late season slides of other Gator teams in the past few years. Sophomore quarterback Feleipe Franks is obviously benefiting from Mullen's instruction as his play has markedly improved from last year...I expect more improvement in 2019. And the defense, although having lost several starters to graduation, has still carried this team to several victories. They finished 9-3, with a Southeastern Conference 5-3 record that included an upset of LSU. Now we are waiting until this evening when the New Year's Day bowl invitations are issued...Florida stands a good chance of being included in the picture. Before this season I remarked that all I wanted from this 2018 edition of UF football was that the offense substantially improve, that they play competitively in all their games, and that they are good enough to go to a post-season bowl game. I'm happy to say that, with the exception of that awful Missouri game, all the above has been fulfilled. Go Gators...
CORRECTION: Oops, of course the bowls won't be decided until next weekend's conference championship games!
CORRECTION: Oops, of course the bowls won't be decided until next weekend's conference championship games!
Saturday, November 24, 2018
The Trump vs. Roberts Controversy
It's tough for me with Donald Trump as my president. On one hand, I happen to agree in principle with some of the things he is trying to accomplish, particularly in building up our national defense and protecting our borders...this I believe is a Constitutionally-mandated role for him as our country's civilian commander-in-chief. On the other hand, his arrogance, narcissism, and nastiness towards those who disagree with him makes him as a kind of villain in my mind, someone whose presence in the Oval Office is a detriment to our national interests. Case in point: he has a legitimate responsibility, in my opinion, to protect our borders from the "caravan" of people traveling from Central America and through Mexico to our national border. The Ninth Circuit of the Federal Judiciary, however, blocked him from keeping asylum seekers from entering the United States...prompting him to go into a Twitter rage, putting down those judges as Obama appointees, as if that in itself makes them illegitimate. United States Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts responded by calling him to task for his inappropriate comments, stating "We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them." And this is what bugs me so much: President Trump is probably right in his accusations about the Ninth Circuit judges, but he also has deliberately sought to politicize the courts with his own appointments, which are rubberstamped by conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society. Roberts himself was no doubt appointed because of his conservative political orientation and has usually "delivered the goods" for his conservative backers in Supreme Court decisions. You can claim that the judges are "independent", but this does not necessarily mean that they cannot be biased...and in my opinion they usually are when decisions of a politically partisan nature are involved: all of the federal judges are political appointees. So while Chief Justice Roberts put out a dignified, restrained and appropriately worded statement expressing what I believe to be an erroneous viewpoint, President Trump for his part has done little of a positive nature to promote a position which I believe has some good points. It's very frustrating rooting for policies that are being promoted by a president who seems clueless about persuading others...
Friday, November 23, 2018
Quote of the Week...from Willie Nelson
When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around. ---Willie Nelson
If you've grown up with someone intent on always seeing the down side of their experiences and of the people around them, it's tempting to adopt that model for yourself and become overly negative. But as the great musician Willie Nelson stated above, it's important to counteract that insidious, pervasive cynicism with gratitude, i.e. a recognition not only of the things that have been blessings, but also for the different people who have been there and made life better. Willie is now 85 and going on strong...at 62 I'm looking more and more at people who are a generation older than me and who seem to have made a sort of peace about their own lives and their place in society. And one common trait for many of these survivors seems to be that they have adopted an attitude of gratitude. I'm sure that Willie Nelson continues to encounter offenses and setbacks, and problems are all sorts assuredly continue to befall him as do they us. But you've got to see the big picture and realize that life is a great gift to be relished and appreciated...instead of habitually reciting a list of personal grievances and grudges, how about instead come up with one of blessings, following Mr. Nelson's wise example...and keep it a daily habit, not just on Thanksgiving...
If you've grown up with someone intent on always seeing the down side of their experiences and of the people around them, it's tempting to adopt that model for yourself and become overly negative. But as the great musician Willie Nelson stated above, it's important to counteract that insidious, pervasive cynicism with gratitude, i.e. a recognition not only of the things that have been blessings, but also for the different people who have been there and made life better. Willie is now 85 and going on strong...at 62 I'm looking more and more at people who are a generation older than me and who seem to have made a sort of peace about their own lives and their place in society. And one common trait for many of these survivors seems to be that they have adopted an attitude of gratitude. I'm sure that Willie Nelson continues to encounter offenses and setbacks, and problems are all sorts assuredly continue to befall him as do they us. But you've got to see the big picture and realize that life is a great gift to be relished and appreciated...instead of habitually reciting a list of personal grievances and grudges, how about instead come up with one of blessings, following Mr. Nelson's wise example...and keep it a daily habit, not just on Thanksgiving...
Thursday, November 22, 2018
11/18 Sermon on Wisdom, Part 4
Last Sunday at The Family Church here in Gainesville, senior pastor Philip Griffin continued his ongoing series about wisdom, focusing on the book of Proverbs. This message, titled Handling Money God's Way, examined how people can get sidetracked with their attitudes toward money and how God intends for us to manage it. The scripture references, which you can read through Bible Gateway are Proverbs 3:9-10, 11:25, 11:28, 21:5, 21:20, 22:7, and 23:4-5...yes, there are an awful lot of passages about money in this book of wisdom...
So how does one handle money God's way? Pastor Philip structured his answer around six points: live by a spending plan, save for the future, avoid the debt, put God first in my finances, trust in God, not money, and don't expect money to make me happy. Philip started out by noting that even those of us in the United States who have a relatively low income would be considered very wealthy measured on a worldwide scale...I'd only qualify that claim by noting that in other places the costs of living are often also much lower. Regarding spending plans, many are encouraged in our consumer society to buy on impulse...but as our pastor noted, this will lead to poverty. Better to be more careful and systematic about where we put our money. Statistically Americans, as Pastor Philip continued, compared with other countries, save very little or nothing...most are only two paychecks away from being homeless. But God wants us to gather money and set it aside little by little. With debt, the borrow is a slave to the lender...it also stands as an obstacle to giving as well as being a major stressor in relationships. And with giving, Philip noted, God does not need our money, but rather it is us who, by our giving, rightfully put him above everything else. Trusting in anything more than God is making that thing our god...and with many, money is their god. And happiness is not a goal, but rather a natural by-product of trusting in God's provision and living to glorify him...seeking happiness in itself is a fruitless venture...
You can watch Pastor Philip's message through the church's YouTube video website...just click on the following link: [TFC Videos]. The Family Church meets each Sunday morning at 9 and 10:30 and is located at 2022 SW 122nd Street. Each service features the sermon, praise and worship music, and prayer and fellowship. I'm looking forward to this Sunday...
So how does one handle money God's way? Pastor Philip structured his answer around six points: live by a spending plan, save for the future, avoid the debt, put God first in my finances, trust in God, not money, and don't expect money to make me happy. Philip started out by noting that even those of us in the United States who have a relatively low income would be considered very wealthy measured on a worldwide scale...I'd only qualify that claim by noting that in other places the costs of living are often also much lower. Regarding spending plans, many are encouraged in our consumer society to buy on impulse...but as our pastor noted, this will lead to poverty. Better to be more careful and systematic about where we put our money. Statistically Americans, as Pastor Philip continued, compared with other countries, save very little or nothing...most are only two paychecks away from being homeless. But God wants us to gather money and set it aside little by little. With debt, the borrow is a slave to the lender...it also stands as an obstacle to giving as well as being a major stressor in relationships. And with giving, Philip noted, God does not need our money, but rather it is us who, by our giving, rightfully put him above everything else. Trusting in anything more than God is making that thing our god...and with many, money is their god. And happiness is not a goal, but rather a natural by-product of trusting in God's provision and living to glorify him...seeking happiness in itself is a fruitless venture...
You can watch Pastor Philip's message through the church's YouTube video website...just click on the following link: [TFC Videos]. The Family Church meets each Sunday morning at 9 and 10:30 and is located at 2022 SW 122nd Street. Each service features the sermon, praise and worship music, and prayer and fellowship. I'm looking forward to this Sunday...
Wednesday, November 21, 2018
Weekly Short Stories: '40 Sci-Fi, Part 2
As I continued reading through the science fiction anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 2 (1940), I encountered three intriguing tales...one with a metaphysical tilt, one with a surprise paradigm-shifting ending, and one of the best all-time horror stories. So without further ado, let's take a look at them...
INTO THE DARKNESS by Ross Rocklynne
This is a story about self-discovery, set on the grandest scale possible, as a sentient life form bigger than stars roams through the universe along with others of its kind. It is merely a child among several, although their games often consist of smashing stars to bits and wreaking other kinds of havoc through the cosmos. But there is a darkness beyond the stars and galaxies, and Darkness, the name given this entity by its mother, yearns to venture there even though several others have tried but never returned...Darkness feels that the mysteries of life will be revealed there. Eventually, as the story's title suggests, our protagonist makes the bold decision to go into that vast darkness, all warnings from others put aside. Darkness does get an answer to his questions...it is an answer that we can see around us in our own lives but usually choose to ignore. And then he does something right at the end for which I applaud the author...
DARK MISSION by Lester del Rey
A genius scientist/engineer is about to launch a rocket carrying him to Mars: the first manned mission there! But not so far from the secret launch site an entirely different spaceship crash-lands...the surviving passenger finds himself personally driven toward the Mars rocket and seems to be a preprogrammed agent sent to sabotage it...he also has a peculiar revulsion to physically touching anyone. Could Mars be our enemy and trying to ruin our space ambitions? The questions roll through the reader's mind until the final surprise ending: of course, it all makes sense now...
IT by Theodore Sturgeon
Out in an American forest somewhere, location unnamed, a monster forms out of the mold and gains self-awareness. A farming family lives nearby and they often go hunting into the forest. As the creature encounters life it is unwittingly savage, crushing and tearing animals and plants apart to try to better understand them. Poor hunting dog...and the poor people who are about to encounter It! It is also the name of a famous Stephen King novel...in both stories an explanation for the source of the horror is eventually revealed. But whereas King's clown/monster Pennywise is fully intelligent and knowledgeable, Sturgeon's "It" has no axe to grind with anyone...its violence is more like that of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein monster, although much more terrible. This is one of the best horror short stories I've read...
More short science fiction from 1940 next week...
INTO THE DARKNESS by Ross Rocklynne
This is a story about self-discovery, set on the grandest scale possible, as a sentient life form bigger than stars roams through the universe along with others of its kind. It is merely a child among several, although their games often consist of smashing stars to bits and wreaking other kinds of havoc through the cosmos. But there is a darkness beyond the stars and galaxies, and Darkness, the name given this entity by its mother, yearns to venture there even though several others have tried but never returned...Darkness feels that the mysteries of life will be revealed there. Eventually, as the story's title suggests, our protagonist makes the bold decision to go into that vast darkness, all warnings from others put aside. Darkness does get an answer to his questions...it is an answer that we can see around us in our own lives but usually choose to ignore. And then he does something right at the end for which I applaud the author...
DARK MISSION by Lester del Rey
A genius scientist/engineer is about to launch a rocket carrying him to Mars: the first manned mission there! But not so far from the secret launch site an entirely different spaceship crash-lands...the surviving passenger finds himself personally driven toward the Mars rocket and seems to be a preprogrammed agent sent to sabotage it...he also has a peculiar revulsion to physically touching anyone. Could Mars be our enemy and trying to ruin our space ambitions? The questions roll through the reader's mind until the final surprise ending: of course, it all makes sense now...
IT by Theodore Sturgeon
Out in an American forest somewhere, location unnamed, a monster forms out of the mold and gains self-awareness. A farming family lives nearby and they often go hunting into the forest. As the creature encounters life it is unwittingly savage, crushing and tearing animals and plants apart to try to better understand them. Poor hunting dog...and the poor people who are about to encounter It! It is also the name of a famous Stephen King novel...in both stories an explanation for the source of the horror is eventually revealed. But whereas King's clown/monster Pennywise is fully intelligent and knowledgeable, Sturgeon's "It" has no axe to grind with anyone...its violence is more like that of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein monster, although much more terrible. This is one of the best horror short stories I've read...
More short science fiction from 1940 next week...
Tuesday, November 20, 2018
Tuesday's List: Possible Presidential Candidates for 2020
I was browsing the Internet looking for a site that provided a reasonably comprehensive list of possible presidential candidates for 2020 when I realized that the search engine I was using, Bing, had one at the top of their page...so I wrote it down below, adding to each name the person's background. Naturally, the opposition party has more potential candidates than the incumbent's party...I'm unfamiliar with many of them, especially those serving in the House of Representatives or in state political offices. Right now, I'd like to see either senator Amy Klobuchar or former VP Joe Biden run and win...but it's still very, very early and somebody not on this list could rise up out of nowhere and steal the show...
DEMOCRATS
JOE BIDEN...former vice-president, former senator from Delaware
MICHAEL BLOOMBERG...businessman, former New York City mayor
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL...senator from Connecticut
CORY BOOKER...senator from New Jersey
SHERROD BROWN...senator from Ohio
STEVE BULLOCK...governor of Montana
PETER BUTTIGIEG...mayor of South Bend, Indiana
JULIAN CASTRO...former HUD secretary, San Antonio mayor
MARK CUBAN...entrepreneur
ANDREW CUOMO...governor of New York
JOHN DELANEY...representative from Maryland
TULSI GABBARD...representative from Hawaii
ERIC GARCETTI...mayor of Los Angeles
KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND...senator from New York
KAMALA HARRIS...senator from California
JOHN HICKENLOOPER...governor of Colorado
ERIC HOLDER...former attorney general
JAY INSLEE...governor of Washington
DWAYNE JOHNSON...actor, former pro wrestler
TIM KAINE...senator from Virginia
JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III...representative from Massachusetts
AMY KLOBUCHAR...senator from Minnesota
MITCH LANDRIEU...former mayor of New Orleans
TERRY MCAULIFFE..governor of Virginia
JEFF MERKLEY...senator from Oregon
SETH MOULTON...representative from Massachusetts
RICHARD OJEDA...state senator in West Virginia
MARTIN O'MALLEY...former governor of Maryland
BETO O'ROURKE...representative from Texas
DEVAL PATRICK...former governor of Massachusetts
TIM RYAN...representative from Ohio
SHERYL SANDBERG...Facebook chief operating officer
BERNIE SANDERS...senator from Vermont
HOWARD SCHULTZ...former Starbucks CEO
TOM STEYER...hedge fund manager and philanthropist
ERIC SWALWELL...representative from California
MARK WARNER...senator from Virginia
ELIZABETH WARREN...senator from Massachusetts
MARK ZUCKERBERG...co-founder and CEO of Facebook
REPUBLICANS
JEFF FLAKE...senator from Arizona
JOHN KASICH...governor of Ohio
DONALD TRUMP...current White House occupant
DEMOCRATS
JOE BIDEN...former vice-president, former senator from Delaware
MICHAEL BLOOMBERG...businessman, former New York City mayor
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL...senator from Connecticut
CORY BOOKER...senator from New Jersey
SHERROD BROWN...senator from Ohio
STEVE BULLOCK...governor of Montana
PETER BUTTIGIEG...mayor of South Bend, Indiana
JULIAN CASTRO...former HUD secretary, San Antonio mayor
MARK CUBAN...entrepreneur
ANDREW CUOMO...governor of New York
JOHN DELANEY...representative from Maryland
TULSI GABBARD...representative from Hawaii
ERIC GARCETTI...mayor of Los Angeles
KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND...senator from New York
KAMALA HARRIS...senator from California
JOHN HICKENLOOPER...governor of Colorado
ERIC HOLDER...former attorney general
JAY INSLEE...governor of Washington
DWAYNE JOHNSON...actor, former pro wrestler
TIM KAINE...senator from Virginia
JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III...representative from Massachusetts
AMY KLOBUCHAR...senator from Minnesota
MITCH LANDRIEU...former mayor of New Orleans
TERRY MCAULIFFE..governor of Virginia
JEFF MERKLEY...senator from Oregon
SETH MOULTON...representative from Massachusetts
RICHARD OJEDA...state senator in West Virginia
MARTIN O'MALLEY...former governor of Maryland
BETO O'ROURKE...representative from Texas
DEVAL PATRICK...former governor of Massachusetts
TIM RYAN...representative from Ohio
SHERYL SANDBERG...Facebook chief operating officer
BERNIE SANDERS...senator from Vermont
HOWARD SCHULTZ...former Starbucks CEO
TOM STEYER...hedge fund manager and philanthropist
ERIC SWALWELL...representative from California
MARK WARNER...senator from Virginia
ELIZABETH WARREN...senator from Massachusetts
MARK ZUCKERBERG...co-founder and CEO of Facebook
REPUBLICANS
JEFF FLAKE...senator from Arizona
JOHN KASICH...governor of Ohio
DONALD TRUMP...current White House occupant
Monday, November 19, 2018
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...
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...
Sunday, November 18, 2018
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...
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...
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