Not So Keen on the State of Television Nowadays

It's been clear to me for some time that I'm a bit out of touch with contemporary popular culture, at least in terms of what's being presented on television.  When I get home from work...usually around 10:30 at night...the only viable options for me are choices between live sports, satiric cartoon shows like Family Guy or South Park (if they are actually showing one of the few episodes I like), old movies, C-Span talk/documentaries, old-time TV on channels specializing therein...and the Music Choice channels appended to my Cox Cable service.  None of the ongoing television series have any appeal for me...I know this because on my breaks at work some of them are shown on the break-room TV.  It seems like whether it's comedy, drama, or comedy-drama as the format, they all seem to be highly pretentious, as if they're bucking for an Emmy with every episode.  As for the late-night talk shows like Colbert, Kimmel, and Meyers, they seem to have substituted what could have been an opening comedic monologue showcase of their talents with hyper-political Trump-bashing...that doesn't take any special skill to do!  I used to watch old Johnny Carson Tonight shows when one of the "retro" channels showed them at 11:30 and got a kick out of the opening monologues...he'd sometimes joke about whoever the current president was, but always in fun and without regard to whichever party was in power.  And he joked about other topics as well...sometimes the gags went flat, which also was funny as ol' Johnny would react to the lack of audience appreciation.  But now they've switched the showtime to 10 pm, too early for me to watch.  And what about these horrid reality and talent shows infecting the programming?  I could do without any of them, thank you...

An article like this wouldn't be complete without looking at the state of popular music today.  I just watched the Grammys and had a hard time recognizing many of the names, all of whom it was assumed were extremely important superstars in their genres. For those I did know, like Katy Perry, Lady Ga-Ga, or Miley Cyrus, I could count the number of songs of theirs I'm familiar with all on one hand.  And the year's "best" music performances were awful to my ears...there wasn't a song on the show that I could stand, not even when the Red Hot Chili Peppers, a band that I actually knew and liked a bit, got onstage with one of their tunes.   I don't think that just standing there showing off one's vocal range qualifies their music as outstanding, and I also have never been able to figure out the appeal of hip-hop...but if you do then the more power to you, there's no shortage of it around...

Well, I guess that's enough of me going negative on TV for a while...

Just Finished Reading Two More Oz Books by L. Frank Baum

Although the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz...along with the soulful version called The Wiz from 1978...are what most people think of when the Wizard of Oz comes to mind, original creator and author L. Frank Baum actually wrote a long series of books based on this imaginary land of wonder and magic.  I just read the third and fourth books, titled Ozma of Oz and Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz respectively, written in the years 1907-08.  That latter title probably confused a few people due to its similarity with the more well-known original story.  In Ozma of Oz, Dorothy is on a ship with her Uncle Harry to visit Australia where some of his relatives live, but the visit is more intended to improve his flagging health than anything.  One turbulent night she goes up on deck fearing her father had gone there and was in danger...only to get thrown overboard herself.  A chicken crate also meets the same fate, and fortunately for Dorothy she finds it suitable as a raft...and there is a surviving hen as well to accompany her to their shared destination as they float on the open sea.  Then the hen begins to speak, indicating that they had entered a area where magic prevails.  They wash up on a shore where she uncovers a mechanical man called Tic-Toc.  They are now in the land of Ev...and it turns out to be just across the desert from Oz, now ruled by the girl queen Ozma.  Subsequently, Dorothy, Billina...as she names the hen...and Tic-Toc embark on an adventure to rescue the rightful rulers of Ev from the Gnome King, with all sorts of sidetracks and strange creatures along the way.  In the next book, Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, you can correctly assume that our heroine survived her previous perils and is now in a new adventure.  This time, she and Uncle Henry have just returned to the States and are staying a bit in California.  While being driven in a coach with her cat Eureka by a boy named Zeb and pulled by Jim, the horse, a severe earthquake opens up the ground beneath them and they plunge into the depths below.  By the time they are near the Earth's center they have slowed down and soft-land in a strange place where all life is plant-based. Not much later a familiar figure lands there, too: the Wizard of Oz, now working in a circus as a balloonist and also caught up in the quake.  Before long they all realize they'd better escape for their lives...the novel jumps from one underground setting to another, each with its own special "people"...some benevolent and some extremely dangerous.   And yes, there is a connection in all this with the kingdom of Oz, which the book reveals toward the end.  And, naturally, the moment they descend from the earthquake low enough to be in "magical" space, the cat Eureka and horse Jim begin to speak and reveal their own individual, quirky personalities...

These Oz tales are very whimsical, funny, and cute...they remind me of C.S. Lewis with his Chronicles of Narnia series, but without the religious analogies.  I wonder if Lewis got some of his inspiration for it from Baum, who wrote his series some thirty-to-fifty years earlier.  I plan to continue reading the books in the series all the way through the fourteenth and final one...

Alliance of American Football Begins Inaugural Season

Every decade of two in American professional football, a new league will form to challenge the monopolistic domination of the National Football League.  The NFL dealt with the All-American Football Conference of the late 1940s by incorporating its most successful franchises and the American Football League of the 1960s by merging with it...and with the later World Football League and United States Football League by competitively crushing them.  Recently we've had Arena Football and the United Football League, both now defunct.  It's interesting that with all of the talent coming from college that there hasn't developed with American football the multi-tiered league system prevalent in countries where soccer is the dominant form of "football".  Now we have a new league, the Alliance of American Football, and we'll just have to see how long it can last.  Last night's CBS-televised game between the Orlando Apollos, coached by Steve Spurrier, and the Atlanta Legends...two of the league's eight teams divided into two divisions...was pretty well-played, all things considered.  In the AAF there are no extra point kicks after touchdowns: only two-point conversions.  And no kickoffs as well...the receiving offense starts from the 25-yard line.  Other rules are designed to further streamline and shorten the game and keep fan interest.  The fact that they waited until the weekend following the NFL's Super Bowl to start the season is probably the best idea: the AAF isn't directly competing with the NFL for TV time and attention, but instead slyly capitalizing on the end of the previous college and pro seasons to extend football for a couple more months.  The AAF regular season consists of ten games with the two top finishers in each division making the playoffs, the championship game to be played later in April.  And you won't be seeing oligarchic and often obnoxious owners like Robert Kraft or Jerry Jones in the stands...all teams are league-owned.  How this arrangement plays itself out should be one of the more interesting things about this new league.  I hope it succeeds...American football is clearly the most popular spectator sport in the United States and there is plenty of talent available to field quality teams, even if it isn't on the "premier league" level of the NFL.  If the AAF can do well with its eight teams and establish a sense of stability from year to year, they just might be able to establish themselves as a more permanent fixture in the American professional sports landscape.  And they should succeed as long as they get their games shown on broadcast television by major networks and/or cable channels like ESPN...

Ran Another Depot Park Parkrun 5K This Morning

Back on January 5th, after having signed up online, I ran in my first Depot Park Parkrun here in Gainesville.  The Parkrun is a network of non-profit races held...without entry fees...at various locations throughout the world: Florida now has three, in Gainesville, Clermont, and Pensacola.  My original intention last month was to make a regular weekly habit of running in it, interspersed with times that Melissa would go with me to walk together the 5K (3.1 miles) course that involves four laps on a very interesting winding and sloping trail around the park.  Last month I enjoyed the run, although near the end I had a short bout of hacking coughs...today was worse as I struggled with this for most of the run.  Although I was primarily running against my last month's time of 30:00, I did finish 13th out of 46 participating, also being the oldest male runner. My finishing time at 30:36 was a bit slower...here's a link to the race's results page: [results].  Still, even with my struggles and slowness it was a triumph of sorts as I had been suffering from some lower back pain recently that kept me from running and had reduced my walking to a hobble.  The weather at 7:30 race time was pleasant enough...about 57 degrees with 42% humidity.  But the wind was strong from the north and was a bit irritating when I faced it...

On a different note, although I wasn't planning to run the Five Points of Life half-marathon here in Gainesville this month as I have five times in years past, I had already mentioned that they had drastically changed their running course, which traditionally had run through the heart of Gainesville, going up and down the challenging hills of NW 16th Avenue, passing through downtown, and then through the University of Florida campus and even in and out of the football stadium...a great running experience!  Now, though, for whatever reason the course runs southwest of the city west of I-75, much of it up and down Archer Road.  The marathon course is ridiculous: I looks as if about 17.3 miles of the 26.2-mile distance involves running down Archer Road and back...sounds like a very boring course to me!  Will I run the Five Points half-marathon in the future?  I don't know, but this new course isn't helping me to decide in the positive...

Quote of the Week...from Stephen Hawking

Keeping an active mind has been vital to my survival, as has been maintaining a sense of humor.
                                                                            ---Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking, the renowned astrophysicist and decades-long survivor of the debilitating and usually quickly fatal disease ALS who finally passed away last year at age 76, has many good quotes...I even discussed the same one in two different blog articles.  The above quote is spot on for me, as I try both to keep my mind active and find things in life to laugh at.  But to me, being continually engaged in learning new things and finding and relishing the humor in my life has always been an integral part of who I am and isn't just some survival strategy.  When I see others who are utterly devoid of humor or are so close-minded that they refuse to try to see things from the viewpoint of someone with a different perspective, I don't react by thinking that they will soon perish, but rather perceive that they are lacking elements in their lives that would otherwise give them fulfillment and contentment.  Besides, in a way everyone has an "active" mind, but do they engage in thinking that enhances their skill levels and understanding of the world and other people, or do they absorb themselves in fruitless mental tape-playing reinforcing their own vanity, grudges, delusions and regrets?  I submit that you cannot be a compassionate person without the ability to laugh, especially at yourself.  I look at some of these "new wave" politicians, some of them running for president, and see neither humor nor compassion in their hearts.  I think a lot of people in today's runaway world of political correctness...and PC sees no humor in anything...are experiencing their careers and futures being ruined by past gaffes that they originally intended to be funny, even going back decades in the process.  But I digress...

I think I'm going to carefully look at the current and upcoming field of presidential candidates on the Democratic side and pick one to support over the others.  Two prerequisites: they have to be thinkers on both sides of the issues, being able to explain the other guy's side as well as their own.  And they must have a sense of humor...and a little grace wouldn't hurt, either.  As for my own thinking, I don't believe I have a career in astrophysics on my "event horizon", but that doesn't mean I can't study on my own level black holes and other areas of cosmology in which the great Stephen Hawking excelled...

Just Finished Reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

After reading Mark Twain's 1889 novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, I thought I'd go back and read some of his other famous works...I just finished reading his 1876 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, a book I had begun reading before but never got around to completing.  I vaguely remember watching one of the movie adaptations when I was a kid and knew that the climax has something to do with a cave, but couldn't recall anything else other than the famous con job Tom did on his friends at the beginning to get them to whitewash the fence for him.  Orphaned with his little tattletale brother Sid, Aunt Polly has the task of caring for him...and quite a task it is as Tom is virtually uncontrollable, constantly getting himself in all sorts of trouble.  Read for yourself all the adventures he has with his friends Joe Harper, Huckleberry Finn, and Becky Thatcher, and get a sense of what life was like in early-to-mid-nineteenth century Missouri, then still a slave state with plenty of racial prejudice.  Twain used that "n" word from time to time here in the boys' dialogs...but I believe he was faithfully describing how people spoke back then, not promoting any agenda of his own.  Instead I'd like to touch upon an observation I made while reading this story...

I don't know where the expressions "finders keepers" and "possession is nine tenths of the law" come from, but it is clear in Tom Sawyer that the people in his society were respectful of the notion of property, much more than in today's world.  An example: Tom's church gives out tickets for Bible verse memorization...collect enough of them and they hand you a brand-new Bible.  Now Tom never studied his verses and knows next-to-nothing about the goings-on in the Bible, but he still has his mind set on winning one for his own.  So he goes around to all his friends and trades things for their tickets...one day in church he stands up and turns in enough tickets to get a Bible, to the congregation's astonishment.  Standing in front of everyone, Tom proudly receives his new Bible and is asked to tell them who Jesus's first disciples were.  Hesitating for a moment, he blurts out "David and Goliath!"  Tom's fraud in procuring the tickets having been exposed didn't matter...he possessed them and got the Bible, property rights respected.  Another incident happens at the story's end that affirms this strongly held respect for people's rights of possession, but you can discover that for yourself if you choose to read the book.  The sad, sad twist to all this is that the exaltation of property rights extended even to that of possessing other people...

Well, that's the second book I've read from Mark Twain in the last week or so...think I'm finished?  Not a chance!  I'm about to embark on what's generally considered his masterpiece: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn...

Weekly Short Stories: 1942 Science Fiction, Part 4

I'm concluding a look back at the best in short science fiction in 1942, at least from the viewpoint of the anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 4 (1942).  This is one of my favorite volumes from the series, which spans the years 1939-1963.  Here are the final stories...

THE TWONKY by Lewis Padgett
Lots of writers use pseudonyms for an assortment of reasons...Lewis Padgett was special because "he" was actually the wife and husband writing team of Catherine Moore and Henry Kuttner, who collaborated on many stories during this era.   The Twonky, in my opinion, was an inferior precursor to their following year's masterpiece Mimsy Were the Borogroves, which I hold high as my all-time favorite science fiction short story.  In The Twonky a "person" from a technologically advanced time accidentally slips through time-space-dimensional barriers and finds himself in a radio factory (TV hadn't taken off yet in 1942). Told to go to work by a foreman who thinks he is an employee, he uses what skills he has and constructs what looks on the outside like an ordinary radio console but after delivery to the eager customer turns out to be something pretty scary...

QRM-INTERPLANETARY by George O. Smith
The term "QRM" is used in amateur radio to ask the question "Do you have interference?"  And interference is the focus of this story as an ignorant supervisor takes charge of a very complex communications relay station positioned in the orbit of Venus.  This guy comes in with all his authority but very little knowledge...his arrogance and micromanagement remind me of...well, never mind.  This is a story that teaches quite a bit about science, both in terms of radio propagation and astronomy.  And it's also clearly a lesson about misplaced authority and the folly of misapplying business models to science and technology.  Nowadays I'd say the same about insurance folks...also elevating the financial bottom line over anything else...and who act as if they know more about medical care than the physicians...

THE WEAPONS SHOP  by A.E. van Vogt
I have a problem with the premise of this story, which if I reveal it might involve spoiling it for the reader...maybe you should stop here if you plan to read it!  Well, let's just say that during one of those common sci-fi scenarios of a dictatorial and corrupt future empire, a small town wakes up to find a "Weapons Shop" suddenly standing there in an empty lot...ready for business.  Only problem is that the door won't open for anyone with harmful intentions.  But Fara, a local repairman who blindly follows the empress, gets through although he is suspicious of this place of defiance, which promotes freedom through the possession of very advanced arms...sounds like the NRA's pitch in today's world, doesn't it?  The problem I had with the premise is that although by buying and "appropriately" using one or more of these weapons one can assert their freedom and independence, this all hinges on the behind-the-scenes support of a very powerful, secret organization much more technologically advanced than the oppressive government being resisted...and that's the contradiction I see here.  The Weapons Shop is a sequel to last year's story See-Saw and was expanded into a series by van Vogt.  As a story it is well-written, but I much prefer his Asylum, also from 1942...

MIMIC by Donald A. Wollheim
Although many of my favorite stories from this anthology were pretty lengthy, Wollheim proved with this five-page tale that you don't have stretch out a story to come up with a quality product.  Mimic is about the concepts of mimicry and camouflage as different species have evolved to use them to escape predators...but what about today's world when humanity itself stands as the biggest predator of all?  One of the greatest endings I've ever read...Wollheim, by the way, was the publisher of this anthology series...

Next week I begin the book on short science fiction from 1943...

State of the Union Address Tonight at Nine

Tonight at nine President Trump will deliver his one-week-delayed annual State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress, with the U.S. Supreme Court justices also expected to attend.  It will take place in the House of Representatives chamber in the U.S. Capitol building...Vice-President Pence will be visible behind the president to his left and House Speaker Pelosi to the right. I thought last year's speech was one of the high moments of Trump's presidency so far, as he accentuated unity, national security, and economic prosperity in it.  Unfortunately, the gracious tone with which he spoke quickly withered away afterwards and the next morning he was back to his same old Twitter antics...this morning on the Senate floor Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer alluded to this and remarked that whatever kind unifying and reconciling message Trump purveys this evening will be meaningless without him consistently following up on it afterwards.  Although I was impressed with last year's address, I was dismayed a few days later when, at one of his strange campaign rallies with the usual lot of grinning and nodding adoring sycophants appearing behind him, he suggested that the Democrats in the House chamber who hadn't risen up and applauded his speech were guilty of treason...yeah, that, I sadly suppose, is the real Donald Trump, regardless what he says tonight from his prewritten script.  Still, I plan to listen, once again on the radio at work...

My Reactions to Yesterday's Super Bowl

Interested in how people reacted to yesterday evening's Super Bowl between the Los Angeles Rams and the New England Patriots to determine the 2018 National Football League season champion, I watched a little TV today and surfed a little Web ...the prevailing view seems to be that the game wasn't all that great but the halftime show was pretty good...even spectacular to some.  I beg to differ...

I don't know where it came to be that low-scoring games...in whatever sport one's discussing...are somehow of a lower quality that those where the scores shoot through the roof.  I found the tenacious defense in yesterday's Super Bowl, as practiced by both teams, to be absolutely extraordinary!  In play after play not only was the pass rush strong enough to harass the quarterback, be it Jared Goff or Tom Brady, to throw hurried passes, but the coverage was amazing as defenders repeatedly reached in at the last second to bat down passes or knock them from the receivers' arms.  The low score, 13-3 with the Patriots finally prevailing, was indicative of this defensive domination...I'm glad that Brian Flores, the winners' defensive playcaller, will become my Miami Dolphins head coach starting next year.  The one thing I didn't understand was how little the Rams used their franchise running back Todd Gurley.  When he did run, he usually did quite well...but he spent most of the time on the sidelines while his offense was on the field.  Gurley had been recovering from a knee injury but the team kept repeating that he was healthy to go...so what gives?  His presence most likely would have been a major game-changer...

As for the halftime show, I have become totally numbed by all the light shows and pyrotechnics in concerts nowadays...so I wasn't at all impressed by the excess I saw in this regard.  The headlining act, Maroon 5, sounded all right but I didn't get the semi-strip-tease performance of their lead singer, who seems to regard himself as irresistible to women, at least onstage.  I'm not into the rap/hip-hop scene musically, but the performers who shared the stage with Maroon 5 were more entertaining...although I couldn't understand a word they were saying (probably for the best, anyway). Maybe the best feature of the show was the televised overlaying of an old SpongeBob SquarePants episode where Squidward leads the band to the Super Bowl: that was funny.  I think my main problem with the show was that it was seemed too frantic and rushed, but maybe that's because (1) they had a lot to fit into a short time and (2) a lot of folks nowadays seem devoid of anything resembling an attention span...

I'm not happy with the Super Bowl's outcome, with New England winning its sixth Super Bowl title. But they deserved it, and it was a very good game, others' assessments to the contrary notwithstanding...

Virginia Governor Northam's Strange, Offensive Yearbook Picture

It's been a couple of days since Virginia Governor Ralph Northam's 1984 medical yearbook profile page showed a picture of somebody wearing "blackface" standing next to another in KKK attire, both holding drinks.  Underneath the regrettable photo was a supposed quote of his, attesting that since there are more old drunks in the world than old doctors, then bring me another beer.  I get it, other students with personal pages in that yearbook probably had gag pictures and quotes on them as well...all in fun, right? But, dude, you had to know that this would not be a good picture to promote and identify with, didn't you?  DIDN'T YOU?

Northam's initial reaction to the revelation was to put out a written apology acknowledging his poor judgement with wearing blackface...but since then has denied doing so, claiming that he wasn't even in the picture.  In the meantime, almost the entire Democratic Party, led of course by those grandstanders running for president, are calling for him to resign as governor, which he has been serving as for a little more than a year.  Before that Northam was Virginia's lieutenant governor for four years.  And yet all this time, with all the high-paid opposition research supposedly done on candidates in these very competitive political times, no one had come up with this amazingly offensive photo...and in one of the places you might think researchers would have gone to at first...what incompetence!  And about the racial aspect to this all? It's apparent to me that Northam...and most likely the white classmates he buddied around with...were a bit flippant, insensitive, and careless about race and tried to joke around about a topic that has been the source of great suffering, indignity, and persecution in the past.  But that's what happens when people surround themselves with the same little clique of friends, each feeding off the others' words until they begin to mistake the perspectives (and warped sense of humor) of their limited social circle as being those of society at large...I strongly suspect this is what happened in medical student Northam's case.  Oh well, if he hasn't resigned yet I think he probably will before too long...

Just Finished Reading A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Back in the primitive days of computerdom it was considered a great innovation to have a CD slot on one's PC to play music, and the educational CD-ROM came into existence as well...a lot of information can be stored on these discs.  I soon became the owner of a set of three CD-ROMS, each claiming to be the complete fictional works of a famous author: William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, and Mark Twain.  Yet I rarely used this format...now I'm wondering whether I want to dig them out and examine them.  For Mark Twain's 1889 novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, which I just finished reading, is no doubt included...

There is a lot of narrative to this novel...it is initially in the first-person by the author himself but switches to that of a New England native, Hank Morgan, who after suffering a head blow during a fight finds himself back in the times of Camelot when King Arthur supposedly reigned over England...in the sixth century.  Hank brings his Yankee independence and technological knowhow to this situation, cloaking his abilities as being that of a magician, one superior to the envious Merlin...and King Arthur buys it!  Along the course of the story he sees firsthand the injustices caused by what he deems the outright fraud of nobility, but also notes that the masses of oppressed people themselves willingly submit to their domination, something continually very consternating to him. Hank has his own ideas about how to change this society, and he uses America's late-nineteenth-century model of freedom, science, and self-reliance to implement it...including the development of electricity and mass communications.  And we know that Hank made it back to our time (i.e., 1889) because M.T.,the original narrator, had met and interviewed him.  Other than that I think I'd better leave the finer points of characters and plot to you should you want to read it someday.  Instead some side thoughts...

First of all, the dialog between Hank and the people of King Arthur's era is uproariously funny and reminds me of the hilarious repartee between Groucho Marx and others when the moustached comedian would continuously follow one zinger with another...now I wonder whether Groucho derived some of his act in part from Twain's writings.  For that alone I'd recommend this book, but there's more.  Hank's narrative, which really reflects the thoughts of Twain, is very incisive as he observes what's going on around him and it carries much application to the world today.  For one, I never did understand why folks in America are so interested in and endeared to English royalty...didn't we have a revolution to get away from that sort of thing?  And for another, I look at the political landscape today and marvel at how some of the poorest groups of people regularly support political leaders and parties whose very actions go directly against their own best interests...you can read this from either side of the political spectrum if you wish.  No, "our" politicians aren't technically "nobility" although that great Don Henley line speaks to me: "We're beating plowshares into swords for this tired old man that we elected King" (referring to President Reagan).  Yes, we in America have substituted other forms of royalty for that which we abandoned in 1776. And Twain, through his protagonist, had a lot to say about a Church that so monopolized religion and its expression that it had become a corrupt political institution in itself and a rival to the nobles in subjugating the vast majority of the people...

There have been a number of film adaptations to A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, including one in 1931 starring Will Rogers and another in 1949 with Bing Crosby...this one was a musical...a musical of all things!  I can't imagine how anyone could read this book and come away with a musical...well, now I'm intrigued, so I guess I'll have to watch it sometime.  But I'm already confident that, regardless which movie adaptation you see, you'll still be missing a lot of what the book has to offer...and maybe the most important parts...

Quote of the Week...from Mark Twain

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
                                                                                  ---Mark Twain

I just finished reading A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by the great American author Mark Twain (real name Samuel Clemens).  Twain wrote in the late 1800s and early 1900s...he was a philosopher and humorist, but even more so a blunt appraiser of what it is to be an American.  I'll go further about that novel in tomorrow's posting, but for now I want to examine the above quote of his, which rings so true to me and on more than one level...

It seems to be a permanent fixture on the news channels: whatever is being reported, be it issues or politicians, somebody's got to come out with a poll showing how the American people feel about them.  And majority rules here: whichever side "wins" the poll, the moderators tend to treat it as the final, ultimate confirmation or rebuke of what or whom they're asking about.  Lately in the news they've been polling a lot on two issues: Trump's wall and the Mueller investigation.  Right now, Trump is down and Mueller is up, if you go by the public opinion polls.  But what do the masses of questioned Americans really know about either issue?  Most of them probably don't pay much attention to the news or the issues, and even for those who do, their knowledge falls far short of the experts and involved players...so it all comes down to a political popularity contest in the end...

In my younger elementary and high school years I formed my own opinion about being on the "side of the majority".  In the social life back them bullies were preponderant and the prevailing attitude of the "majority" was not to ostracize them like mean ol' Scut Farkas was in the movie A Christmas Story, but rather to suck up to them, befriend them, and even participate in shunning and belittling their chosen victims...even teachers in that time sided with bullies, placing all of the responsibility on the victims having to stand up for themselves.  That kind of majority rule soured me very early on to this concept, and I've subsequently never enjoyed social settings where a leader will whip up mass enthusiasm within a crowd...even less when it is sprinkled with derision expressed at adversaries, real or imagined...sometimes I wonder whether many who have psychologically bonded with Donald Trump did so because he brought back nostalgic feelings of youth when they themselves were bullies, toadies, or suckups…

No, I'm not so keen on the idea that if most of the people in a particular setting agree on something, then that automatically means that they're right.  For many folks are fodder for manipulation, especially for the type that pits them in an adversarial relationship with others...when this happens, reason and common sense...as well as compassion, grace, and mercy...tend to fly out the window...

My January 2019 Running Report

As the new year began I had high hopes of possibly running both a half-marathon and a 15K race in January...unfortunately about a week into the month I came down with some lower back pain that put an end to my high ambitions.  Still, on the 5th I ran in a 5K race: Gainesville's Depot Park Run, which takes place every Saturday morning and is free...donations and volunteer work are always welcome, though.  I enjoyed that run and thought it would be a good idea to make a weekly habit of it, either running the course or walking it with Melissa whenever she wanted to go.  But that hasn't happened yet, although this Saturday I'm looking into returning.  I don't think I'll be running this city's Five Points Half-Marathon in February either...I'm not in shape for it and the fools completely changed what had been a fantastic course: instead Melissa and I are visiting Savannah that weekend...

Despite missing 9 days of running due to that backache, I still managed to run a total of 65 miles in January, with 5.2 miles being my longest single run.  I'm still looking forward to running longer distances, but maybe I've reached the point where 10K and 15K races should be the distance limit.  But "official" racing isn't why I run anyway: I like the activity for its own sake...

Weekly Short Stories: 1942 Science Fiction, Part 3

This week as I continue through the anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 4 (1942), I have run across two rather long short stories...novellas might be a more appropriate designation.  They are Nerves by Lester del Rey and Barrier by Anthony Boucher...the titles may sound familiar if you'd read this blog over the last couple of years: I've reviewed them both previously.  One of the problems with a really long "short" story is that the author sometimes doesn't seem to know exactly what to do with it...with Nerves del Rey wrote a full-length novel adaption a few years later.  But I had hoped that he would have pruned out some of the excess narrative and made it shorter...I guess that was hoping for too much, though.  Well, let's see if I can't throw in a couple more thoughts about these stories...

NERVES by Lester del Rey
Nerves lays out...way back in 1942...a foreboding picture of what a nuclear reactor meltdown would look like, both in its danger to the surrounding community and environment and in terms of the horrible effects of radiation and burns on human casualties.  The story focuses on two physicians thrown into this disaster shorthanded, an elderly doctor experienced with established medicine and a young, unexperienced doctor who understands much about atomic physics and the effects of radiation.  How these two interact may be the best part of Nerves, although I still can't get over the author seeing this 3 years before the first atomic bomb was exploded, 13 years before the first nuclear reactor was built, and 37 and 44 years before the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl meltdowns, respectively.  Here's a link to my 2017 review of Nerves: [link]…

BARRIER by Anthony Boucher
A young man with no particular specialized knowledge or skills is hired by the inventor to be the guinea pig in a time machine going from our "present" time (i.e. the early 1940s) some five hundred years into the future.  He quickly discovers to his horror that he is now in a totalitarian, stagnant society, the Stasis, that forbids any kind of scientific or artistic innovation...people can even be arrested for not conforming to dictated rules of grammar.  A time barrier has been built to prevent anyone from the future with notions of how better to run things from infiltrating their time and wrecking the Stasis...our time traveler finds himself both pursued by the "Stappers", that is, the enforcers of the Stasis, and temporally imprisoned, unable to return to our present century.  He befriends some members of the resistance movement and then the time travel paradoxes begin to present themselves.  As a matter of fact, if you're looking for the story to end all stories about the paradoxes involved in traveling through time, then this one is for you.  And here's a link to my 2017 review of Barrier: [link]…

Next week I should be able to conclude my look back at the best in short science fiction from 1942...

Optimizing Unconscious Competence at Work

I've mentioned before about how I admire the work ethic of NFL quarterback Tom Brady, bemoaning in the process that he plays for "my" Miami Dolphins' chief rival, the Patriots.  Brady is known to stand facing a wall and endlessly repeat his stances and throwing motions in order to perfect them and reinforce these actions to the point where they become unconscious, freeing him to think about more pressing issues during a game...like his receivers' sometimes errant pass routes or that linebacker who's unexpectedly coming up at him on a blitz. Brady's philosophy of work is similar to mine in that first you master every aspect of your assignment that you can turn into unconscious routines, and that involves looking on a micro-level at the precise ways that you arrange things and the order in which you perform your functions.  I believe...and it has been borne out over the course of my work life...that if you can commit as much of your job to unconscious competence, then that will allow you to focus your intelligence and volition on the inevitable glitches and exceptions that arise from all sources.  I've recently begun a new job assignment at my workplace and I've still working hard on getting everything in order...the basics are simple enough but it's also easy to get tripped up over details if I'm not careful.  But I've found that while I still have a ways to go before I've made those parts of this assignment fully unconscious routines, I am still better able to effectively react when things don't go as expected.  But I also realize that I work as part of a team and that there are aspects to my work that involve me respecting how those with whom I directly work do things.  So if one day I walk into a room and the setup I am used to arranging has been done a little differently by someone else, then I flow with it...I think a lot of us sometimes forget that in our jobs...especially those that involve processing material commodities or providing services to the consumer public...we're also charged with treating our fellow employees in a constructive and respectful manner.  And, bringing it all back to the beginning, I suspect that this area is also one where Tom Brady excels...why, oh why does he have to play for New England?

Just Finished Reading The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum

A few months ago I had decided to read L. Frank Baum's lengthy series of short novels about the mythical land of Oz after noticing the complete set on my sister's bookshelf when we visited her and her family back in 2017, but never got around to following up on the first book, naturally called The Wonderful Wizard of Oz...from 1900.  The written story turned out quite a bit different from the 1939 blockbuster musical movie version starring Judy Garland, but I enjoyed Baum's writing style and it was pretty funny.  Then, while recently reading Robert Heinlein's sci-fi novel Podkayne of Mars, I noticed that its protagonist Poddy, a girl in her late teens, was a big Oz fan and made numerous references to different characters in the series.  This turned my attention back to Baum and I just finished reading book number two, titled The Marvelous Land of Oz, which he had published in 1904...

In this story there is no sign either of Dorothy or the Wizard of Oz, although at least they were mentioned in passing: no reference at all was made to the Cowardly Lion.  Oz is benevolently ruled by Scarecrow while his best friend the Tin Woodman reigns over the land of the Winkies.  The story is centered around a boy named Tip who has been placed in the custody of a sinister old sorceress named Mombi.  One day, while harvesting pumpkins, he decides to play a prank on her by cutting out a face on a pumpkin and setting it up, complete with a wooden body and arms and legs, to surprise her.  Surprised Mombi is, and she decides to prank Tip in return by sprinkling life-enabling magic powder on it.  Jack Pumpkinhead, as Tip calls him, is a genial but rather stupid sort...but the sorceress threatens to turn Tip into a statue and use Jack instead to perform her chores.  So Tip sneaks out with Jack and escapes, taking with him Mombi's stash of life-powder.  They go out in search of the Emerald City where they hope the King, who is Scarecrow, will help him with his situation.  Meanwhile, there is an insurrection in Oz as the girls, led by General Jinjur and armed with knitting needles, take over and make the men do all the domestic work.  Scarecrow and company escape and seek help from the Tin Woodsman.  Meanwhile, Tip has brought a sawhorse to life with the pilfered powder...he ingeniously calls him "Sawhorse"...

No, I'm not going to tell the rest of the story.  But with this one I may have found my favorite character: a "woggle-bug"...more specifically H.M. Woggle-Bug, T.E....who after having absorbed the lessons from a school teacher after hiding out in his school, is caught one day and magnified on a screen to the students.  A distraction occurs and the enlarged bug wanders off, hence the initials H.M. (highly magnified) and T.E. (thoroughly educated).  He reminds me strongly of Milne's Owl character in the Winnie the Pooh series: very pompous and arrogant about his educational level.  But the funniest moment may have been when Jack Pumpkinhead first meets Scarecrow and agree in their amiable discussion to get an interpreter...even though they already understand each other!  Yes, there's a lot of funny stuff in this book, and unlike with the first one, I wasn't getting myself sidetracked comparing it to the movie...

Since the Oz series is now public domain, you shouldn't have trouble getting it on the Internet.  YouTube has available public domain audiobooks...that's what I used this time around...

Today's Miserable Weather, Meaningless Football Game

Today has to be one of the most miserable days of the year, at least as far as the weather is concern.  It has been raining here nonstop in the Gainesville area with no relief in sight...plus, as the day has worn on, the temperature has plummeted.  Yuck!  And on this Sunday afternoon with me off from work, it might have been a good time to watch some football on TV...except that the only game is the meaningless National Football League Pro Bowl, their version of the all-star game.  Of course, no one wants to get injured in these contests, so the defense plays super-light, everyone who gets the ball races to the sideline, and the officials are continually quick-whistling plays over before tackles can be made.  So how is this a real game?...it's a joke, that's what it is.  I was watching it for a while but finally gave up.  Besides, if your team's star player gets injured today and it affects your season next year...well, better for him to skip this game in the first place, I say.  I read that players on today's winning side will received $67,000 and the losers $39,000, while the game's MVP is to win a new car.  Well, that's good for them, I suppose, although it does nothing to whet my interest in this nonsense...

Days like this were meant to be spent at work...that is, if your job is indoors.  On the other hand, there's nothing like this sort of weather (and lousy television) to put on some hot coffee or chocolate and grab a good book to read...

A Little More Political Reflection

If a Republican other than Donald Trump...say one of the leading primary also-rans like Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio...had been elected president in 2016, I wonder how vastly different the media reaction and coverage would have been in terms of its negativity.  Trump, if anything, has made the Democratic-leaning opposition lazy in that he serves up outrageous statements and actions almost on a daily basis, insulting people left and right and making all sorts of false claims.  I have no doubt that if Cruz or Rubio were in there, we would have neither this governing-through Twitter nonsense nor the regular pandering to the political base with the campaign rallies.  Instead, their messages would have been to the American people as a whole and that, although their policies may have been just as ideologically on the right as the current president's, they would have been more persuasive and less denunciatory in nature...in other words, more presidential.  Not that the late night talk show hosts wouldn't have all sorts of nasty things to lead their shows off with against a Cruz or Rubio presidency...they'd just have to work a bit harder at it, that's all.  And I say all this acknowledging that I, myself, am a Democrat.  But look at what just happened recently in Washington...

At their annual March For Life rally in the nation's capital...one of the relatively rare protest demonstrations conducted by political conservatives...there was outrage expressed at an infamous photo and an accompanying short video of teenage boys, wearing those dumb "Make America Great Again" red hats that signify support for Donald Trump, appearing to be taunting a poor old, innocent American Indian who was just there beating a drum.  How racist those kids are, the social media reaction virally went, they should be punished...and their Catholic school in Kentucky was actually considering suspending or expelling them when the situation's true context was revealed.  The boys were just gathered there waiting for the bus to drive them back home when a different group of protesters approached and began to taunt them.  Then the Indians came, with that drummer being the one to confront the boy, not the reverse.  The young man just smiled back at the Indian, the photo was clicked, and the smear campaign began with opinion-makers taking off with the story and running with it...

It's this sort of thing that gives me pause during this time of torrential criticism of the current president and the Republicans.  True, Donald Trump with his bullying, deriding nature has assuredly set much of the tone for the backlash from the left, but I feel that with even someone else in charge it would be much the same.  I didn't vote for this president, but he is my president and I want him to succeed in the areas that he has the Constitutionally-mandated responsibility for.  And one of the most supremely important areas is our national defense, which includes protecting our borders.  I've said it before and I'll say it again: Trump was the one elected, like it or not, and Congress should be deferential to him in his role of Commander-in Chief...he, not they, should be in charge of border policy.  Trump's mistake, however, was using an issue (the border wall) to hold the federal government...and eventually, the nation...hostage with a financial shutdown.  Now any future president from either party will be able to point back to this precedent and do the same with their own pet issues...thanks a lot, Donald...

Now about this "national emergency" notion that has some screaming "dictator" and "martial law": declaring national emergencies has become commonplace during the past few administrations, regardless which party has been in power...it isn't that big of a deal, except to the ignorant.  The only possible legal glitch for Trump declaring a national emergency at the border so that he can build his wall is that he might need to demonstrate a viable way to fund it...if he declares such an emergency it will certainly go to the courts, who lately seem to be the ones deciding on our border and immigration policies.  I'd rather see everyone, from both parties, just get together, with recognized experts on the subject, and work out the best possible policy that optimizes expense with border protection.  But that involves folks in D.C. being reasonable for a change, so good luck with that...

No, this border wall issue is not what disturbs me about this president.  My biggest concern is that he has been somehow compromised by the Russian regime of Vladimir Putin and is doing his bidding, however subtlety.  It's already been established that the Russians didn't influence the 2016 election by hacking and manipulating voting machines, but they did infiltrate social media with intentions to sway the election against Clinton and for Trump.  But I imagine every country in the world (including the U.S.) with interests in other countries are always trying to influence their elections...that is, when the countries they want to affect actually hold free elections.  I don't hold Trump and his cronies responsible for collusion or conspiracy...I instead hold those American voters responsible who bought this crap and let it influence their decisions.  So is Trump somehow beholden to Putin?...that's the only thing I wonder about now.  And if Mueller can't answer that in his investigation, it doesn't do me any good in terms of resolving this whole sordid affair...

Quote of the Week...from Ernest Hemingway

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men.  True nobility lies in being superior to your former self.                                                 ---Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway, of course, was one the greatest American authors of the twentieth century...I've read his novels The Old Man and the Sea, The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, and For Whom the Bell Tolls...that last one is my favorite of his.  Most successful people, like Hemingway, are often esteemed for having risen above the masses with their chosen craft and they deserve commendation for this...I myself have a grudging admiration of standout NFL quarterback Tom Brady, despite the fact that he plays for a team I always root against.   And wanting to be better than everyone else is indeed a good goal...but only up to a point.  If that's all that is motivating us to succeed, I believe we probably will be very disappointed in the end and possibly just give up, "playing second fiddle", "backup", or "also-ran" not elements of our personal vocabulary.  I think that was the problem with another NFL player, Tim Tebow, who was more concerned about being seen as the "best" over others than working hard to improve himself into being the best player God had gifted him to be...so he left the sport.  Hemingway showed his wisdom and indicated to me by the above quote that even had he not achieved such acclaim for his writing, he still would have continued pursuing it as a personal commitment...a noble commitment.  What are the things we are committed to improving on...even without any assurance of tangible recognition from others?  I agree with Mr. Hemingway and suggest that here is where real nobility can be found...           

Just Finished Reading Podkayne of Mars by Robert Heinlein

One of Robert Heinlein's lesser known works is his 1963 science fiction novel Podkayne of Mars. In it Podkayne...or "Poddy"...lives on Mars with her parents, precocious 11-year old little brother Clark, and the infant triplets that have diverted her parents' attention and cancelled a long-desired family trip to Earth.  Yes, by all this you can assume that it's some time off in the future and humanity has colonized Mars...plus Venus as well, its extremely overheated and poisonous atmosphere still unknown at the story's writing.  And yes, there are native intelligent life forms on both planets...Heinlein mixes this "soft" science fiction with "hard" passages describing space travel in detail that makes such a scenario nearly seem plausible.  Well, the Mars senator, who just happens to be Podkayne's uncle, hears of the trip's cancellation and invites her and Clark to accompany him on a trip to Earth...with a stopover in Venus.  At this point I won't go any further revealing the plot and instead will focus on two areas: super-intelligent Clark and the story's original and altered endings...

There is a mythos in our modern society about the incredibly smart little know-it-all kid who almost magically knows advanced science, math, and technology...like Stewie in Family Guy with his time machine or Artemis Fowl with his criminal shenanigans in Eoin Colfer's children novel series. Look at young Sheldon on TV...the kid just "knows" so much more than the dumb adults around him.  Clark in Heinlein's story is another example of a child whose intellectual level is vastly beyond what one would reasonably expect from even a genius at his age.  And why is it that these brilliant kids seem to tend toward manipulation and villainy?  I don't know about you, but I'm getting sick and tired of this recurring super-smartass-scheming-brat caricature I see in books and on the screen...

Robert Heinlein wrote an ending to Podkayne of Mars that did not sit well with his publisher, who insisted that he change it...which he reluctantly did: I read the revised version.  Yet, the original is also still out there and I understand that some editions feature both endings.  Talk about a schizophrenic novel.  In any case, I don't have to read the original ending to know what's different about it...all in all I enjoyed this short book, but it's not anywhere near the quality level of the author's Stranger in a Strange Land or The Moon is a Harsh Mistress...