The COVID-19 Pandemic: Two Important Points

Two important facts about the COVID-19 pandemic that everyone should know and base their behavior on in the next few days and weeks:

1) As New York governor Andrew Cuomo has repeatedly stressed during his press briefings the last few days, all of this social distancing and shutdown is being done for one overriding purpose: to ensure that anyone who enters a hospital in need of a ventilator to keep them alive will have that ventilator available for them.  Period.  For this to happen and supplies of ventilators to meet the demand, the infection rate curve must flatten enough so that a spike of infections does not result in desperately ill patients finding themselves without the means for survival...

2) I've heard that as many as half of those infected with this coronavirus at any given time are asymptotic, that is they feel and display no symptoms of the disease, either because it will run its course through their bodies over the span of two or three weeks without causing any noticeable effects or because it is incubating within them, the symptoms of fever, dry cough and shortness of breath beginning to appear a few days later.  I don't know if "half" is an accurate estimate, but I'm confident that a large segment of the infected population feels fine.  The potentially tragic mistake is to equate having no symptoms of COVID-19 with not being infected with it...unfortunately, I see people who seem to buy into this notion and who not only won't practice safe social distancing but who also shoot off at the mouth against those who take the pandemic seriously.  Please don't be like these fools. By the way, wearing a mask is an effective way to prevent droplets containing the virus from being breathed in by others if you happen to be one of those without symptoms, but infected...breathing in these droplets is the most common means of coronavirus transmission.  When I'm at my "essential" workplace I presume, rightly or not, that none of my colleagues are feeling or displaying symptoms...if they are, they shouldn't be there in the first place.  Again, just because you feel fine and normal that doesn't mean that you aren't a dangerous carrier of this very contagious disease that has killed, and will continue to kill, those susceptible to its effects...

My 500 All-Time Favorite Songs: #180-171

Well, it's Monday again and you know what that means: ten more songs on my ascending list of my 500 all-time favorite songs.  Here they are...

180 MESSAGE OF LOVE...the Pretenders
I came to like this 1983 song via its video.  If memory serves me correctly, it was one shown in regular rotation during WTBS's short-lived weekend all-night video TV show that year.  Singer Chrissie Hynde delivers a compelling performance in this, a very positive-spirited, great old love song...

179 SABOTAGE...the Beastie Boys
I wonder how many people first heard Sabotage, from 1994, from the desert scene at the beginning of the 2009 movie Star Trek where James T. Kirk is a rebellious boy driving a car (not his own) over a cliff...with the Beastie Boys tune playing full blast.  My own encounter with it is closely tied to the amazingly funny video the Boys made with them parodying TV cop shows as they enforce the law...with the customary doughnut break thrown in.  It's screaming hard rock...I wish they'd produced more songs like this...

178 12:51...the Strokes
In 2004 I immersed myself in the current alternative rock hits being played on my local station WHHZ/100.5/"The Buzz"...they kept playing this song without identifying it or its artist.  Later on I discovered that the Strokes did it...they quickly became one of my favorite bands of that era: a very professional, skilled guitar band with a charismatic singer in Julian Casablancas.  Not the last from them on this list...

177 FOLLOW ME...John Denver
In the 1970s during his peak popularity everyone in my family was a John Denver fan, with his albums played a lot at my house.  Follow Me was a track from his 1973 Greatest Hits album and I've always felt a special affection for it...if you listen to it in a certain way there is an added spiritual dimension in the lyrics...

176 IT'S MY LIFE...the Animals
I was a big Animals fan during 1964-65...I'd listen to their ongoing hits on the radio, and every few weeks they'd appear on the Sunday evening Ed Sullivan Show.  Ed Burdon, to me, had the best voice in blues-based rock n' roll and the organ accompaniment added an extra dimension to their sound.  It's My Life is Burdon at his best, singing his defiance at life's challenges...

175 I MIGHT BE WRONG...Radiohead
During the fall of 2010 I collected the then-seven studio albums of this British alternative band and shuffled them on my MP3 player for my long distance training runs.  Consequently I associate various songs with different sections on my course.  Whenever I hear I Might be Wrong, from their 2001 Amnesiac album, I'm transported to the trail heading north along NW 43rd Street past 53rd Avenue, past the electric substation and Talbot Elementary and toward the Cox Communications and WCJB offices.  This song is slow-moving with a wall of electronic sounds, a thumping beat and Thom Yorke's typically wailing style of singing...

174 RAY OF LIGHT...Madonna
In 1998 Madonna surprised me, along with probably a lot of others, with this more esoteric, mystical song...I thought then that yes, the serious artist within her I always knew existed was finally coming out.  Unfortunately, it seemed to be just a phase and her music largely went back to churning out suggestive singles hits and videos.  But that summer at least I had Ray of Light to brighten things up...

173 OLD BROWN SHOE...the Beatles
When Old Brown Shoe came out as the flip side to the Beatles' Ballad of John and Yoko single in 1969, I didn't know of it until a couple of years later after the band had broken up and I had bought their Hey Jude compilation album, with George Harrison's song as one of its tracks.  Both piano and guitar figure heavily in it with an unusual beat and Harrison's cryptic lyrics full of riddles...like this opening line: "I want a love that's right, but right is only half of what's wrong".  This should have been the A-Side of the single...

172 SOUR GIRL...Stone Temple Pilots
From the Pilots' 1999 No. 4 Album, Sour Girl was a moderate hit on rock radio...it's one of those songs that I was okay with from the start but kept growing on me until it became one of my favorites.  It's a different STP song in that they didn't go into the heavy guitar sound on it, nor did they try to create a psychedelic kind of song...instead, it's simple and beautiful.  And when I finally got around to seeing the bizarre accompanying video, a semi-nightmarish vista of monstrous Teletubby-like mutants while Buffy actress Sarah Michelle Geller performs a graceful, passionate dance with front man Scott Weiland, that made it even better...

171 JUMPIN' JACK FLASH...the Rolling Stones
Not one of my favorites when it came out in 1968, Jumpin' Jack Flash was the direction-changing signal to the world of the type of music the Rolling Stones would be focusing on for the rest of their years.  The beat and riffs are mesmerizing and Mick Jagger is up to his trademark cynical, rough-edged and hyperbole-riddled singing: perfect, I never get tired of hearing it these days...

Next week: #170-161...

Starting to Enjoy Sports Reruns on TV

Seeing how I'm something of a weekend TV sports junkie, this canceling/postponement of just about all regular sports events during the COVID-19 pandemic has irked me to no end.  I had staunchly resisted watching the many replays of games in years in gone by, but yesterday ESPN was showing some National Basketball Association championship final games from the past and I found myself immensely enjoying watching the old stars.  I caught two games: the 2003 finale between the San Antonio Spurs and New Jersey Nets and that of 2010 between the Los Angeles Lakes and Boston Celtics.  Over the years I've come to root for the Spurs, but back in '03 they were a team I'd always pull against...it was interesting to see a game from that time in which my allegiances had completely flipped: there they were, perennially blunt head coach Gregg Popovich along with the stars David Robinson, Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili...all looking very young (except Robinson, who was finishing his playing career).  Although Parker would eventually become my favorite NBA player, in this game his play was off and he was benched after the Nets had racked up an early lead.  But Speedy Claxton came in and had a great effort, helping along with others...especially Duncan...to spearhead the Spurs' comeback.  It was also interesting to see a younger Steve Kerr...currently the coach of the Golden State Warriors...as an enthusiastic benchwarmer for the Spurs.  This game also showed Nets guard Jason Kidd at his best. In the later game, Kobe Bryant, Pao Gasol, Derek Fisher, Lamar Odom and Ron Artest pulled off a great team effort to come from behind against the Celtics, who were led by Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and  Rajon Rondo.  I noticed that in both games...and especially this one...the defense they played was much more aggressive than what we've seen in recent years, with resulting very low scores.  It's tough watching a game, the result of which you already know will go against you...still, I enjoyed it while knowing that "my" Celtics would bow at the end...

I looked at the TV schedule for today and saw that ESPN will show several hours of WWE "wrestling"...hardly a legitimate sport.  Guess I'll have to look for something else...yesterday I ran 10 miles, but right now it's raining: maybe I'll read a book instead...

Thinking of Cross-Referencing Earlier Blog Articles by Subject

With today's entry I have published 4,265 blog articles over the past 13 years.  They cover a wide gamut of topics, but I think it might be interesting to be able to reference some of the earlier ones in a more efficient manner.  At the bottom of each article I have indicated general topic headings...which you can see on the web version but not on the phone app...but I'd like to organize my writings in a more precise series of indices that the reader can simply click on to obtain.  I don't know exactly how feasible this undertaking will be, but in a few weeks I should have something to present...

Quote of the Week...from Thornton Wilder

When you're safe at home you wish you were having an adventure; when you're having an adventure you wish you were safe at home.                          ---Thorton Wilder

Thornton Wilder (1897-1975) was an American playwright whose play Our Town was a common English class assignment in high school...we got saddled with it, too.  Maybe some day as a "free" adult I'll voluntarily reread it or watch it performed on YouTube.  For now, though, I've found the above quote of his and thought it pertained very well to the "stay at home" mantra sweeping the country...and much of the rest of the world, for that matter...

When I had free time in elementary school I'd often visit the library and read old stories and fables...I was especially entranced with the adventures of Sinbad, a wealthy citizen of Baghdad during the Caliphate era who would become restless at home in spite of his prosperity and set sail for adventure.  Inevitably he would find himself in dire peril and bemoan his decision to travel, longing to be back home and safe...but he always managed to escape and return home.  And there he'd be happy for a while and then, bored, continue the cycle with another adventure.  I think many of us are like Sinbad, but with a much more limited attention span largely caused by our modern-day expectations of instant gratification.  The introverts among us can find inner peace in solitude and companionship with loved ones: extroverts seem to be in a constant itch to go out and hobnob with others, though...I see a big problem with these open house parties and spontaneous street basketball games I see springing up within my neighborhood during this time of supposed social distancing...

I would have preferred to be one of those employees who could work from home instead of being someone "essential" who had to work in a crowded facility with others while the infection rate here from the COVID-19 virus is climbing exponentially.  Unfortunately, some of my colleagues either do not understand what "exponentially" means or because they can't actually see the virus they deny its existence or that their decisions to forgo physical distancing in the workplace are their own business and nobody else's...but it all comes out looking like foolish bravado.  I think bravery is commendable, but only if it serves a worthwhile purpose...

This pandemic will eventually run its course and we'll all be able then to have our adventures and social life as we see fit...in the meantime can we please just show a little forbearance and maturity in order to save lives, save our economy and give the health care sector the time it needs to staff and equip itself to deal with this crisis?

Confusing Signals from Authorities About Testing for COVID-19 and Masks

The American people need better and clearer instruction from authorities as we try to navigate ourselves, our loved ones and colleagues through this coronavirus pandemic.  Two particularly frustrating and confusing areas are testing for the disease and wearing protective face masks.  South Korea, which seems to have totally "flattened" their curve and sent the illness into decline there, keeps getting praise for mass-testing the population in order to (1) accurately assess the COVID-19 presence among the population and (2) enable those actually infected to be isolated from the others to prevent the spread.  In the USA the authorities first rejected the WHO test and then hit snags during their own development of it, losing precious time in the process.  Still, the rules are the same now as they were in South Korea...yet Fed disease expert Dr. Fauci has discouraged people-at-large getting themselves tested, stating that they were "consuming" scarce protective resources on the part of the medical professionals performing them. And with protective masks, the Surgeon General has taken a similar stance, claiming at the same time that they are ineffective in preventing users from getting coronavirus while stressing that health care workers desperately need them...to protect themselves from the virus!  Personally, I don't know how well they protect us from this scourge, but it is widely acknowledged that masks do protect the wearers from transmitting this very contagious disease through the air to others if they're already infected with it.  Since it's already been firmly established that many carrying COVID-19 show no symptoms, and with many others the symptoms don't begin to appear until several days after they've caught it, it seems to me that universal testing and masks should have been high priorities from the start...assuming that they are serious about bringing the exponentially-increasing infection rate down and avoiding an "Italy" situation where the demand for care far outstrips our capacity to provide it.  Now that both the tests and masks are finally...after weeks...beginning to become more commonplace (but nowhere near the necessary level), more authorities are starting to promote their use among the populace. But where I work there is an even bigger problem: I see some operations and situations where there is NO physical distancing whatsoever...

Weekly Short Stories: Robert Heinlein, Part 6

The Robert Heinlein stories I'll be reviewing today and next week come from his 1980 collection Expanded Universe, which besides these tales contain many non-fiction essays about society, politics, international relations...and the future.  I'm just focusing here on the fiction: here are my reactions to the first five stories in the book that I've haven't discussed in previous articles, their original years of publication indicated after the titles...

SUCCESSFUL OPERATION (1940)
A Hitler-like, racist dictator must resort to Dr. Lans, the only one who can perform the pituitary gland transplant operation he so desperately needs for survival.  And Dr. Lans, who is of the "race" the tyrant despises (presumably Jewish) has his own conditions for the operation...from the story's title you already know that it goes forward and is "successful".  This would have been a great Twilight Zone episode...

SOLUTION UNSATISFACTORY (1940)
Heinlein wrote this prophetic story about the nuclear arms race, with a twist: not knowing whether an atomic bomb could be successfully built and detonated when he wrote it back in 1940, he surmised instead the development of super-toxic radioactive dust that could destroy life on whole continents...sounds a lot like nuclear fallout, doesn't it?  In any event, his "solution" to the stalemate is indeed unsatisfactory...incidentally, in our "real" world the Cold War may have ended in 1991 but the threat of nuclear holocaust is still with us...

THEY DO IT WITH MIRRORS (1947)
This is Heinlein's foray into pulp detective fiction, as an exotic dancer is stabbed in the middle of her act...and it looks as if no one could have perpetrated the deed.  The dialogue here is pretty chauvinistic, but was probably typical of this genre back then.  I didn't care for it...Heinlein should have stuck with his science fiction...

FREE MEN (1946)
It is the former United States of the not-too-distant future and it has turned into a martial law type of autocracy, with rebel bands dispersed throughout the land struggling to sabotage the oppressive State and instigate widespread uprising.  The message Heinlein was conveying here is plain: the people will rise up to resist tyranny...the problem as I see it is that the far-right militia groups that later formed in the 1980s and 1990s claimed the same rationale for themselves: it all boils down to what you call tyranny...

NO BANDS PLAYING, NO FLAGS FLYING (1973?)
In one of the shortest tales in the book, a seasoned veteran tells a story about true courage when he relates how he and some of his colleagues had suffered lung infections while working in the Canal Zone that required periodic injections into the chest...usually safe but occasionally fatal.  After he finishes the story, each listener has his own idea of who displayed true courage, but the storyteller teaches them at the end that courage and fear are two sides of the same coin...

Next I'll look at four more Heinlein stories appearing in Expanded Universe...

My March 2020 Running Report

In March my running activity markedly increased from the previous month, with me running on all but two days and amassing 132 total miles for the month.  My longest single run was on Friday the 20th when I covered 9.3 miles. I had earlier scheduled that day off from work in anticipation of running a half-marathon in Ormond Beach the following Saturday morning...and then why not make it all a sweet, pleasant beach weekend with Melissa?  But sadly, this damnable disease scratched all that and all other upcoming races...and beach trips...are off for the foreseeable future...we all have more urgent priorities to deal with now.  In the meantime I, and hopefully you, will continue to practice Google's recommendations for preventing the spread of the coronavirus: (1) HANDS: wash them often, (2) ELBOW: cough into it, (3) FACE: don't touch it, (4) SPACE: stay more than 3 ft. apart, and (5) FEEL: sick? Stay home.  My job is officially deemed to be "essential" so my work schedule is unchanged...two in my family are working from home and two go out to work.  At least that's the situation at this moment... but you never know in these interesting and disturbing times what will be mandated the next moment.  So far, though, getting outdoors on one's own while practicing safe distancing and going for walks or runs is considered an acceptable part of the "stay at home" paradigm currently being put forth.  And as long as my health holds up, I suppose I'll keep running, either inside or outside...

My 500 All-Time Favorite Songs: #190-181

The ten songs on this segment of my 500 all-time favorites span many years, from 1966 to 2006, and represent quite a diversity in musical style and lyrical content.  You may know the seven older ones, but I recommend you try out more recent (and grossly underrated) artists like Regina Spektor, Metric and Sufjan Stevens...I absolutely guarantee more from them to come higher up on this list...

190 TURN TO STONE...Electric Light Orchestra
In the winter of 1978 I was overloaded with classes at the University of Florida and a serious flu outbreak was spreading through campus...I became a little paranoid in my crowded dorm and classrooms and overly anxious about my homework and exams.  This was my favorite song of that time, the lessons of which reverberate to this day in my life: don't overcommit yourself and work it out so that you always have a little time and space for yourself.  Turn to Stone was the opening track of ELO's Out of the Blue, one of the best double albums ever produced. By the way, I somehow managed to dodge the flu that year but don't ask me about those classes...

189 WORKING CLASS HERO...John Lennon
Working Class Hero, by John Lennon from his 1970 Plastic Ono Band album, is the antithesis of Max Ehrmann's Desiderata (#195 on my list)...in it Lennon depicts the way people are herded and abused through life by the system and presents one of the most cynical worldviews ever...yet the words ring true: "When they've tortured and scared you for twenty-odd years, then they expect you to pick a career...when you can't really function you're so full of fear"...

188 FUNKY TOWN...Lipps Inc.
This was a great dance song from the summer of 1980...it shouts out fun and happiness.  I was living a frugal but steady existence in southwest Gainesville...I moved to my new apartment in May of that year because at the time it was on the outskirts of town and not so hectic.  Now this area is the most concentrated in town, the traffic jam capital of Gainesville. This was also right in the middle of the Iranian hostage crisis and the 1980 presidential campaign, with incumbent Jimmy Carter holding off a strong challenge from Ted Kennedy...Reagan already had his GOP nomination sewn up early on...

187 20 YEARS OF SNOW...Regina Spektor
Regina Spektor has always liked to experiment around with different sounds and themes on her albums...I didn't hear this deep track from her 2006 Begin to Hope album until four years later after I began to collect all her works to date.  Classically trained on the piano, her skills extend to her singing range in this very, very strange-but-beautiful song...which in places eerily sounds like Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven...

186 BOY IN THE BUBBLE...Paul Simon
I need to assemble a list sometime of my all-time favorite music videos...this one is certain to be at or near the very top.  A collage of some the world's dystopian elements, including terrorism, famine and medical quackery combine with the onrush of science and changing social patterns...an awful lot to cram into a video as Paul makes his presence known in the jungle among elephants, in a newspaper picture and on an oscilloscope screen, among other places.  But the song stands well on its own...naturally I have it on my MP3 rotation.  It's from Simon's celebrated 1986 Graceland album...

185 GONNA MAKE YOU SWEAT...C + C Music Factory
By 1991 I had pretty much given up on Top Forty radio (played in Gainesville on WYKS "Kiss 105".  But then this sharp, energetic (and very funny) dance song exploded on the scene with the unforgettable screamed lyrics "EVERYBODY DANCE NOW!".  I never have cared for rap/hip-hop music on its own, but nevertheless have come to like many songs that mix that spoken word rhyming craft with singing...Gonna Make You Sweat might be the best of this type...

184 LOVE IS A PLACE...Metric
The Canadian alternative rock band bears a similarity to an earlier band, Blondie, with its own charismatic lead singer in Emily Haines, but their music to me has a harder and better edge to it...and the lyrics can be quite biting at times.  But not with this track from their 2003 Old World Underground, Where are You Now? album...it's very short and slow, but with a excruciating electric guitar accompaniment that crescendos to steal the show at the end...

183 TIME WON'T LET ME...the Outsiders
My favorite song of 1966 as I lived through it, for some peculiar reason listening to it brings vivid associations in my mind with the layout of Nova Blanche Forman Elementary School in Davie, Florida, which I attended from 1965 to 1968.  Specifically, the hallway connecting the multi-purpose room (what they called the cafeteria) with the science lab on the Suite D (SW) corner of the building, on the way to the supplies store...go figure why songs sometimes do this sort of thing with your memories.  To this day I think this is a great song...why was it the Outsiders' only hit?

182 FLINT...Sufjan Stevens
Flint, the opening track on Stevens' 2003 Greetings From Michigan may not be to your tastes...but it is about Flint and economic...and ultimately personal...depression.  Sad and forlorn, it still projects a feeling of epic importance and lays the foundation for what is to follow on this stupendous, largely unnoticed album with autobiographical, historical, geographical and spiritual themes.  I loved the horn playing on it...Stevens reportedly played trumpet and other instruments on the same songs...

181 RAMBLE ON...Led Zeppelin
After the release of Led Zeppelin's first box set in late 1990 I listened to my local rock station play the whole thing...and suddenly became a fanatic of their music.  From their 1969 Led Zeppelin II is this, my favorite song of the album...my liking only grew stronger later when I learned that singer/lyricist Robert Plant was an avid reader of J.R.R. Tolkien and inserted his own fantasy lyrical contribution into this song: "'Twas in the darkest depths of Mordor, I met a girl so fair...but Gollum and the evil one crept up and slipped away with her"...

Next week: #180-171...

Wishing the Best for All During This Crisis

Not a lot for today's entry other than to wish for you and your loved ones safety and wisdom in dealing with this ongoing coronavirus pandemic.  I see that some areas in Florida are harder hit right now than others, including Broward County where I grew up...but Alachua County, where I now live, has its own problems.  May God's blessings and protection be with you all!

Just Finished Reading Princep's Fury by Jim Butcher

I just finished reading Jim Butcher’s 2008 novel Princep’s Fury, the fifth and next-to-last volume in his Codex Alera fantasy series.  Since a lot has happened over the course of this series, just about anything I have to discuss here in specifics is doomed to spoil the plot in some way, so if you’re planning on reading this series you might want to pass on this article.  On the other hand, if we’re talking about perpetual war with humanity’s existence at stake, not a whole lot has changed since the first volume.  The enemies from one book sometimes become allies in the next, usually due to the wisdom, courage, and perseverance of the main protagonist, a young man name Tavi who by the time of Princep’s Fury has discovered (along with everybody else), that he is really Octavian Gaius, the heir to the throne of First Ruler of Alera now occupied by his grandfather Gaius Sextus.  People on this fantasy planet of Carna are imbued with special supernatural skills called furycrafting in which they can “craft” natural elements such as wind, water, air and fire to serve as extensions to themselves…a planet full of folks with superhero abilities but who still can’t figure out how to get along with each other.  There are nonhumans here as well, usually in a state of war against the humans, most notably the giant wolf-like Canim, the Marat and the Icemen. But they are uniting with the people of Alera against the ultimate foe: the Borg-like Vord who are intent on replacing all other life on this God-forsaken world that no one in his or her right mind would ever want to live on, superhuman abilities or not.  The narrative usually hops back and forth among the three main characters of Tavi, Isana (his mother), and Amara, a young woman serving Gaius Sextus as one of his courier-spies as they struggle to gain alliances and combat the Vord...

These epic fantasy series dominated by war with characters built up by their fighting abilities and courage may appeal to many, but to me they've become one-dimensional and stale.  I much prefer those fantasy stories and series that impart a sense of a special world within this one of ours such as J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, Lev Grossman’s The Magicians (but not the TV adaptation) and Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere.  Still, I’ve stuck with Butcher’s series and only have one more book left: sometimes a tedious series can be redeemed by a novel ending, which I’m hoping awaits me in the final volume, titled First Lord’s Fury…

Quote of the Week: from Bilbo Baggins

Sorry! I don't want any adventures, thank you. Not today.  Good morning!  But please come to Tea...any time you like!  Why not tomorrow? Come tomorrow! Good-bye!          ---Bilbo Baggins

J. R. R. Tolkien's 1939 fantasy novel The Hobbit introduced Middle Earth, its history and inhabitants to the reading public...with the Lord of the Rings trilogy expanding on it in the 1950's and subsequent movie adaptations over the last two decades.  I've always felt that they ruined The Hobbit in the recent movie series by trying to make it into a Lord of the Rings prequel...the original written tale has a completely different flavor, centering around its protagonist, the diminutive hobbit Bilbo Baggins, as he brings his backwoods common sense and wiliness to the overriding questions of a world in conflict.  I thought that Marty Freeman's faithful and compelling film portrayal of Bilbo was the series' only redeeming feature, but sadly the filmmakers diminished his role as it wore on, in the processing distorting the book beyond recognition with added characters and subplots dominating the narrative.  But enough of my movie criticism and back to the quote...

Bilbo Baggins by nature is a homebody...he likes his hobbit hole of a house, his books, smokes, garden, routine...and most of all, privacy.  I dig that and always thought that the wizard Gandalf thoroughly violated the rules of hospitality by inviting the dwarf party over without Bilbo's consent.  That's a big problem I have with people who tend to override my dignity and right to set my own boundaries with their condescension and sense of social position and self-importance: pretty disrespectful, I say.  In today's topsy-turvy times of social distancing in light of this coronavirus pandemic, I think of lot of people find themselves feeling uncomfortable with the mandated separations: too many equate concepts like progress, social consciousness, and even love with physically clustering in groups...the closer together and the more people the better: just look at all the TV ads promoting this.  Better to take a good look at yourself and realize that if you have an extroverted bent to your social orientation, that doesn't necessarily entail assuming that those of a more reclusive nature are deficient in some way and need "a little push", as Gandalf later rationalized his behavior toward Bilbo.  As disturbing and unpleasant as these times are to me, at least for a while I feel I'm "off the hook" from others trying to change me.  I remember hearing somebody once say "Life's a party!", but each of us has our own idea of what a party is...let's not impose our definitions on others...

Feeling Absence of Sports on TV

It feels a bit strange not being able to discuss sports on this blog...other than Tom Brady signing with the Tampa Bay Bucs the other day, there's nothing much of interest going on...no hockey, basketball, soccer or baseball due to the coronavirus pandemic.  The Tokyo Summer Olympics have been postponed for another year and the Kentucky Derby, the first leg in the Triple Crown for three-year-old thoroughbreds, has been moved back to September...I wonder if horses that turn four by the new date will be ineligible to run in it.  Of course, we would normally be thick in the middle of the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament right now with the NBA and NHL playoffs to look forward to...and Major League Baseball would have been starting its regular season within a week.  Having no sports to watch other than boring reruns of past games is tough for me since I've gotten into the habit, after getting home from work late in the evening, of looking up a game in progress...since they're more concentrated in the western U.S. at this time I've grown to follow teams out there more than the ones closer by (GO Oregon Ducks and BYU Cougars!).  But that's all out the window now.  Last night when I got home I switched the TV to C-Span2, where they showed live the United States Senate votes on the $2 trillion stimulus bill...they passed it 96-0 after days of tough negotiations and don't plan to reconvene until April 20th.  I want us to get out of this pandemic and for the economy to recover as well...the two need to go hand in hand.  Yet I foresee the coronavirus being with us for many months ahead, long after it has peaked (whenever that happens)...who's going to decide when and whether to resume sports and what criteria will they use?

Weekly Short Stories: Robert Heinlein, Part 5

I continue my look back at some of the short stories produced by one of the greatest-ever science fiction writers, Robert Heinlein (1907-88).  Today I look at his 1959 collection titled The Menace from Earth, including all its stories below except for the title story which I discussed last week...

THE YEAR OF THE JACKPOT (1952)
I remember reading this story many, many years ago in the break room of the old downtown Gainesville post office...a theoretical statistician has come across a truth that trends of low-probability cycle over years.  But now all the different areas of low probability are converging at the same time  into the present and who knows what will happen.  The ending illustrates why this story is NOT a part of Robert Heinlein's interrelated "universe" of stories...

BY HIS BOOTSTRAPS (1941)
The ultimate time travel paradox story, with effect repeatedly serving as cause.  A college student, wearily working on his thesis one night, encounters himself from the future...and the confusing fun begins.  Another story I first read what seems like eons ago...

COLUMBUS WAS A DOPE (1947)
The setting is a bar and the patrons are arguing whether it is advisable whether to go on a manned mission to Mars as planned.  The opinions are divided, and the bartender is adamantly against it, using the "if God had meant for men to fly he'd have given us wings" argument.  It's the punch-line ending of this brief tale that gives it a special perspective...

SKY LIFT (1953)
A spaceship pilot, thinking he was finally going to get some leave time, suddenly finds himself on an urgent resupply and rescue mission to plague-ridden Pluto, piloting the fastest of the available torch ships and having to endure the entire trip...along with his copilot...under 3.5 g's of gravitational force.  A painful story to read as Heinlein vividly describes the effects such a sustained gravitational load would have on the human body and psyche...

GOLDFISH BOWL (1957)
Scientists on a ship in the Pacific investigate two mysterious columns of water coming out of the ocean and ending far up in the sky.  What happens to two of them when they get too close sets the stage for the rest of the story: it's a sobering suggestion that humanity isn't necessarily the "highest" form of life in the universe...or even on our home planet, for that matter...

PROJECT NIGHTMARE (1953)
Although, Heinlein, himself an engineer, liked to stress hard science in his stories, he nevertheless played along with the notions that time travel and, in this tale, ESP, were possible.  The search is on in the country for Americans with telepathic and telekinetic abilities during the height of the Cold War against the Soviets...it has to do with our atomic bombs and theirs.  A crisis puts everyone to the test...

WATER IS FOR WASHING (1947)
Not really a science fiction story, this one is set in the present as a businessman finds himself on a survival quest as the once-bone dry desert valley in southern California he is driving through suddenly finds itself inundated by Pacific Ocean waters following an earthquake.  The notion of prioritizing people's values to society plays into it all as, along the way as he tries to escape, he picks up...in the tsunami's path...two children and a thieving vagrant.  The implicit question Heinlein asks in this story is what would you and I do in similar circumstances?

Next week I'll start looking at some stories Heinlein included in his collection Expanded Universe...

Canceled Races and Some Coronavirus Views

Well, due to this coronavirus outbreak and the calls for social distancing, the springtime running race season I've been regularly participating in over the past few years has been canceled.  I'm still getting Facebook reminders about a coming event...seems they forgot to notify Zuckerberg that it's off.  Instead, I'm continuing my running but on my own, not around others.  Last Friday I slowly ran 9.3 miles on my extended course through my subdivision and the adjacent one...a good run but not the half-marathon distance I had been planning to run that weekend in Ormond Beach in their race, which had it not been canceled due to the virus would have taken place in Tomoka State Park north of town on the west side of the Intracoastal Waterway.  Oh well, maybe next year, and in the meantime I can still run around my neighborhood as much as I want...

As for the coronavirus response, I'm a bit confused about something I'm hearing from Dr. Fauci (of the coronavirus task force) and New York governor Cuomo. Fauci has said that we shouldn't get ourselves tested for coronavirus unless the symptoms stand out, the reason being that we "consume" health care professionals' protective gear with each test, gear that will be needed for future treatment of the disease.  Cuomo, on the other hand, has been pushing widespread testing in his state with the aim of isolating those with positive outcomes...even those with no discernible symptoms...to help curtail the disease's rapid spread and "flatten the curve".  His rationale is that coronavirus is destined to eventually spread throughout the general population and that the social distancing efforts are not accomplishing enough to provide time for increasing our protective gear, hospital beds and most importantly, ventilators, to meet the upcoming demand for them.  Of course, neither you nor I make the decision whether to administer the tests, so this debate on how often they are used needs to be reconciled at a higher level...

I'm also noticing an even higher ratcheting up of the nastiness I'm hearing on TV and radio, even within the U.S. Senate chamber where informal rules of comity have been generally observed.  Everybody seems to have their own theory on how to deal with this crisis and what merits top priority and what should be pushed to the back. It may seem like a long time already, but it's only been going on for a few weeks and this disease will be with us for much, much longer.  The point of all this inconvenience and economic displacement right now is to reduce the early incidents of serious and critical cases while buying time to increase the needed stockpiles of medical equipment. And on that latter issue, the different states should not be competing with one another on the open market for them, which only drives up the price.  The federal government, led by the President, needs to step up to the plate and coordinate these efforts...

My 500 All-Time Favorite Songs: #200-191

With today I begin to explore the top 200 of my list of all-time favorite songs...you can reference the previous (lower-ranked) entries by skipping back to previous Mondays on this blog.  All of the ten songs I'm discussing today are super-oldies, the most recent one coming out more than 37 years ago...

200 TANGLED UP IN BLUE...Bob Dylan
The notion that some people just stumble through their lives, bouncing off experiences and relationships, is a hidden theme of this narrative by the Bard of Our Time as he relates in epic fashion his on-again, off-again friendship over the years with a woman unnamed.  My favorite line: "All the people we used to know, they're an illusion to me now. Some are mathematicians, some are carpenters' wives...don't know how it all got started, don't know what they're doin' with their lives".  Tangled Up in Blue is from Dylan's Blood on the Tracks LP and was a hit in early 1975...but I didn't get to really liking it until years later: sometimes you just have to grow into a song...

199 P.S. I LOVE YOU...the Beatles
I've loved this very early (and very short) Beatles song since early 1964 when it was played a lot on Miami's 560/WQAM, along with much of the backlog of Beatles hits that had already been released in England the year before.  It's a "Paul" song and is one of the greatest love songs of all time "as he writes this letter"...

198 ROUNDABOUT...Yes
Among other things there are two distinct memories I have from the spring of 1972 as I wound down my sophomore year in high school: it never stopped raining and my favorite song was Roundabout by Yes. I'd sit evenings on the back porch or do homework in the utility room my sister converted to a study area and who let me use it, with the radio going strong.  And this was the one of the best songs back then, in my opinion...but there always seemed to be that background sound of rain pounding down on everything.  Ironically, during the previous spring South Florida was in the throes of a severe drought with a smoky, stinking haze blowing in from Everglades wildfires. Roundabout, from the English progressive rock group's great Fragile album, dazzled me with its insane keyboards...more from Yes to come...

197 THE DAY WE MEET AGAIN...the Moody Blues
I discovered this jewel from the band's 1977 Octave album during the mid-1990s when I was investigating their catalogue of works.  I didn't care for the album as a whole, but those last two tracks were incredible...this one is the finale and the other is higher on this list.  The Day We Meet Again is dominated by the organ, and imparts a sad, dreamy feeling as singer/songwriter Justin Haywood delivers a possibly unintentional prophetic message about his band's future. Octave is a peculiar album, recorded after the Moody Blues had broken up four years earlier and four years before they would resume recording together.  In our times that would seem to be a normal break between albums, but not then: everybody was churning 'em out at a much higher rate in the sixties and seventies...

196 AMERICA...Keith Emerson and the Nice
For some reason the memory keeps coming back to me of sitting in the seventh grade at Nova High (no middle school back in 1968) during morning announcements (which for some reason they called Ad-Com, short for administrative communications) and they played this song over the air...I had already been enjoying it from the radio.  America is an organ/guitar-based instrumental rock adaptation of Leonard Bernstein's same-titled piece from his musical West Side Story...with a tribute to Antonin Dvorak's Ninth "New World" Symphony thrown in for good measure.  Bernstein was reportedly miffed at Emerson's presentation of his work as an antiwar protest song, but I thought then and still do think that it was a masterpiece...my favorite song of 1968 as I lived through it...

195 DESIDERATA...Les Crane
Disc jockey Les Crane turned Max Erhmann's prose poem into a hit single in 1972...he delivers the great wisdom of this piece in a calm, plain voice with a female chorus for the line "You are a child of the universe..." Have you ever read or heard Desiderata?  Pretty much everything in it is useful for framing one's own attitudes about life and others....here's one verse: "If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself"....

194 FLY AWAY...John Denver and Olivia Newton-John
Fly Away was a 1975 hit...I first heard it on TV as Denver and Newton-John performed it.  I thought then that there was a future in these two collaborating on more songs as they both seemed to project the same kind of popular music with country leanings and their voices dovetailed beautifully, but apparently they didn't agree and went their own ways.  This one at least I'm grateful for...

193 IT'S RAINING AGAIN...Supertramp
Supertramp had a good run in the late 1970s, which would end in the early 80s when singer/composer Roger Hodgson regrettably left the group for solo stardom that would elude him.  From late 1982, It's Raining Again is self-evidently a melancholic song with Hodgson's plaintive singing and the band's seamless accompaniment, including piano, synthesizer and saxophone...it ends with an old nursery rhyme.  It's the last song they did together that I liked...

192 PRESSURE...Billy Joel
Back in 2007 when I compiled my all-time favorite songs list on this blog, Pressure, from Joel's 1982 Nylon Curtain album, came in at a lofty #23, but its subsequent drop on my list over the years isn't so much due to me liking it less as it is that I took a better look at all the rest of the songs I liked, including many recent ones.  It has some of the most clever lyrics I've heard, my favorite line being "But here you are with your faith and your Peter Pan advice, you have no scars on your face and you cannot handle pressure"...

191 WORDS OF LOVE...the Beatles
When the Beatles album Beatles VI came out in the summer of 1964 my parents, both hardline Beatles fans back then, duly went out and purchased the album...it quickly became one of my all-time favorites of that group.  I was seven at the time, on summer vacation between the second and third grades at Boulevard Heights Elementary in what was still called West Hollywood...good times, good times.  Words of Love, the closing track on side one, features George deftly displaying his guitar picking skills as he sings this brief cover of an old Buddy Holly song...not that I knew of Holly back then.  Along with Slow Down, this was one of my top favorite Fab Four songs during that season...

Next week: #190-181...

Coronavirus Distancing Prompts Me to Increase Social Media Presence

As this coronavirus pandemic begins to make itself felt more acutely with the numbers of those testing positive for it continuing to double nationally every two or three days, eventually its pervasiveness among the general population is making social distancing much more of a reasonable proposition, even among my extroverted friends who seem to have the notion deeply embedded within themselves that only through regular, close contact with groups of people can they enjoy any meaning in life.  I'm the opposite, pretty much on the extreme-introvert end of the scale, but still try to maintain some interaction with others...this blog's a major example.  I post links to its articles daily on Facebook and Twitter and maintain Facebook friendships with some 200+ people.  In light of the increasing physical isolation in our country, mandated either by the government, businesses or the disease itself, I've decided to send out many more friend requests in the next day or two...focusing on those people I know, although sometimes admittedly not very well with the possibility that some of them may not know me at all.  Also, I intend to be more active on both Facebook and Twitter about interacting on these sites in an appropriate and respectful way with friends and those I follow by commenting on their posts.  I think it's important for folks to keep connected and social media can serve well to alleviate some of the social disorientation which this season of mandated isolation could bring about...

Just Finished Reading The Van Gogh Deception by Deron Hicks

A few weeks ago Melissa and I were walking through Ollie's, a discount store located at Main Street and Northeast 23rd Avenue here in Gainesville.  They have a large book section and I picked out The Van Gogh Deception, a 2017 teen adventure novel by Deron Hicks...for just $1.99.  I just finished reading it and thought it had all the features necessary for an exciting yarn...sympathetic protagonists, mysteries to solve, a wily and ruthless mastermind enemy, many close calls, a suspenseful ending...plus the addition of educational value as great works of art are presented as well as a guide to much of Washington, D.C. A boy is discovered in the National Gallery of Art sitting in front of a sculpture...he has no memory of his identity or why he is there.  Taken into protective custody by the police, he is handed over to Mary Sullivan, a young editor for a publishing firm, for temporary foster care.  Mary has a daughter, Camille, who herself assumes a protective role over "Art", as she calls him.  Meanwhile Dorchek Palmer, a wealthy adventurer-turned-master criminal along the lines of Superman's Lex Luther, uses his high-tech skills and henchmen to track down the young boy, who seems to be the central figure in a grand art hoax scheme with $183 million dollars at stake.  The author presents the narrative from different characters' perspectives, each section headed by the precise time and location...I liked that.  But what I liked the most about this book was how Deron Hicks inserted barcodes alongside the text whenever an art work was mentioned...using a QR reader app on my phone I was able to view the actual works on my phone screen: really cool.  And I thoroughly enjoyed the convoluted way at the end in how the story was resolved.  Two thumbs up from me on this story...I wonder what else Mr. Hicks has written...

Quote of the Week...from Tom Brady

I'm starting a new football journey and thankful for the Buccaneers for giving me an opportunity for me to do what I love to do.                                       ---Tom Brady

The above quote of former New England Patriots quarterback (and six times Super Bowl winner) Tom Brady was made on his Instagram account this morning after he signed a two-year contract to play for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.  For the past two decades I've struggled with the awe and respect I've felt for the performance of this, the greatest quarterback in NFL history, while at the same time rooting the best I could against him and his team.  After all, since "my" Miami Dolphins began as an expansion team in 1966 the Patriots have been divisional rivals.  Brian Flores did remarkably well as Miami's first year head coach following the work he had previously done as a defensive coach with the Patriots...that season-ending upset of New England in Foxboro was a classic.  As for Tampa Bay, I think the Bucs were very competitive last year and lost some exciting games...getting Brady in there should make them playoff-bound.  Feeling that I can now freely cheer for Tom Brady gives me something to look forward to later as virtually all sports have been shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic...

Our February 13th Visit to the US Virgin Islands

On Thursday, February 13th our Royal Caribbean cruise ship Allure of the Seas docked at Charlotte Amalie on the island of St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, a few miles east of Puerto Rico.  The weather was warm and clear...perfect for sightseeing and enjoying the beach.  After disembarking we found our shuttle and rode up a steep, winding road to a mountaintop where stood a large gift shop prominently touting their banana daiquiris.  We strode through it to the back where they were offering the drinks and cut sharp left through the doors to our real destination: the lookout point over Magens Bay Beach to where we were headed (1st photo).  There Melissa and I changed to our swimwear and enjoyed the mild sand and waters (2nd photo) until we all returned the shuttle and headed back up to where we could view the capital city of Charlotte Amalie along with its harbor and outlying islands (3rd photo).  Upon returning there we walked around the stores (4th photo)...most of them jewelers with aggressive salespeople and owners cajoling the pedestrians to enter their stores.  Melissa and I agreed that it was too bad we weren't allotted more time in that "banana daiquiri" store on the mountaintop: they had by far the best selection of items.  Seeing that there wasn't time to enjoy a full meal at one of the local eateries, we decided to split a candy bar and sit on a bench in a little park area until it was time to get back on our shuttle.  A chicken running loose began to approach from our right and I stupidly encouraged it by making eye contact and sweet-talking it.  Then suddenly around the left a horde of chickens came rushing toward us...we quickly left for the safety of the shuttle!  Later that night we watched the stunning, retreating coastline of St. Thomas as we went back out to sea (last photo).,,

The tour guide/driver told us that the U.S. Virgin Islands...which the United States acquired by purchasing it from Denmark...is 99% dependent on tourism for its economy, which distinguishes it somewhat from Puerto Rico.  There was nothing like that beautiful beach we visited, and the mountaintop and hillside views were spectacular.  On the other hand I didn't care all that much for the shopping and the overbearing people trying to push merchandise we didn't want.  Still, if you're ever there and get in the mood for some fried chicken, just reach out and grab one...