Quote of the Week...from Emelia Wickstead

To escape and sit quietly on the beach---that's my idea of paradise.      ---Emilia Wickstead

You don't have to be someone utterly famous like Emilia Wickstead...you do know you Emilia Wickstead is, right?...to agree with her attraction to the beach.  I'm one of those as well...and by the way, I didn't know who she was until I read her quote.  Melissa and I are going over to Daytona Beach for a couple of days, a destination we've come to almost consider as a second home because of its familiarity.  Unlike Wickstead, who happens to be a successful highbrow fashion designer in London, England, I don't care as much for sitting for the beach as I do standing there facing the ocean, walking along the beach with Melissa, or engaging in one of my beach runs.  I generally don't get out in the water because of undertow/jellyfish/shark concerns, but when I do I enjoy swimming out in the more buoyant saltwater.  We tend to hang more around our hotel pool during our outings...but the ocean just out there creates a great presence that interrupts our lives of routine back home.  I especially like it during and after sunset as the skies darken and the ocean changes its complexion (and the crowds of beachgoers thins), as well as noting the high and low tides on the beach sand.  We'll be heading out there soon, can't wait...

Breezing Through Redacted Mueller Report

I started reading Robert Mueller's redacted report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign and found myself slogging a bit through this 400+ page monstrosity.  And then it happened, gradually at first, as the report made its way toward discussing Russia's role...especially in regard to their Internet Research Agency, the front organization behind several bogus Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter groups that disparaged Hillary Clinton throughout the campaign and promoted Donald Trump.  Suddenly I was breezing through the report, having found myself covering several pages in only a couple of minutes.                                                                                                                            

And besides that,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           . . I recommend to anyone daunted by the length of this report to just take a gander at it through the many news outlets online that provide the full report (with just those "few" redactions) in pdf form that you can scroll down without needing to download.  Here are the five most important things about Russian 2016 interference I've gotten from it so far: 

1.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

2.                                                                                                                            

3.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

4.                            Trump                                                                                                    is                                                                                                                        a                                                                         j                                   er                                               k.

5.The American people are really a bunch of                 s to have fallen for all this      !

In closing, I think that it's extremely urgent that                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               . And that's all I have to say about that...

Weekly Short Stories: 1946 Science Fiction, Part 3

I continued my look back at the year 1946 in the world of short science fiction with reactions to four more works from the anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 8 (1946).  Two of them were lengthy, more appropriately deemed as novellas, and one very short.  Here they are...

LORELEI OF THE RED MIST by Ray Bradbury and Leigh Brackett

Here once again is a story based on the notion popularly held years ago that Venus was a swampy, oceanic planet with all sorts of exotic life there.  In this story different native humanoid races are at war with each other...good for fugitive hard-luck criminal Hugh Starke as his escape ship crash-lands there, his consciousness transferred from his dying body to a strong, robust human one, formerly belonging to a warrior named Conan before he lost his mind.  Bad, because the Venusian woman telepathically performing this miracle wants to use the resurrected Conan/Starke to assassinate her opponents.  This is a tale full of intrigue and changing values...the protagonist, once a low-level, career lawbreaker, comes to change his perspective on life as he gets further involved in the Venusian conflict...

THE LAST OBJECTIVE by Paul A. Carter

This story presents a nightmare future scenario for Earth as nuclear wars have rendered the surface uninhabitable, while warfare still continues down beneath as giant drilling warships battle each other...although what they have remaining to fight for, I don't know.  But the urge for destruction continues and religion has been thoroughly banned, replaced by a staff psychologist who pesters and harasses the crew.  A decisive confrontation with an enemy ship looms ahead through the miles of rock...but exactly how decisive the combatants don't know until it's too late...

MEIHEM IN CE KLASRUM by Dolton Edwards

Back in the fifth/sixth grade in my elementary school (~1967) someone came up with the goofball idea of helping kids learn to read better by teaching them to read writing that had been changed to a more phonetic form...which of course only works while they are reading that phonetic writing.  This very short story describes an English language reform effort, made gradually over years with orthographic changes every few years...each change shown in the story's text itself.  Can you guess the title's true name?

VINTAGE SEASON by Lawrence O'Donnell

Lawrence O'Donnell was one of the several pen names used by the married writing team of Henry Kuttner and C.L. (Catherine) Moore.  In Vintage Season Oliver Wilson's home town seems to suddenly be visited by strange people who speak English without contractions, along with other noticeable variations.  They comport themselves differently and seem a little out of place there, exuding an air of confidence if not arrogance.  Oliver has leased his house to three of them, a man and two women.  Originally intending to leave the house for them, he decides to remain out of curiosity.  The visitors behave as tourists sometimes behave when they visit places that they feel culturally superior to, and I'm guessing this may be an underlying reason for this story's existence in the first place.  I wonder how many times Americans or Europeans travel to Third World countries and pity the less economically advantaged people there...well, I doubt that they appreciate that pity and regard it as condescending.  As for Vintage Season, I don't think I'm giving away the story when I say it's about time travel...and quite frankly, I think it's one of the best stories of that type out there...

That's it for this week...next week I'll conclude my examination of some of 1946's best science fiction short stories...

Watched a Bernie Sanders Speech on C-Span This Morning

I was sitting there this morning watching a Bernie Sanders campaign speech in Iowa and came away from it with the conviction that, his faults and past allegiances aside, he is the strongest candidate I'm seeing right now to not only win the Democratic Party nomination for president but also the 2020 general election against Donald Trump.  I say this because Sanders is very transparent about his views on the issues facing us today and makes them the repeating themes in his addresses.  And these speeches, unlike the ones Trump likes to give, are not full of ridicule and personal insults against other individuals.  I have been disappointed with Joe Biden's campaign so far, which he seems determined to have as dominant themes (1) how bad Trump is, (2) what a good guy ol' Joe is who's trying to bring our country together, and (3) how chummy he is with Barack Obama...he's got to come up with more than that as I don't believe he'll be able to coast to the nomination based on eight years as somebody else's vice-president.  Yet Biden has a certain advantage over Sanders, much in the same way that John McCain was able to outflank his Republican rivals in that party's 2008 presidential primary system.  McCain stood out easily then as the most centrist candidate while his opponents split up the more conservative vote among themselves, giving the Arizona senator some spectacular early primary wins that snowballed his impetus to the nomination that year.  For 2020, the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is even more heavily split among many candidates besides Bernie Sanders: Beto O'Rourke, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, and others will most likely seriously cut into Sanders' support in the early primaries and caucuses to the benefit of Biden.  So while I expect Sanders to continue gathering support, I wonder whether it will be enough...just the other day House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged the party to nominate someone who will appeal more to the voters in middle America who slipped over to the Trump camp in 2016. That sounds on the surface like she's trying to promote a more centrist nominee...but if so I think she might be misreading the sentiments of those millions of voters, many of whom may be very sympathetic to the often populist appeal of Bernie Sanders' take on the issues as well as being more appreciative of his candor in directly addressing his views about them...

Just Finished Reading City of Glass by Cassandra Clare

City of Glass, published in 2009, is the third installment of Cassandra Clare's six-part young adult fantasy series The Mortal Instruments, involving an alternative universe with angelic demon hunters along with demons, vampires, werewolves, and faeries.  In it the chief protagonists Clary, Jace, and Simon shift the narrative's setting from New York City to the Shadowhunters' homeland of Idris where a final confrontation with the rebellious and evil Valentine looms before them.  Beyond this, discussing anything of detail is certain to spoil the plot, not just for potential readers of this book but also for those anticipating reading the first two books.  So instead I'll opt for discussing how authors treat series when they become popular...

Cassandra Clare's The Mortal Instruments series was originally intended as a trilogy, and by the conclusive nature of City of Glass's ending this is self-evident.  However, as the first book was made into a successful motion picture and Clare achieved widespread popularity for this series, she not only decided to expand it into six books, but also has produced two spinoff trilogies as well as a number of standalone books related to this "universe" of hers.  That may be daunting for those who contemplate reading all of it, but I simply applaud her hard work and obvious love for the craft of fiction writing. And after Terry Goodkind finished his ultra-long twelve-volume The Sword of Truth fantasy series, he decided to continue it with more books. Contrast these two with The Song of Ice and Fire (or "Game of Thrones") series author George R.R. Martin, who has been sitting on his hands for several years with the unfinished sixth installment, The Winds of Winter, while the HBO adapted-series has long left his series storyline far behind...shameful.  Stephen King's Dark Tower series was written very erratically over decades until, following his recovery from a near-fatal accident when he was run over by a van, he produced the final three massive volumes in a span of a couple of years.  And with Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, he wrote the first three books in the 1950s but didn't get around to concluding it with the final two (and a couple of prequels) until the 1980s.  So there is no discernible pattern to how series installments come out...but I tend to appreciate the professionalism of writers like Clare in getting the product out in timely fashion for her devoted fans.  Bravo, Cassandra...

Ran the May Day Glow Run 5K Yesterday Evening

The last time I had run the May Day Glow Run 5K in 2017 it was based at the Tioga Town Center off Newberry Road, with the course winding up and down the adjacent residential neighborhood's streets.  I was thrown off when it finally dawned on me yesterday just a few hours before the race that its site had changed to a smaller subdivision called Arbor Greens, about a half-mile further west on Newberry Road and on the north side...more properly in Jonesville than Tioga.  They had also listed online that the registration would close at 6:30 pm, so I had to get there earlier than planned...and then went over to the nearby Tioga Starbucks, where I watched the Kentucky Derby on my smartphone.  Then I made my way back to Arbor Greens, not knowing at all what to expect from this different version of the May Day Glow Run...only that it would be dark...

I ran the race, which began at 8:15, with no problems other than that the humidity felt a lot higher than the official 40%...the temperature was around 85, not a problem to an old South Florida boy like me.  I enjoyed the positive spirit of the runners and walkers...the race was demographically weighted heavily toward children and teens.  This was most likely due to the fact that it was organized by Newberry Community Christian School.  And they did a great job running it...with a small problem at the end.  Like most other races, there was an awards ceremony for the best overall finishers and for those in different age categories.  But the young man entrusted to announcing the awards demonstrated clearly that he did not want to be there and increasingly announced the winners with marked impatience, soon not even reading the names but just the bib numbers in a rush...he couldn't wait to get out of there.  That was sad to witness, since the background race organization was done so well and this was their chance to publicly interface directly with the assembled runners...which due to this individual went badly.  Still, I plan to run it next year if it's still "on"...after all, nothing's compelling me to stick around for the awards.  I did finish with my easy-paced time of 30:38 and it was the second race in a row that I received an award for top finisher in my age category because I was the ONLY finisher in my age category...talk about total domination...

2019 Kentucky Derby Today

I'm one of those seasonal sports followers whose interest sharply peaks during iconic annual championships, and horse racing is a case in point. Today's Kentucky Derby for the best three-year-old thoroughbreds, held at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky, stands as the premier event in this sport.  The original favorite for this 20-horse field was Omaha Beach, which was scratched just recently due to an entrapped epiglottis that interfered with the horse's breathing...minor surgery should correct the problem.  Now we're left with a long list of longshots and a small number of contenders, the three favorites so far, Game Winner, Roadster, and Improbable, having the same trainer...Bob Baffert, who interestingly was the trainer for both recent Triple Crown winners American Pharoah in 2015 and Justify in 2018.   It should be a fun race to watch, but with post time set for 6:46 pm I'm going to be pressed to see it since I'll be preparing for my own race, the May Day Glow Run 5K, taking place in Tioga a little ways west of Gainesville...that one begins at 8.  Just for fun and without any special knowledge of the horse, I picked Tacitus out of the lineup to root for in the Derby...it has respectable odds (10-1) at this writing and stands out visually, being grey.  We'll see what happens...by the way, the race and all of the hype preceding it for hours will be broadcast on NBC starting at 2:30.  Whoever wins this race will not be facing a recovered Omaha Beach in the remaining Triple Crown races, his trainer hoping he'll be ready for the year-end Breeder's Cup...of course by then I'll be completely ignoring horse racing like I usually do...

Later...Maximum Security, which leapfrogged over the other contenders to be the betting favorite on race day, pretty much headed the pack from start to finish and impressively won the 2019 Kentucky Derby.  Now let's see what the next race, the Preakness, brings...

A few minutes later...wow, Maximum Security was just disqualified due to interference and longshot Country House proclaimed the winner...I don't think there will be a Triple Crown winner this year...

Quote of the Week...from Stephen Curry

Whatever that means, however you got on that mountain, why not try to climb it? And do it in your own way.                                                                  ---Stephen Curry

I picked Stephen Curry, the incredibly talented and poised guard for the twice-champion Golden State Warriors, for this week's quote because, after all, we're in the middle of the NBA playoffs and all eyes are on his team to see whether they can "three-peat".  Curry definitely has his own style of play and is a full-court player, i.e. he is tenacious on both offense and defense.  Only a few of us are on Stephen's "mountain" of being a star basketball player, but we all have something that interests us or provides positive feedback as to our talents.  Everybody's different, and sometimes the mountain is a disability or adversity to climb over and overcome.  The main thing is to climb...and as suggested, to it in our own way.  That doesn't mean rejecting advice and instruction along the way...part of doing things our own way is practicing a discerning volition with what resources to accept from others and what won't work for us.  In the long run, after all is said, I believe it's the process and struggles to better ourselves that dwarf the actual ultimate achievement in the end...it's about filling our days with meaningful, directed goals and making responsible choices about how to proceed.  Very uplifting, Mr. Curry!

More on Barr After His Senate Testimony Yesterday

If you've been reading this blog these past few weeks you already know that I've generally been a defender of Attorney General William Barr, especially following the issuance of the Mueller Report on Russian interference in our 2016 elections to his office in March.  He and his Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein went over it and produced a four-page summary which stated that there wasn't enough uncovered evidence to pursue a conspiracy charge against Donald Trump or his campaign...and that after Mueller left any prosecutorial questions about his obstruction of the investigations to Barr's office he had decided not to pursue any charges of obstruction.  But since sitting presidents are not subject to criminal prosecution while in office and that the avenue for dealing with lawbreaking on the presidential level is through the Congressional impeachment process as mandated by the U.S. Constitution, I felt that the integrity in Barr's decision-making came down to whether or not he would actually release the Mueller Report...after careful redaction to protect classified data, grand juries, and innocent third parties...to Congress and the American public.  This he did...so why do I now have a few beefs with him?

Soon after Barr released his summary, Robert Mueller had sent him a letter complaining that the Attorney General, while not straying from the facts, had distorted the nature of the report.  Of course, I realize, like previous attorneys general from earlier presidents, this one is also naturally biased toward protecting the administration he serves.  But in his testimony yesterday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Barr made the claim that if a president believes that an investigation of his own activities is unfair and that he is innocent, then he has the right to stop it.  So I ask...as did Senator Schumer during his opening remarks on the Senate floor this morning...when is a president ever going to state that he is NOT innocent during an ongoing investigation?  This sounds like a roadmap to a dictatorship. Mueller had also revealed his disappointment that Barr, when provided by the Mueller team with their own summaries...already devoid of any redactable material...refused to release them.  I'm looking forward to hearing Robert Mueller testify before the House Judiciary Committee to hear his take on things, but I think there is something I can personally do about all this...

Like the overwhelming majority of American people I haven't read the Mueller report, his team's summaries...or even Attorney General Barr's initial four-page synopsis.  But that's about to end as I am set to go though it all...the results should be interesting and at least I won't be babbling here about second-hand information and innuendos...

A few minutes later: okay, I just read the initial March 24th summary by Barr...it seemed fine to me.  Excuse me now while I read Mueller's "protest" letter...

The March 27th letter from Mueller to Barr was brief and pointed, charging that the Attorney General's summary "did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this Office's work and conclusions."  He then disclosed that he had two days earlier sent Barr an already redacted report along with "executive summaries" for each section.  Mueller urged Barr to immediately release this report to Congress and the public.  Instead, Barr ignored Mueller's urging and worked on his own redaction, delaying its release until April 18th.  And herein lies the problem as I see it: nearly four weeks of Trump running around boasting of being "completely exonerated" and the semi-comatose American public compliantly lapping it all up.  Well, I guess the next step is for me to actually read the full report itself...only then will I be able to comment in an informed manner on the alleged discrepancies between Barr's summary and Mueller's intent.  But this will take a wee bit longer to accomplish: it's nearly 400 pages long, I hear...

Weekly Short Stories: 1946 Science Fiction, Part 2

I continued my look back at the best science fiction short stories from 1946 with my second installment of reviews from the anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 8 (1946).  Ray Bradbury, the famed author of works like Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, and Something Wicked This Way Comes, makes his appearance here as well as does Arthur C. Clarke of 2001: A Space Odyssey renown.  Here are the next stories appearing in the book...

RESCUE PARTY by Arthur. C. Clarke
There is a star in our galaxy on the verge of becoming a nova, and the planets in its system will consequently be destroyed, any life on them obliterated.  An interstellar rescue expedition is rushing ahead of the explosion to the third planet, where there are reports of intelligent life...I think you know where this is all going.  Only one problem: once they get there, they find the planet deserted: where did everybody go?  Guess you'll have to read it to find out...

PLACET IS A CRAZY PLACE by Fredric Brown
Humanity has branched out with its explorations to other stars, and Placet is a planet in one of these, which happens to be a double-star system causing its orbit to meander wildly as well as create a quite impossible phenomenom cause by the interaction between one star...composed of matter...and the other, composed of "contraterrene" or anti-matter.  A man stationed there describes the many bizarre manifestations he experiences...this is a very funny little story, not something that necessarily makes any significant statement...

CONQUEROR'S ISLE by Nelson S. Bond
This is a special story in that the time setting is around 1945 instead of some far-off future point...a departure from the sci-fi norm.  A bedraggled flight bomber is being interviewed by a naval medical officer following his rescue at sea. Lt. Brady claims that he and his crew were swept by a severe storm into a crash landing off the shore of a small unknown Pacific island...where they were met by people who seem to be operating on as much of a higher level than ordinary humans as we are above the ape man.  There is a conspiracy on their part, claims Brady as he relates his tale of capture and eventual escape, to take over the world.  But where is this island and what will the good doctor do after hearing this account?  The ending is a little jolting...

THE MILLION YEAR PICNIC by Ray Bradbury
A family sometime off in the future ostensibly takes a pleasure rocket trip to Mars...they're going to walk around, explore, and have a nice picnic on the Red Planet, you see.  But the parents of the three boys, as the story progresses, gradually unravel the real reasons for their excursion, reasons that become more somber until the tale's final remarks as the family finally encounters the Martians...

More from 1946 next week...

My April 2019 Running Report

April continued with more of the kinds of positive running experiences I experienced in  March: I ran a total of 126 miles for the month, my longest single run being for 10 miles...and I missed one day of running.  Last Saturday morning I ran in a new race for me, the Run the Good Race 5K/10K held in town at the North Florida Regional office park...I ran the 10K event.  I believe I have the energy and fitness level to begin to regularly tackle longer distance training runs...I'd like to get back up to daily 6-mile+ runs with occasional peak runs of around 10-13 miles, running through my own designed courses I used to extensively train on in years gone by.  No, I don't plan to run a 26.2-mile marathon, but I do think that I am suited for about half that distance...I've run 11 half-marathon races since 2010 and don't see any reason to stop.  But for the next few months, the only races I'll run will be the 5K variety.  For example, next Saturday evening on May 4th at the town of Tioga west of Gainesville on Newberry Road they'll hold their annual May Day Glow Run 5K, which I've run before...I plan to enter it again.  And each Saturday morning at 7:30 there is the free Depot Parkrun 5K, held at that city park off Main Street and Depot Road.  I would like to get my 5K time back down to a more respectable level, and this race gives me the chance to do something more sociable with my running through the hot summer months.  But first let's see what May has in store for me...

The No-Crime, So No-Obstruction Argument About Trump

I've heard from more than one opinion source that it was ridiculous (I think Senator Lindsey Graham used the word "absurd") to consider whether Donald Trump was guilty of obstruction during the Mueller investigation into the extent of Russian interference in the 2016 and whether Trump or his campaign conspired with this adversarial foreign power.  Since the final report stated that there was insufficient evidence to charge the president or his campaign with conspiracy, some of his vocal supporters are claiming that since there was no crime, then how could he have been obstructing the investigation of one?  The logical fallacy of such an argument is easy for me to see...let me explain...

If I am pulled over by the police for a traffic violation that the officer later decides not to ticket me for...but I am uncooperative and disrespectful during our interaction and, say, call his boss to get him to back off or try giving a bribe, that officer is justified with charging me with resisting an officer...tantamount to an obstruction charge.   Sitting there screaming "witch hunt!" or "hoax!" and personally insulting the officer likewise mitigates against me...as well as not presenting my current driver's license or auto registration. Never mind that the original charge is dropped...I've created a new one by my subsequent behavior.  Now to Trump: there are two periods for which his behavior has been scrutinized and reported on: the original target of the investigation, that is the 2016 election campaign, and then the investigation itself.  It matters not what the final results about 2016 are...the question is whether Trump improperly interfered with the investigation itself.  And that's where all the hullaballoo about "obstruction" is coming from.  But of course, if you're a "forever Trumper", unquestioningly believing carte blanche anything he says because he's your idol above all idols and is standing firm against all those evil communist Democrats, you'll never believe anything negative anyone says about him...or even what you see and hear with your own senses for that matter.  I am no expert in the law, but at this stage the obstruction question seems more a political one than a legal one, anyway...it's all in the hands of Congress to deal with according to the Constitution, something that our president seems to have a great deal of difficulty grasping...

Alachua County Friends of the Library Sale Going On Through Wednesday

This afternoon Melissa and I paid a visit to the Alachua County Friends of the Library book sale, held every April and October at a warehouse on the 400 block of North Main Street.  It's fun to go in there and browse around...you never know what you'll find.  Melissa found several books of interest and I bought three for myself: A Separate Peace by John Knowles and two novels of Joseph Conrad: Victory and The Secret Agent...all three for a total of 75 cents!  I also picked up an interesting looking 300-piece jigsaw puzzle for a couple of bucks...this is the place to go for puzzle enthusiasts: there is a large assortment to choose from and you can't beat the prices.  This sale is a big event in Gainesville, lasting from Saturday through Wednesday...the large room houses all genres of used books and includes sections like the aforementioned jigsaw puzzles, audiobooks, DVDs, music CDs, vinyl records, old magazines, and a "collectibles" book section where the prices are a little steeper.  During the opening Saturday and Sunday of the sale this place is usually packed with people, so if you're a bit phobic about crowds you might want to avoid it...or if you're like me and simply dislike being in midst of jostling, coughing, and sniffling multitudes, you ought to limit your visit time.  Within each genre section books are displayed in no particular order...to cover it all you have to read each title, which can get tedious in a hurry...especially when people are crowding all around you, some blocking your access.  Since I already have plenty of reading material at my disposal, I just browsed around and kept my eyes open for anything of special interest...we'll see how good these books are that I purchased...

Ran the "Run the Good Race" 10K This Morning

Local physicians Kathy and Peter Sarantos in 2016 began what has become a running tradition here in Gainesville.  Each April they organize the Run the Good Race 5K/10K racing event, with proceeds donated to organizations committed to fighting human trafficking...in today's politically split world, here's one issue everyone can get together on.  I finally got around to entering it this year and just finished running the 10K (6.2 miles) distance.  The course is near I-75 in the North Florida Regional Medical Center office park and residential area behind, across the street from the Oaks Mall...both races began and ended in front of the NFR Cancer Center.  I ran this course before...or something close to it...when I participated in the Run Amuck With the Duck 5K back in 2010.  Today's 10K course was simply a doubling over of the 5K...everyone started off at 8.  Since it was Saturday and the roads were relatively empty due to the medical offices being closed, there was very little traffic to be concerned about.  What I loved about this course was the many hills and slopes, something strikingly missing from my neighborhood self-designed courses.  That residential backstretch on NW 18th Avenue had one monster in particular...I humbly admit to walking part of the way up it.  Race time temperature and humidity both averaged around 60...ideal running conditions for me.  The sky was cloudless and some of us, I'm sure, regretted not having thought of wearing sunglasses...

In a way, the start of the these races tends to be more of a challenge to me than the other parts due to the extreme crowdedness of the runners, walkers, dogs, strollers...and a little girl on a scooter.  Eventually, though, it thinned out to the point where I didn't have to constantly restrain my running in order to avoid suffering catastrophic collisions with others.  I ran at my training pace and finished the race with a time of 61:52...the second half was much faster than the first and despite the hills I felt I could keep on running strong long after it was over.  I was surprised a few minutes later to discover that I had actually won my age category (Men's 60-69) and went up onstage to get my little medal and photo opportunity with Dr. Kathy. This was one of my better public runs of late and I feel encouraged.  263 runners and walkers completed the 5K event and 50 the 10K...I was the oldest 10K runner...

There were little things about the way this race was handled that runners like me notice and appreciate.  Indoor bathrooms, a place to stand inside before the race while it was still chilly outside, the positive energy coming from the Sarantos and the volunteers, recovery food and water available afterwards, water stations at strategic distances during the race, extremely convenient parking...I could go on.  It's definitely a race I'd like to make into my own tradition...a real class act. Kathy and Pete attend the same church as me and many others there who chose to run or walk the 5K as a team...I was the only one of the bunch taking on the 10K distance...

Here's a link to the race results: [start2finish race management]...

Quote of the Week...from Marcus Aurelius

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to alive.
                                                                                --Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius was the Roman Emperor from AD 161-180, presiding over a period of relative peace and prosperity while credited with being something of a philosopher, with his own written works.  In perspective I'm sure that he was flawed and did some things...like persecuting Christians, for example...these actions we today look back upon most unfavorably: not cool at all.  But in case you never met me, I also happen to be flawed in my own ways and I bet you are in yours, too.  So anyway, I read some of his more famous quotes and found three especially worth mentioning...they mesh quite well with other and with Aurelius' recurring theme of personal responsibility.  The first heads this article...here are the other two:

It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinions than our own.

The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts.

All three statements rely on the presumption that I always have a choice in our present moment as to what I think and that the fruits (or harm) of my resulting action (or inaction) that affect my welfare and attitude is, in the end, my own personal responsibility.  This stands directly in opposition to popular narratives circulating around society today such as the notion that I'll never get a fair shake in this world due to my demographic group and how it's been treated in the past as well as the present.  Or how about the idea that I am a slave of my own childhood treatment and the core of my subconscious is hidden away in distant past traumas...there may be some objective truth to one or both of these notions, but dwelling on them will only frame myself as a passive victim of fate instead of a proactive conscious entity with the power to shape my own life and affect the world around me in a positive way.  So each new day is also a new beginning, a convenient time marker to press the personal "reset" button and start afresh.  Sure, it's healthy to take into consideration others' feelings and opinions, but I need to be grounded and centered about my own foundational principles and not just flow with the latest fads and nonsense because that's what the crowd is doing.  And ultimately I do have the free choice to determine what I am thinking and as a result live a creative life with the inner contentment and joy that I am responsible for it... 

Just Finished Reading Sad Cypress by Agatha Christie

One of my deficiencies in reading is that somehow I have missed on reading some authors who are renowned in their craft.  Mystery writer Agatha Christie is one of these, and I just finished reading only her second Hercule Poirot story, Sad Cypress from 1940.  Poirot is the Belgian detective who adds a facet of humanity to the mystery sleuth, a more compelling character than Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.  He is enlisted by a physician concerned that a young woman on trial for murdering a romantic rival by poison is innocent.  The defendant in question is Elinor Carlisle, whose engagement to her longtime friend from childhood Roddy gets broken off after he goes for pretty Mary Gerrard, who has been caring for Elinor's ill aunt Laura Welman.  Someone has sent Elinor an anonymous note claiming that Mary appears to be ingratiating herself to the very wealthy invalid in hope of receiving some of her inheritance...Elinor is widely considered to be Mrs. Welman's closest relative and the primary beneficiary should she pass away.  And with the other characters involved, the mystery develops as to who the real murderer is.  Don't worry, I haven't given away too much of the story...barely scratched the surface as a matter of fact...

I like these short mystery novels...I read through Sue Grafton's entire Alphabet Mystery series featuring California private eye Kinsey Millhone.  Sad Cypress...the title is derived from a line in a Shakespeare play...is just one of 33 Christie wrote with Hercule Poirot.  I think I'll be reading more and more of his exploits in the future...

Weekly Short Stories: 1946 Science Fiction, Part 1

This week marks Part One in my look back at some of the standout short science fiction from the year 1946, as compiled in the book Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 8 (1946).  World War II had ended the previous year with the explosion of atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki...much of the ensuing stories in this genre pertain to problems the Bomb would generate in the years to come.  Of the first four stories, three directly relate to this topic while the other...the opening story...eerily portends the digital reality we're living through right now...

A LOGIC NAMED JOE by Will F. Jenkins (Murray Leinster)
Personal computers...in this story attributed to the groundbreaking Carson Circuit instead of digital microtechnology...have permeated the culture of the near future (from the perspective of 1946).  In the comfort of your own living room you can get the news and weather, watch movies, listen to music, do business, communicate with others...who would have thought this possible?  The flip side of this is twofold: the ensuing destruction of personal privacy and the use of this system to criminal and/or destructive ends...exactly the situation we see with the Internet today.  And on top of it all, a freak computer (Jenkins calls computers "logics") trains itself as an "Alexa", inviting users to ask any question they want, no matter how scientifically impossible, intrusive, or criminal...and then relies on all the other logics in the worldwide system to come up with solutions.  Yes, this is another one of those bizarre, prescient stories that make you wonder whether the author wasn't a time traveler...

MEMORIAL by Theodore Sturgeon
A nuclear scientist/engineer turned pacifist hits upon an idea to turn the bellicosity of Earth's population in this nuclear age into one of emphasizing world peace over everything else.  How will he accomplish this?  By exploding his own atomic device...in the remote desert...creating a deep pit of reactivity that will remind humanity of the horrors of this type of warfare for thousands of years.  Will he get to do this and if so, will it work?  After all, there is another way people could respond to his planned act...

LOOPHOLE by Arthur C. Clarke
Civilized, intelligent Martians have been observing humanity's progress on Earth and are dismayed when they see them using atomic bombs in warfare.  So they build a fleet of fighting ships and send them to encircle our planet, warning us that each launch of a rocket into space will result in the destruction of one of our cities.  But the Martians know that it will only be a matter of time before humans try to get around their edict, so they plot for the complete destruction of human life on Earth.  This story...with a wild ending...is the first one contributed by Arthur C. Clarke of 2001: A Space Odyssey fame and is accompanied by two others in this anthology, to be reviewed at a future date...

THE NIGHTMARE by Chan Davis
Another creepily prophetic story, The Nightmare delves into the subject of nuclear terrorism as, somewhere in the Bronx of densely populated New York City, Geiger counters are picking up telltale readings of a nuclear bomb.  Will the investigators get to it in time...and what does it all have to do with the idea that dispersing the population instead of concentrating them in centers like New York would serve as a deterrent to nuclear attack? This notion was also propounded by Clifford Simak in his story City...

Next week: more of my reactions from the 1946 sci-fi anthology...

Music As I See It in 2019 So Far

I was planning to devote this article to listing various upcoming album releases this year from different acts I've come to like and follow.  Unfortunately, the only album I could identify is Beck's Hyperspace: he just released a single from it, while at the same time announcing the new album...and I don't know when it's coming out.  That's okay, there is so much old music I haven't heard from my favorite bands and solo artists that I can occupy my listening time with them.  I just checked out Simon and Garfunkel's penultimate album Bookends...it's long been my favorite of this duo from the 60s, containing brilliant songs like America, Bookends, Hazy Shade of Winter, and Fakin' It.  I've also been listening a bit to the great 1968 Rolling Stones album Beggars Banquet, featuring my own personal favorites Street Fighting Man and Prodigal Son. And, of course, I do very much like Paul McCartney's 2018 album Egypt Station, the track Caesar Rock still my favorite song of 2019 so far with his Happy With You a solid second.  And I'm also listening to Antonin Dvorak's 9th "New World" Symphony in E-Minor...the second "Largo" movement is very compelling, but the whole thing is incredible, quickly becoming one of my all-time favorite classical works...

It's a shame, I suppose, that I never did get to care very much for either country or hip-hop music, since especially here in northern Florida these two genres dominate the popular music scene.  This past weekend C&W icon Garth Brooks gave a concert at the University of Florida football stadium and you would have thought it was the Second Coming by how folks reacted to it on Facebook...I never did care for Brooks and this adulation hit me hard that the kind of music I like is no longer widely followed by the population at large.  Well, they can have theirs and I'll enjoy mine...as long as they don't impose their tastes on me, that's all I ask: it's bad enough to hear crap that now passes as "popular" music on so many commercials nowadays...

Just Finished Reading City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare

City of Ashes is Cassandra Clare's second book, published in 2008, of her six-part series The Mortal Instruments.  Once again sixteen-year old Clarey, still progressively discovering her supernatural talents, finds herself in another string of life-or-death adventures with her friends Simon, Jace, Isabelle, and Alec as they fight their nemesis Valentine.  The setting once again is New York City as the angelic Shadowhunters...assigned to Earth to destroy demons...find themselves in a developing civil war between those who follow Valentine's mission to destroy non-demonic "downworlders" like werewolves and vampires and the "good guys" who want to preserve and respect them, of which Jace and Clarey stand out as the heroes.  It's hard to reveal the plot beyond this since by doing so I might not only be spoiling the book for potentials readers (like you) but also would be unwittingly spoiling the first book in the series, City of Bones.  Instead, I'll just post some general reactions...

Stephanie Meyer, in my opinion, did a much better job with her Twilight series of presenting a young adult fiction series that vividly painted a picture of an alternative culture where vampires and werewolves thrived.  And as for that genre of fiction in general, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling are the gold standards...The Mortal Instruments to me falls short to a degree.  Still, it's entertaining escapist reading although I wished that the author had invested more time and energy in developing the main characters' personalities before undertaking the numerous plot and identity twists prevalent in the stories...and some of the dialog seems stilted and unnatural.  Well, that's just my opinion...why don't you read it and share yours?  In any event, I'm going to read on to the end of the series: the next book is titled City of Glass...

Mueller Report, A.G. Barr, Political Social Media

With the release of Independent Counselor Robert Mueller's report on Russian interference in our 2016 elections, almost all of the media and popular attention has been on the level of culpability on the part of Donald Trump, his campaign, and decisions made during his presidency so far.  There has been much criticism...misguided, in my opinion...about Attorney General William Barr's handling of the report and his press conference before its release.  But Barr has made good on his promise and efforts to release this report, something that he legally did not have to do.  As the nation's chief law official he had to look at Mueller's findings through the prism not of whether Trump behaved well...or even ethically, but rather whether, based on the investigation's results, charging him with conspiracy or obstruction was recommended.  Since Mueller himself made no conclusion to that effect, and Donald Trump is an active, sitting president, there is a legitimate Constitutional question about going forward with legal action of any kind against him.  There is, though, the Constitutionally-amenable avenue of impeachment, which Congress may or may not choose to pursue...that is, though, a political and not legal process, and not under the authority of the Attorney General.  But Barr, whether or not you happen to agree with his legal philosophy, has acquitted himself well here and I'm tired of hearing people on TV running him down.  Now back to the "Russian" investigation results...

There is a very clear lesson ordinary folks like you or me can draw from the report's conclusion that Russia interfered with the 2016 elections by dumping phony websites and messages on social media in targeted states, largely through its so-called Internet Research Agency...I'm sure they (as well as other countries) are still up to their mischief under new names.  When reading my newsfeed on Facebook I'm continually coming across certain posts by Facebook friends who have a very emotionally-invested take on politics, the posts they pick up and copy from other sources.  Also, with some of their comments I've read with a strong political flavor they will place links to Internet websites affirming and expanding on their viewpoints, as if doing this in itself proves their point for them.  I would be very, very skeptical and careful about reposting others' politically-charged posts or links to sources whose legitimacy might be suspect...like picking up food off the floor and eating it, you don't know where they've been.  I have a better idea: for a change, why not do what I do and just write out your own opinion and philosophy without hiding behind somebody else's?   Just a suggestion, but it seems to me that if you're one of these people with such strong feelings about politics and you're capable of writing, then you would want others to know your thoughts to better persuade them...and you can write to your heart's content on Facebook, or like me start up your own blog...