Quote of the Week...from Isaac Newton

If others would think as hard as I did, then they would get similar results.   ---Isaac Newton

Isaac Newton was the renowned English scientist who discovered the mathematical basis of mechanics, including the General Theory of Gravity.  When asked once about how he was able to come up with that theory, he responded, "By thinking about it all the time." There's no doubt that Sir Isaac was quite the genius, and maybe he was being a little modest in the above quote by claiming that we could emulate his accomplishments were we to think as hard as he did.  But it is nevertheless an important truth that we are what we think, and since all of us do think, it stands to reason that it's worth looking into.  I believe that by regularly reflecting back on our own recent thoughts and evaluating their usefulness, we can train ourselves to live our lives at a higher level...maybe not at the exalted peak that Newton stood on, but at a much more effective and joyful, fulfilling place for ourselves and those whom we influence.  Do we stumble through our days thinking in reaction to the events and people around us or do we chart our own course and focus on the most important things that will lead us to the "mountaintop"?  Of course, in order to reach that higher place we have to know where we're going...

Just Finished Reading The Elfstones of Shannara by Terry Brooks

The Elfstones of Shannara is the second volume of the Shannara Trilogy by Terry Brooks, published in 1982.  The story line, set in a supposedly fictional place called the Four Lands but implied to be Earth of the distant future, jumps ahead two generations from the first book, titled The Sword of Shannara.  The focus here is on the elves, with first-book-hero Shea Ohmsford's grandson Wil dispatched on a dangerous (naturally) quest to accompany elf girl Amberle, the granddaughter of the king, to thwart the demons who are suddenly infiltrating the world, killing people and generally being bad sorts.  The reason, you see, for their breakthrough is that the enchanted, sentient tree called the Ellcrys had been imprisoning the demons in a limbo state...her weakening and impending death has caused breaches in the barrier and the bad guys have gotten through.  Only one of the Chosen...elves whom Ellcrys has picked to carry on her legacy...is left alive: Amberle, but where is she? Only the mystic druid Allanon seems to know, and he sends out Wil to find her.  Their mission is to take the seed of Ellcrys where the Bloodfire is, a place few know of called Safehold, in order to make it grow into a new Ellcrys and send the demons back.  The demons pursue them while amassing for an invasion of the elven kingdom.  Who will help the elves resist the evil demons?  Some surprises are in store with a story that is much more original than the opening book.  There is plenty of suspense as well as character development....The Elfstones of Shannara is a terrific piece of fantasy fiction and I avidly look forward to beginning soon on the trilogy's conclusion, titled The Wishsong of Shannara.  Brooks has written several other Shannara novels besides this opening trilogy...he did very well with Elfstones.  Bravo, Terry!

Weekly Short Stories: 1941 Sci-Fi, Part 3

I continued reading back through the retrospective anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 3 (1941) and covered five more tales from that pivotal year in our history.  As is the case with many of these stories, three of them delved deep into speculation about the nature of time...some of this speculation can get to be a little tedious when you see the same paradoxes exposed.  So, here are the stories I read...

TIME WANTS A SKELETON by Ross Rocklynne
A space cop crash lands on an asteroid as he catches up with the two crooks he plans to take back to Earth on their ship...but that vehicle gets ruined as well.  Fortunately, a scientific research ship studying the origin of the asteroids happens to land just then and they offer a ride back.  In the meantime, the police lieutenant discover an ages-old skeleton in a cave...wearing the ring of one of the criminals! Their ship slips back in time to when the asteroids were still one single planet...an amazing accomplishment. But other than the eccentric old genius professor running the research effort, the rest of the party seems obsessed with the skeleton...no one wants to be "it".  Time travel paradoxes are all over the place in this story...the ending brilliantly solves the riddle of the skeleton...

WORDS OF GURU by Cyril Kornbluth
A precocious young boy with no internal moral compass is able to see beyond the physical realm and encounters a demonic entity he names "Guru", who gives him "words" to speak that cause terrible things to happen, including the deaths of others.  This is a very short story, told from the boy's viewpoint, with an extremely jolting and disturbing final sentence...

THE SEE-SAW by A.E. von Vogt
Von Vogt had created his own science fiction "universe" that involved a galactic empire and a freedom-loving resistance movement.  Within this movement were "weapon shops" that the author expanded upon in other stories.  In The See-Saw, one such shop suddenly materializes in the present on Earth, and a reporter is allowed in.  When the operators discover their mistake...that his presence threatens the course of history...they get him to volunteer on a most dangerous venture, hence the story's title.  A.E. von Vogt, probably more than any writer of his time, loved to write about time travel and its various ramifications...so get ready for more of this should you decide to read it...

ARMAGEDDON by Frederic Brown
I've already reviewed this story...here's a link to it: [link].  Brown, like Ray Bradbury, was known more as a writer of "soft" science fiction...that is, he did not display much technical scientific detail in his stories to bolster their feasibility.  So a little boy goes to a magic show in Cincinnati and saves the world with his water pistol...not much science going on here.  But Brown's fiction placed ordinary people into extraordinary situations...in this sense he was a forerunner of Stephen King...

ADAM AND NO EVE  by Alfred Bester
By far the best of the five stories I am discussing today, this is an example of "hard" science fiction as Bester goes into some detail discussing how a rocket inventor wanting to fuel his spaceship managed to cause nuclear fission...and subsequently destroy life on Earth from the subsequent chain reaction...using Iron.  But as he instinctively crawls onward to what's left of Earth's seas, has life really been eliminated from this this charred and blackened world?  The story's title points to the answer, one that is paradigm-shifting...

Next week I'll probably finish with the 1941 book and then head on to '42...

As the New Year Begins

I'd like to wish everyone a happy New Year...the number 2019 doesn't sound anywhere nearly as significant as the next one, 2020, but maybe historical or personal events will make it profoundly important, who knows.  As Neil deGrasse Tyson, the astrophysicist-turned-science popularizer, pointed out this morning, January 1 carries with it no special scientific importance...it's just another day on the calendar, that's all.  But since we're social creatures and collectively view the start of a new year as a beginning...or maybe just a reset...I like to speculate as to how I can change for the better, i.e. to take my life up to a higher level.  So, as do many of you, I listed some things that I feel I can improve upon and will help both me and others around me in the year to come...I'll just keep that list to myself for the time being.  As for what will happen in the news, almost all of it is beyond my control except for how I can adjust in reaction to it.  I can't individually change the political landscape either here in America or the world at large, although I can do my miniscule part by simply expressing my opinions here from time to time and voting when the opportunity presents itself.  Speaking of this blog, I plan to continue writing on a daily basis, although I've recently changed a couple of previously regular items...Tuesdays I used to write about different lists I composed or found and Thursdays I would recap the previous Sunday's sermon at the church I attend.  I've stopped both of these, the lists because the process is too time-consuming and the sermon summaries because one, they were essentially only restatements of someone else's work and not my own creative writing and two, because I was not getting the anticipated feedback and interaction (only 8 people responded from 112 sermon summaries over more than two years).  I still like lists and from time to time will present some, and I still attend and listen to the weekly sermons, which are available through YouTube for anyone to watch in their entirety.  So doing this opens up a couple more days each week...either I'll come up with another weekly theme or I'll just write each day whatever comes to mind...

My December 2018 Running Report

In December my total running mileage continued to increase, totaling 86 miles, while I managed to run a local 15K race...the Season of Hope 15K along the Hawthorne Trail...in deliberately slow fashion.  That 9.3 mile run was also the longest single distance I ran during the month. I took three days off from running in December...

There's no doubt that I feel my general running endurance is much improved, and I think it's also better than at this date a year ago.  I still plan to run a 15K race later in January and a half-marathon in February...both Gainesville events that I've run multiple times before.  Also in January is the Ocala Half-Marathon, which I've run before in 2013 as well as their marathon race in 2011 (they no longer host marathons): if I can register on race morning I might participate.  I'm looking forward to some more cooler weather that is more conducive to long-distance training...lately here in north central Florida it's either been raining or warm and humid (like today)...yuck!  I've also begun to speed-walk and plan to eventually do it on the same level as my running, most likely integrating the two within races as my age keeps creeping higher...

My Favorite Songs for 2018

I follow former president Barack Obama on my Twitter account...he's a refreshing example of someone whose messages embrace the constructive and positive and I always appreciate his input.  A couple of days ago he tweeted a link to his "favorites" lists for 2018, including the books he's read and his favorite songs from the year.  These lists are long...I've read a few books, too, but as for the music, I found myself turning away from the current radio playlists and album releases in favor of looking at music from the past.  Only one recent song, Arcade Fire's Creature Comfort from 2017, made my top ten favorite songs list for 2018...this sort of thing has happened with me in past years, my belated discovery in 1991 of Led Zeppelin's greatness after the release of their first box set leading me to focus on them for a couple of years back then. Likewise, this year's favorites also delve into music from years gone by...but they do represent the music I enjoyed listening to the most over the course of 2018.  And now here's my list, with the songs' original years of release following the artists' names...I wonder if Barack's heard any of them...

1 LAZY EYE by Silversun Pickups [2006]
2 OPTIMISTIC by Radiohead [2000]
3 MORNING BELL by Radiohead [2000]
4 DARKNESS by The Police [1982]
5 DETROIT, LIFT UP YOUR WEARY HEAD by Sufjan Stevens [2003]
6 JACKSONVILLE by Sufjan Stevens [2005]
7 HOW TO DISAPPEAR COMPLETELY by Radiohead [2000]
8 BLACKSTAR by David Bowie [2016]
9 THE LIGHT by Regina Spektor [2016]
10 CREATURE COMFORT by Arcade Fire [2017]

Gators Break Jinx Against Michigan, Win Peach Bowl 41-15

The 2018 University of Florida football team ended its already successful season today in Atlanta's Peach Bowl with a convincing 41-15 drubbing over nemesis Michigan, which had beaten the Gators in their previous four games.  At first the game seemed very evenly played between the two teams, with UF holding a slim 13-10 halftime lead.  But early in the third quarter Florida intercepted a Wolverine pass deep in their territory and returned it back...the play flipped the flow of the game as the Gators scored on the ensuing short drive, building up a 20-10 lead and never looking back.  The Florida defense appeared to strengthen as the game wore on and sophomore quarterback Feleipe Franks was spectacular in his running and long passes.  First year head coach Dan Mullen has a lot to be proud of with this 10-3 squad...the one standout thing I'd like to see them improve on the most next year is the tendency of some of their players to engage in unsportsmanlike and embarrassing taunting and baiting against opposing players and fans.  I watched the game on ESPN, and Mullen always seemed to be available for sideline interviews...but nary a word did I hear from Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh: was he pulling some kind of silence-against-the-press act?  Or maybe I just happened to be out of the room when he was corralled for a few words. He's a good coach, but if I were a Wolverine fan I'd probably have tired of his antics a long time ago...

Many of Florida's starters are returning in 2019 and the prospects are high for this team to excel.  Let's see if Coach Mullen can keep it all together...he did a great job this year...

Quote of the Week...from Isaac Asimov

Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is. The only function of a school is to make self-education easier; failing that, it does nothing.               ---Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov was a biochemistry professor much better known for his prolific output of books, most notably in the realm of science education and science fiction.  After Sputnik in 1957 put the Soviets ahead of us for a time in the space race, there was a panic in the U.S. regarding our state of science education...Asimov took a break then from his fiction writing and produced a series of very readable books spanning the fields of science and mathematics.  Early on in school, young Isaac was considered a prodigy and quickly jumped far ahead of his peers with his learning.  Which presents a bit of a problem with his above quote...

I used to be a pretty sharp little kid in elementary school, too...but definitely not at prodigy level like Asimov.  The teachers taught the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic with their specially-designed curricula, with the obvious knowledge that we children did not know beans about "self-education" and exactly what it was we were supposed to be learning.  I do agree with Asimov, though, that schools need to make self-education easier.  But to accomplish this, they need to first teach students what this means and how to do it.  And one other thing: if left to their own devices students...like folks in general...will focus on what interests them and ignore areas that don't.  It's up to schools to make sure that everyone learns about the broad range of subjects that as a society we deem important for them as later functioning adults. I don't buy the notion that little children just need for teachers to get out of their way and then they'll transform into budding Einsteins.  On the contrary, the teachers I had from elementary through high school were far too disengaged, leaving me usually drifting through the school years and feeling insignificant, if not invisible...

But education does not end with formal school and adults should know how to educate themselves, or at least know how to find the appropriate sources for the education they are seeking.  Still, you cannot self-educate if you're not motivated or curious.  And not everyone is a prodigy like Isaac Asimov was: I could have used more teacher-student interaction, not less...

Puzzled by US Senate's Generally Cavalier Attitude

Like many folks living across this great country of ours, I was able to take Christmas Day off from my job, although I worked on both the day before and after.  Some professions, like teaching, obviously have more extended breaks though the holiday season...I totally get that.  But in the midst of this federal government shutdown, the United States Senate...which is the government body that has to negotiate with President Trump over this shutdown he caused over the border wall (I support a wall, not a shutdown)...adjourned Saturday morning on the 22nd and is only today going to meet, at the late afternoon hour of 4 pm. In the meantime federal workers aren't being paid...and the surrounding businesses in the Washington DC area are also suffering through a domino economic slowdown effect.  I hope these senators all enjoyed their five-day vacation while others waited...and waited...for their return...

But this article isn't just about the Senate's leisurely vacation in the middle of this crisis. I have watched C-Span2, which is the TV channel broadcasting live floor proceedings of the United States Senate, since 2001.  And it never fails to confound me that, in the middle of the extreme competition out there in media land for air time to express various viewpoints and agendas, most of the time on the Senate floor is spent in "quorum call", which is the empty time when no senators are present to speak.  Daily, hours upon hours are wasted with none of these highly opinionated senators taking advantage of this free exposure on national television to promote their plans for America or to criticize opposing opinions.  But that's just while the Senate is "in session".  Usually they adjourn on Thursdays and don't reconvene until the following Monday afternoon at 3...and that's when there aren't any federal holidays.  I keep hearing Majority Leader Mitch McConnell complaining about the backlog of nominations that need to be voted on, but it appears to me that a lot of this could be remedied if the Senate were open for business like other businesses are...how about Monday through Friday, 9 to 5...with mandatory overtime during busy periods?  And there should be more press scrutiny placed on our senators...just what are they doing behind the scenes, anyway...they sure aren't on the floor speaking...

Taking Short Break from Blog

I'm taking two or three days off from this blog...I'll start it back up in a day or two.  Till then...happy holidays!

Merry Christmas and Blessings

On this day before Christmas I'd like to wish all of you a wonderful Christmas and that your lives are blessed to their fullest.  Health, prosperity and wisdom to you all!

Controlling Party Shuts Down Its Own Government Three Times in Two Years

When Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were each serving as president, they had lengthy periods in which the opposition Republicans were in control of Congress, essentially creating a divided national government.  During both of these administrations, the government underwent temporary shutdowns when agreements could not be reached to fund the government because special conditions were placed for that funding on one side, creating a conflict.  Although this was not something folks in general would welcome, it is still understandable when you consider two opposing political philosophies clashing, each with its own power base in Washington.  But what about now: the Republican Party for the last two years has not had to share its power as it has controlled the Presidency, the Senate, and the House of Representatives.  So will someone please explain to me why it's always the "fault" of the out-of-power Democrats whenever the Republicans get together and decide to shut down the federal government...THREE times now during this brief period? There is now only one thing preventing the ruling party from having complete control over lawmaking, and that is the 60-vote supermajority threshold in the Senate for ending debate (i.e., filibusters) before votes can be held on legislation.  Trump wants Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to arbitrarily do away with that condition and reduce that body to passing legislation on a simple majority vote basis, like they do in the House...effectively ending the opposition party's participation in the legislative process.  The problem with this is twofold: one, some day the Democrats will return to power in the Senate...maybe as soon as two years from now...and it will be they who will be able to ignore Republican objections to their proposed legislation.  And two, in only two weeks the next session of the House will be sworn into office, giving the Democrats majority control there...having a majority-rules Senate would mean nothing to McConnell's Senate Republicans for the next two years since they'll have no corresponding Republican-passed bills from the House of Representatives to consider. But what about the reason for this shutdown going on right now?

I happen to think that we should have something better on the border, and I'm not at all averse to Trump's wall idea, which he is insisting on before he'll agree to fund and reopen the federal government.  But the Democrats, during the previous shutdown, had actually agreed with the president to fund this wall but he backed out at the last minute, demanding more changes in immigration law.  So he's had his chance and he blew it...sounds to me likes it's all just a political game to him, not a matter of national security as it is to me and many of my fellow Americans.  And anyway, with Trump's kowtowing to Russian foreign policy after his unilateral declaration that he will just abandon Syria to them...and let ISIS be free to reorganize and strengthen...I am deeply concerned about his loyalties. Just what does Putin have on him...I wonder if this phony government shutdown is just a Trump tactic to misdirect attention from how he is currently wrecking our foreign policy...

Almost All My Favorite Songs This Year Are From the Past

Usually around this time of year, I'm getting a mental list ready of my favorite songs of the year.  In 2018, though, in spite of me still listening to music, I only have one song belonging to 2018 on my "list", and it's really not on a par with other top songs from previous years: Arcade Fire's Creature Comfort.  I've grown very dissatisfied with the musical programming on my local alternative rock station, WHHZ/100.5 "The Buzz".  They seem more preoccupied sometimes with playing old songs from the nineties than what's currently out there.  And what's currently out there...I'm sad to say...isn't all that great, either.  So instead I've been either listening to one of three classical music stations...two on my phone and one on my car radio...or some of my favorite rock albums of the past.  Among my current "playlist" of songs I listen to regularly are:

The entire Kid A album by Radiohead
I Might Be Wrong by Radiohead
Neon Bible by Arcade Fire
Windowsill by Arcade Fire
Timebomb by Beck
Lazy Eye by Silversun Pickups
I Will Wait by Mumford & Sons
Close to the Edge by Yes
Two-Timing Touch and Broken Bones by The Hives
Darkness by The Police
Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head by Sufjan Stevens
Blackstar by David Bowie
Love is a Place by Metric
Destination Unknown by Missing Persons
Get It Right Next Time by Gerry Rafferty
M-M-M-M by Crash Test Dummies
Flint by Sufjan Stevens
Niagara Falls by Sufjan Stevens
Us by Regina Spektor
The Light by Regina Spektor
Switchblade Smiles by Kasabian
...and, of course, Creature Comfort by Arcade Fire

I'll probably throw together a list of my favorite songs for 2018 in a week or two, but as nearly all of them will be from the above list, they definitely won't be my favorite songs from 2018...

Quote of the Week...from Ralph Waldo Emerson

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.                                        ---Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson was a famous nineteenth century American philosopher and poet who championed the ideal of individualism.  For someone as myself who generally conforms to society's standards for conduct without complaint, I nevertheless also find myself continually put under pressure by others to speak and make decisions that conform with their agendas for me and not how I would act according to my own values and purposes.  I recognize that with each of us there is necessarily a tug of war going on between how we want to individually live our lives and how others want us to live out our sole chance at life on Earth...unless of course they happen to believe in reincarnation.  My philosophy has always been to respect the personal decisions of people around me concerning their own lives as long as they do not trample on the rights of others or mine.  But there are some people in this world, sad to say, who are incapable of leaving well enough alone and who seem to regard me as some kind of project...or worse an object...that they are entitled to hound and pressure into conforming to what they deem to be "good enough".  They are incapable of processing my expressed respect of them as being anything other than a sign of my own weakness, which they are only to eager to exploit.  But that's the world for you...only problem is that some folks, especially the real religious ones, who claim to be not conforming to this world, are actually some of the most worldly in this regard.  To associate with them entails never quite being accepted for oneself...there's always something else I have to do to gain their "approval".  Only one problem: I couldn't care less...and never did...whether they approve of me or not, and I never will, seeing them for what they are...

Just Finished Reading Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie

Fantasy writer Joe Abercrombie came up with a winner when he produced his First Law trilogy.  Not only is the premise original, but the characters are so intense and unforgettable that after it's all over, you want him to continue on writing about them.  When I just finished reading book #3, titled Last Argument of Kings, that's just the conclusion I reached. If you want archetypally noble and upstanding protagonists and dastardly, purely evil villains in your fiction, I urge you to move on...the main characters here (the "good" guys) are an inquisitional torturer (Glokta), a brutal, murdering Viking-type warrior (Logen), and a vain, immature nobleman (Jezal).  Yet, especially with Glokta, whose private thoughts Abercrombie shrewdly inserts into every interaction he has with others and reveals a humanity even this abject figure shares with us, they each have their own struggles with their conscience and desire to make things better...or at least survive to another day.  The violence in this series is extreme, lots of mauling and killing, so if you're "kind of " squeamish I "kind of" don't recommend it!  After Last Argument of Kings came out in 2008, the author wrote several related short stories and three standalone novels, each one taking place in the years following the trilogy's timeframe...I plan to read the novels, as well as a spinoff trilogy that he is reportedly working on.  I can't go into much detail about what happens in Last Argument of Kings because I don't want to spoil the series for potential readers...even describing events at its beginning would reveal too much about the endings of books #1 and #2.  I'll just say that if you like fantasy fiction and are tired of excess derivation crossing over from one author's series into another's, then The First Law just might be for you...it's now definitely near the top of my fantasy favorites...

Weekly Short Stories: 1941 Sci-Fi, Part 2

I continued my reading of old science fiction short stories from the anthology Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 3 (1941), which I first read through a few years ago.  Unlike other "best of" anthologies that are year-to-year reviews of the preceding year's stories, this retrospective book series, which starts with stories from 1939 and ends with 1963, was published from the late 1970s through the early 90s...when Asimov died of kidney failure in 1992 it came to a halt.  So the selections in these volumes have lasted and even grown in appeal through time...although in 2018 we're moving further and further away "into the future".  Here are three tales from the 1941 book...

MICROCOSMIC GOD by Theodore Sturgeon
It is at some point into the not-so-distant future and there are two extraordinary men who hold the world's fate in the balance: an unscrupulous, greedy and megalomaniacal banker and an inventive genius who keeps supplying said banker with innovations, for which he becomes rich and more powerful.  In return Conant, the banker, protects the privacy of the scientist inventor Kidder, who resides on an island that he now owns where he conducts his research in seclusion.  But Kidder never reveals to Conant the source of his inspiration: a highly-evolved form of social intelligent life, small in scale and vastly sped up with their metabolism, that he has created and trained to obey his commands as one would a deity. If there's the need for a new invention of a particular kind, he passes it on to his "Neoterics" and in a few of their generations...a few days in normal time...they've come up with the answer.  But power-hungry people are never satisfied and Conant one day decides to prod Kidder for a new item, this one precipitating a crisis that leads to the story's climax.  Sturgeon was one of the best writers of this era and he came through again with an excellent tale...

JAY SCORE by Eric Frank Russell
This is another of those old science fiction stories that erroneously presuppose Venus to be hospitable to life...a spaceship is transporting aspiring agriculturists who see settling there as a very lucrative venture.  On board is a new emergency pilot, named Jay Score...as well as your typical Earthling people and some chess-savvy Martians, tentacles and all.  All is proceeding normally until a small meteor punches a hole in the ship, knocking it off course and out of control, straight toward the sun.  Well, the name of this story says that it's about Jay Score, and this character steps up in a major way in the middle of this disaster.  What happens at the end...and who exactly is Jay Score anyway...are things I'll leave you to discover should you want to read it sometime.

LIAR! by Isaac Asimov
Early on in his writing career (and throughout, actually) Isaac Asimov loved to write stories about robots...he was only 20 when he wrote Liar!  For his robot scenario of the future, he had devised the Three Laws of Robotics, the first of them being that "a robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction, allow him to come to harm".  Now picture the setting of a robot manufacturing plant where they've just discovered they inadvertently made a robot that can read people's minds.  Herbie's subsequent strange conversations with some of the plant's staff infuriate each of them (remember the title)...but it all makes sense at the end.  Pretty funny story...

More from 1941 in the world of short science fiction next week...

Just Finished Reading The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks

Terry Brooks is the author of many novels, the Shannara series being his most renowned accomplishment. Volume one, titled The Sword of Shannara, was published in 1977 with respected science fiction author Lester Del Rey serving as the guiding editor for Brooks, who was writing his first novel. A co-worker of mine had earlier recommended it to me: well, Margaret, the deed is done...I've just read it! And now, here are my reactions...

There is no mistaking the obvious fact that Brooks was deeply inspired and influenced by J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings saga...the characters, their circumstances, the presence of a special, coveted talisman, and the development of the story all displayed an enormous degree of derivation and little of an original nature, sad to say. It reminded me of Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance (Eragon) series in much the same way. That having been said, Brooks did bring his own narrative style to the story, which differed a bit from Tolkien’s and is his saving grace. Unfortunately, for the many people who never read Lord of the Rings but only saw the movie version, the lack of originality will probably be accentuated. Shea...half-elf and half-man...corresponds to Tolkien’s Frodo, his “brother” Flick to Samwise Gamgee, the Druid Allanon to the Wizard Gandalf, Broma to Sauron, Orl Fane to Gollum, and so on. In both series the unlikely hero finds his life in peril as he is the target of dark agents (in Shannara it’s the winged Skull Bearers). Allanon gives him instructions as to who to meet up with and where to go...he also presents him with three elfstones, which will respond to him in time of great need. Shea’s quest is to find within the city of Paranor the fabled Sword of Shannara, which only he will be able to wield and use to destroy the evil Broma, now known as the Warlock Lord. Along Flick and Shea’s journey quest they join forces with other allies: Balinor, the prince of a strategic kingdom, two elves, a dwarf, and Menion Leah, a local nobleman whose character I most identified with. There are dangers and crises, and not everyone is going to come out of the struggle alive. The book’s climax centers around two separate but intertwining narratives: Shea’s quest to obtain the Sword of Shannara and Balinor’s defense of his captial city from the Warlock Lord’s armies. How does it turn out? Well, I’m not gonna spoil it for you, but just a hint: this was only book number one!

Once I got past the bothersome similarities between this book and Lord of the Rings, I was able to begin to better appreciate the individual characters and the different nuances to The Sword of Shannara. One glaring difference between this series and Tolkien’s is that Shea’s world appears to be that of Earth in the far distant future after a planet-wide, cataclysmic war...and the designations of elves, dwarves, trolls, gnomes and Druids seem to have been applied from earlier myths to describe the very divergent types of beings arising from the ashes of the calamity. There is a tension going on here between historic forces promoting the advancement of science and those pushing for the domination of magic. Which will win out? Guess I’ll have to keep reading on. I appreciated Terry Brooks for not overloading me with characters and technical details...especially about the magic, something I wish that other fantasy writers had been more disciplined about. And his characters ring true as believable people...I want to continue and see where all this takes them. So, in spite of the story and characters being a little too close for my comfort to Lord of the Rings, I liked The Sword of Shannara and plan to soon begin the next book, titled The Elfstones of Shannara, which I am optimistically hoping will steer toward a narrative that is more original and less derivative...

About Trump, the Investigations, and Impeachment

I have been deliberately holding back on writing about the investigations going on surrounding Donald Trump and his associates, past and present.  The main reason is that I would be writing largely out of ignorance.  I happen to dislike this president on a scale far beyond any previous holder of that office, and I imagine I'm not the only one who feels this way.  But I resisted the impulse to demand his impeachment...as some have even to the point of calling for it before he was sworn into office.  As long as the special prosecutor, Robert Mueller, is not obstructed by Trump, I am content to sit back and let the process unfold.  But now I think a couple of comments are in order...

My overriding concern about Trump and the 2016 campaign is whether or not he conspired with the Russian regime under Vladimir Putin...either because of blackmail, business, or other reasons...to illegally sabotage the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton's campaign through the hacking and theft of e-mails and other activities.  That's something that Mueller has been working on and which, after he's finished, I'd like to see before making any open judgments about Donald Trump (although I have some strong suspicions in that regard).  Trump's former attorney, Michael Cohen, is in the spotlight for his role in paying off his client's former extramarital girlfriends, one a stripper and the other a Playboy playmate.  The tactic that prosecutors are taking in this case is that the payoffs represented campaign contributions in that they came just before the 2016 election.  But I argue, that's the reason these two women came forward at that time demanding money: their affairs with Trump had occurred many years earlier!  To me this smacks, not of illegally unreported campaign contributions with Trump as the perpetrator, but rather of criminal extortion with Trump as the victim...I heard a conservative talk show host the other night affirm these very thoughts.  So why isn't somebody investigating that?  And, ultimately, what does any of this have to do with Russia, anyway...other than that Cohen may be an important link in that investigation?

The other comment I'd like to make is about impeachment.  When Richard Nixon was undergoing the impeachment process the Democrats controlled the Senate, which is the body of Congress that holds impeachment trials, 57-43.  And many Republicans in that body, unlike today's Senate, were liberal...some of them more so than many Democrats.  When the "Smoking Gun" tape came out in 1974, Nixon weighed his prospects and resigned from office before an impeachment trial could commence.  When Bill Clinton was tried by the Senate 25 years later, the opposition Republicans controlled that body but could not convict...after all, they would have needed 67 out of the 100 senators to remove him from office.  Now we see an incoming Senate that is 53-47 in favor of the president's party, and the Republicans here are much more conservative and docile to their own party leadership than either during the Nixon or Clinton crises.  Should the incoming Democrat-controlled House of Representatives at some time vote for impeachment, I strongly doubt that the Senate under Mitch McConnell would lift as much as a finger to proceed with a trial.  No, if you want Trump out you're going to have to do it the old-fashioned way: get off your butts and VOTE, for a change!

Miami Dolphins Trying to Make Playoffs in '18

I've been following the Miami Dolphins of the National Football League since 1968, when they were still in the American Football League, in just their third year of existence.  This is a franchise that enjoyed a quick rise to glory, winning Super Bowl championships after the 1972 and 1973 seasons and going undefeated throughout the regular season and playoffs in 1972.  Since then, though, they've gone through two phases: from 1974 through 2003, under coaches Don Shula, Jimmy Johnson, and Dave Wannstedt, they only made it to two more Super Bowls, losing them both...yet generally fielded good teams over this long span, experiencing only two losing seasons.  From 2004 onward, though, it's been a different story as the Dolphins have usually struggled to avoid losing seasons.  During the previous 14 seasons they only made the playoffs twice...bowing out early in both games...and came way too close to going winless in 2007, saved by a fortunate win over Baltimore late in that season.  Last year their starting quarterback, the competent but unspectacular Ryan Tannehill, was injured for the year and they finished 6-10.  In 2018 they had a great beginning but went into a mid-season slide...now, after a "miraculous" desperation last play victory over New England, Miami is 7-6 and thick in the playoff hunt.  Today, though, they are playing on the road at Minnesota, which is heavily favored to win the game.  So effectively the Dolphins' playoff season has already begun and they need to keep winning to be awarded a postseason wild card slot.  Will they accomplish this?  Who knows, they have been very inconsistent so far, yet this team seems promising to me and can play with anyone in the league when they are in their top form.  Unfortunately, you never know which Miami Dolphins squad is going to show up on game day, something that I tend to blame the coaching for, particularly head coach Adam Gase…

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Later, after the game: Dolphins didn't show up, got blown out 41-17.  So what's new...and why should I continue to follow a team whose owner and management act as if they don't care whether they win or lose?  I'm not very demanding...I just want to see them play consistently and competitively, at the level of their abilities, from week to week...

Looking at Politics, Issue By Issue

Life would be a lot simpler for me if I followed the example of millions of my fellow Americans who joyfully and dutifully march in lockstep with their own political parties, passionately adopting all of the party positions on the issues...even those that, given a little thought, might not be in the best interests of either the country or themselves personally. Yes, many folks can’t wait to turn their radio on to Rush Limbaugh or Michael Savage...or eagerly anticipate what FoxNews will tell them to think through their idol Sean Hannity. That’s just on the political right...on the left we have MSNBC and their cast of opinion makers like Lawrence O’Donnell and Rachel Maddow, each of them looking through the TV “at” the viewer with a look that says I know you’ll believe anything I tell you, you’re one of us. And CNN, while pretending to be unbiased, sometimes has the most biased presentation of the issues, with the moderator usually eager to jump into the fray with his or her presumptions. My political philosophy has me usually landing on the side of the Democrats, but that doesn’t mean that they are always correct on the issues, in my opinion. So it grieves me at times to side with President Trump on border security and national defense while I know that he ultimately isn’t temperamentally or morally suited for such a position of responsibility and authority. Yet my own party’s leaders would go against steps that I feel we need to take to ensure our national security, so it can get to be trying hearing people who are all on one side or the other, usually delivering their viewpoints in a very harsh, judgmental, and personal manner directed at the “bad guys” and those who support them. The way I see it, if you’re a thinking person you’ll have varying views on issues, most of which will probably resonate with your general political alignment and a few of which won’t. It isn’t our responsibility to conform ourselves to the positions of our respective political parties, but rather their responsibility to accommodate and not summarily dismiss ours...