Subscribed to Steve Kaufmann's LingQ Language Learning Site

Steve Kaufmann, as I have written in a recent article, is a polyglot (speaker of several languages) whose views about language learning pretty much line up with those I've embraced over the years.  He strongly stresses passive vocabulary amassment through reading and listening over the traditionally taught emphasis on perfect pronunciation and grammar, areas that are also worth studying but are secondary to the main goal: comprehension.  He has a company, LingQ (pronounced "link") whose website offers detailed instruction and practice in many languages.  After discovering that its free version gave few benefits, yesterday I finally decided to sign up for the premium, which provides all of Steve's touted advantages to language learning that appeals to me...it's only about nine bucks a month.  Last night I started out with basic lessons in six different languages...but the user can skip around to any level so desired.  There's also a feature in which I can import material from outside the site...I'll get around to figuring that out, I'm sure.  In any event, I needed something like this that offered quick, effective translation to what I'm reading and/hearing so that I can learn new words faster without slowing down my studying.  From time to time, I plan to write about how I'm doing here...should be an adventure of sorts...

Just Finished Reading (for the 3rd Time) 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King

I've been slowly plodding back through the collected works of my favorite author, Stephen King...a few days ago I reviewed on of his early stories, The Long Walk, that he wrote under the pseudonym Richard Bachman.  While waiting for his first published novel, Carrie, to be available on my library's audiobook for checkout, I decided to go ahead and reread the next one he did, titled Salem's Lot.  I first read it about twenty years ago or so, and then reread it in 2017...click HERE for my review article back then.  I don't want to just repeat what I wrote back then, so I encourage you to first read that six-year-old article.  Salem's Lot, published in 1975,  is about vampires...a clear tribute on the part of King to Bram Stoker's classic 1897 novel Dracula.  Here, two sinister figures from Europe arrive in the sleepy Maine town of Jerusalem's Lot...Straker and Barlow...ostensibly to set up an antique furniture shop.  But fiction writer Ben Mears suspects something bad going on in the old Barlow House that looms over the town where they have moved...Mears in his childhood experienced a life-changing, horrible vision when he went inside this "haunted house" on a dare.  As people in 'Salem's Lot begin to disappear one by one, Mears and others like his new girlfriend Susan Orton, precocious young Mark Petrie, physician Jim Cody, English teacher Mark Burke and Catholic priest Father Callahan join up to investigate, increasingly suspecting, against common sense skepticism, the existence of vampires around them.  Everything I love about Stephen King novels is here, including excellent development of the characters that reveals their deeper motives and emotions as well as a building climax that is wonderfully suspenseful.  And his ending leaves a tantalizing bit to the reader's imagination, another of his literary talents I've come to enjoy.  Father Callahan would go on to appear in King's Dark Tower series...his travails in 'Salem's Lot revealed this story's God as coldly righteous, devoted to shutting out the unclean in spirit...very "Old Testament".  This novel isn't very long and is readily available both from public libraries...the audiobook version free through the Libby's service...and bookstores or Amazon, preferably used.  Now, on to Carrie...

Ran Gainesville's Depot Park 5K Run This Morning

On a warm and humid June morning following a day loaded with rain and thunder (and work), I managed to get down to Gainesville's pleasant Depot Park...a few blocks south of downtown...home of the "gator in the pond" and full of birds singing away, chief among them red-winged blackbirds and mourning doves.  Saturday mornings at 7:30 they hold 5K (3.1 mile) races, free of charge and supported by volunteers...I did just that, checking the course before the race.  I had a choice during the event: either run the whole distance, walk the whole distance, or split it up between running and walking...I chose running, but taking it easy on the first (of four laps) and building up my speed to finish at 33:48: not my best, but during this time of year I'm going for covering the distance, not doing it fast.  Click HERE to see the results.  Next week, instead of the Depot Parkrun, they will be staging the Juneteenth-themed Freedom Walk...also 5K (but not a timed race), starting and ending from this park and going through various historic neighborhoods in the vicinity.  Then on the 24th the parkrun resumes...I might just walk that one if my plans work out...

Quote of the Week...from Groucho Marx

I find television very educating.  Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.   

     ---Groucho Marx

Facebook is a peculiar social media website, but like others it employs AI algorithms to guess and then present unsolicited material that supposedly resonates with my interests. One result is that I'm getting a lot of stuff about the Beatles...no problem with that.  I also like another site, called Goodwill Librarian, that promotes books and reading and has all sorts of funny and pithy posts.  The other day they showed the above quote by comedy legend Groucho Marx, who also said, "I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member" and "Why, a four-year child could understand this report.  Run out and find me a four-year-old child.  I can't make head nor tail of it." In his day, though, television gave its viewers few options beyond the three major networks, public television and an occasional independent channel.  Now, though, although you can still get brain-wasted sitting in a stupor watching inane programming, television offers a variety of opportunities for educational experiences...especially if you use Roku or something similar to access YouTube.  That channel can teach you just about anything on Earth...just do a search on your topic and see what happens.  Earlier this year...although I've gotten away from it more recently...I was learning college mathematics in different on-line lectures on YouTube.  Nowadays I've been stuck on the Kendra listening practice in the five languages I'm studying...it's a great way to both get used to the spoken language and fill in my vocabulary with new words.  There's also a lot of "how-to" maintenance and repair stuff there...go ahead, give it a try.  You can even run a virtual marathon if you like...or follow a number of great classical music pieces with the written music on screen tracing the audio.  And on and on...yep, I wonder what kind of savvy, hilarious quip my old friend Groucho would have to say about all that... 

Follow-Up on Tuesday's Political Article

I thought I'd follow up on Tuesday's venture into politics on this blog to clarify where I stand in an area that causes so much confusion, fear and rage among some folks.  For one, I neither campaign for nor "endorse" any candidate or referendum issue stance...you're all big boys and girls, figure it out for yourselves.  But this blog IS a major outlet of free speech in which I can lay out my views on this thing or that...politics just happens to be a (minor) facet of my life and what I'm interested in.  As for my leanings, I tend to be an "old school" Democrat...albeit currently registered as Republican...who believes in equal opportunity for all regardless of whatever demographic category happens to be hung on them...but I'm also averse to people getting carried away by identity politics and the various "groups" they see themselves belonging to.  I am very skeptical of the media as it stands today, with the figures both in front of and behind the camera and microphone often with hidden (and some brazenly clear) agendas and biases. My preferences tend to be in the political center...conservative with national defense and security and liberal with civil rights and social safety nets like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.  I believe that there is a strong role for government to play when it concerns public health (including pandemics), the environment, and the building and maintenance of transportation and communications infrastructures.  But government should do whatever it can to encourage the development of a free-market economy...sometimes the best way for that is to back off and do little.  I used to watch a lot of the floor debates of the US Senate in recent years, and whenever a speaker (from either party) enunciated the above points, I have agreed with them.  Two days ago, I wrote that I was supporting Tim Scott for the Republican presidential nomination, but here again another factor comes into play: for all practical purposes, Senator Scott is a stranger although I like his demeanor and positive attitude...I still could be totally wrong about him.  Well, I guess I could string this article along further about politics, but I'm sure I'll get plenty of chances in the upcoming weeks and months as the 2024 presidential election approaches...  

Weekly Short Stories: 1991 Science Fiction, Part 5

It's Wednesday, so here I am again, slowly going through yet another Gardner Dozois anthology, his ninth annual collection of his series titled The Year's Best Science Fiction and focusing on stories published in the year 1991.  These books of his are very, very huge...not like the previous two different series I reviewed, edited respectively by Isaac Asimov and Donald A. Wollheim.  Yet I do appreciate the stories, by and large, that Dozois selected: today's three subjects are no exceptions.  If you're wondering when I get around to reading these tales for my weekly articles, the answer is simple: on my breaks at work!  And now, without further ado, here are my reactions to these tales as they appeared in the book...

A HISTORY OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, WITH ILLUSTRATIONS by Kim Stanley Robinson

A writer is commissioned to write a history book about the twentieth century...but at every turn he is confronted with its horrible wars and bloodshed.  Finally, he drives to a far, distant place in the north to get away from it all and repeats for the next century the rosy, optimistic scenario that another writer a hundred years before had predicted for the twentieth.  After all, as bad as it was, you have to look ahead with hope...

GENE WARS by Paul J. McAuley

A short, frenetically paced story about a young gene design entrepreneur written at the time when the whole controversy about owning trademarks to aspects of biology was just getting started.  McAuley brutally takes this emerging industry and trends to their logical...and very extreme and disturbing...conclusion...

THE GALLERY OF HIS DREAMS by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

This is a very tender, sensitive story of the great American Civil War photographer Mathew Brady and an examination both of the fickle nature of public fame and the horrors of war.  I'm guessing that the author drew on a lot of truth about Brady's life and his beloved wife Julia...and then turned it into a science fiction time travel yarn that somehow worked well.  Highly recommended...

Next week: still more from the year 1991 in short science fiction...

Further Reflections on GOP Presidential Politics

It's sad for me to see my state's governor sink so low in pandering to his constituency's base of hate as he seeks to out-bully his only major rival for his party's presidential nomination for 2024.  I had written in an earlier article how I would support DeSantis over Trump after the latter sought with every means possible...including urging a swing state's secretary of state to manufacture more than eleven thousand nonexistent votes for him...to overturn a free and fair election he closely lost.  But with the Florida governor's recent antics, I'm afraid that he's lost my primary vote...instead I'm strongly leaning to South Carolina senator Tim Scott, a decent and likeable conservative who recently threw his hat into the ring.  Ronald Reagan, considered by many on the political right to be the greatest president of our era, in 1976 ran unsuccessfully as an ideologue, pushing the hot-button issues for his base in similar manner to what DeSantis has been doing.  But in 1980 he drastically changed his approach, presenting himself as an effective leader who wanted to bring the country together, make the economy strong again and protect it from outside adversaries.  And he was wildly successful, trouncing incumbent Jimmy Carter in that year's general election.  Well, I'm only one individual but I thought I'd set the record straight about who I support and who I don't.  I may or may not vote for Senator Scott were he to (improbably) win the Republican nomination next year, but at least I can see him as a thoughtful president who respects our Constitution and shows responsibility for the nation as a whole, not just one fraction of it...

Podcaster Promotes Reading...My Motivations Differ

Today's topic on personal development coach Rob Dial's Mindset Mentor podcast is one he's covered in the past: how to read faster and more effectively.  I may have already covered a few of his points in an earlier blog article, but I couldn't find it...so here goes.  Dial cites some kind of study from a year ago in which it stated that only 33% of high school graduates have ever read a single book after finishing school...the figure isn't much better for college graduates: 42 %! Additionally, some 80% of American households have never bought a book...I'm presuming that doesn't count the times kids in school have to buy stuff for reading assignments.  On the other side, the "average" CEO of a corporation reads some 60 books a year: if I were Archie Bunker, I'd say so much reading is why they're average...but I get Dial's point: reading a lot can help make you smarter and more successful in life.  He then expands upon his own reading habits, which although he tends to prefer paper books, have evolved into using several available features of the digital Kindle and Audible services.  He's a big fan of highlighting sections of text and saving them for future viewing...that tells me that he is primarily a non-fiction reader.  Dial likes to combine buying Kindle books...which he can read on his computer, iPad or iPhone, along with the audio text component when that is available.  For me, although I use Kindle, primarily for my Gardner Dozois science fiction anthology series, I've never used audio with it...and that series doesn't offer it anyway.  I do use my public library's free Libby service to check out audiobooks that I can read on my phone, often at work during appropriate times. Although reading books may indeed help with intelligence, knowledge and worldly success, that's not why I like to read.  I like to read because it's fun...I don't think Rob Dial ever got around to mentioning that...

Enjoyed Golf on TV Today for a Change of Pace

I was relaxing this afternoon and, after starting to surf the available TV channels, fell upon live coverage of the final round of the Memorial Tournament in Dublin, Ohio...hosted by legendary golfer Jack Nicklaus.  I didn't even know it was going on until I tuned in, and then decided to stick with it a while after recognizing familiar names like Scottie Scheffler, Viktor Hovland and Roy McIlroy at the top of the leaderboard.  But an unfamiliar name, that of Danny McCarthy, was leading everyone, usually by a couple of strokes, as the afternoon wore on.  He had never won a PGA tour before but this time around it looked as if he would finally succeed as the normally clutch pros around him kept stumbling through hole after hole.  Finally, McCarthy, who hadn't bogeyed a single hole today, did just that on the 18th while Hovland had sunk an incredible long birdie putt on the difficult 17th...this forced a playoff which Hovland won on the first sudden-death hole.  Never having played as much as a single hole of golf in my lifetime...I don't count miniature golf, which I think I'm adequate at...it is interesting to see these trained players at the top of the game struggle with their swings to keep the ball on the fairway and out of the tall grass, woods, sand traps and water.  I do understand that the putting greens are often deliberately designed to be treacherous with their deceptive slopes that the golfers often must spend enormous concentration trying to figure out...after all, that's all that miniature golf is: putting.  Sitting back and placidly watching the tournament approach the conclusion was fun, but you know, I highly doubt that I'll be doing the same thing next week...maybe once every month or two sounds about right...

Ran Gainesville's Depot Parkrun 5K This Morning

Last Saturday morning was unusually pleasant for this time of year, with the temperature dipping to the upper 50s with low humidity...today it returned to warm and humid: 69 degrees and 94% humidity at race time at Gainesville's free, volunteer-run weekly 5K event, the Depot Parkrun.  Depot Park is a few blocks south of downtown, accessible from both Main Street and Depot Road.  I had thought of volunteering for today's event, but it looked as if they had plenty of folks already signed up.  No problem: I ran it instead! It's always a bit challenging at the start of these runs since so many people are crowded together in such a small space, with establishing a workable, steady running pace next to impossible.  Since this "race" (they don't like to call it that for some reason) involves four laps around the park, I was able to get split times called out by one of those blessed volunteers.  As is usually the case, I had negative splits, with my fastest one by far being that final lap.  I finished with an improved time of 31:22, far from my best but a good effort anyway.  The good people running this show meet after the race at 9 in a nearby coffee shop (Opus Coffee on SW 4th Avenue) and invite anyone to join them...I'd like to go but not all hot and sweaty: maybe later in June when I walk the course again.  As for today's posted results, you can see them by clicking HERE...    

Quote of the Week...from Steve Kaufmann

The best way to learn a language is to massively ingest it, by listening and reading.  Listening and reading are so powerful.  If you can read the books, you know the language.  To get to know a language takes a lot of time and a lot of interacting with it...and a lot of that time has to be on your own.  I think it's better to work on comprehension and vocabulary without pressure to reproduce the language (by speaking). 

                                                                               ---Steve Kaufmann

Steve Kaufmann is a 77-year-old Canadian polyglot...that is, someone who speaks more than two languages...in his case, twenty to varying degrees.  He has spent his lifespan traveling and living abroad, investing years in his country's foreign service.  I've seen him on YouTube and he really does know his field, able to switch at a moment's notice from one language to another.  The above quote, which I lifted verbatim from the Wikipedia article about him, sums up his philosophy about learning languages. I have long felt that my formal academic education in foreign languages, from elementary school through high school and even college, totally got it wrong when emphasizing sometimes arcane grammar concepts, perfect pronunciation, and grading students on the "correctness" of their speech instead of doing what they should have been doing, which was to stress building vocabulary and increasing listening and reading comprehension.  My life experience has been very different from Kaufmann's although I have entertained a long-time interest in foreign languages...I've yet to set foot on another country's soil.  Yet in today's world of near-instant communication and vast resources through the Internet I find it easy to access material in any language I want to pursue...of course, Wikipedia is a great starting place, along with an instant translation program or app.  I can also translate this blog and then note the new vocabulary and structure in the target language...pretty cool!  Steve Kaufmann has his own podcasts and a language-learning company called "LingQ"...I've heard that it's of limited use in its free version and that the premium version, for about ten bucks a month, opens up a lot of links and vocabulary-building features in a number of languages.  But for now, I'm listening to Steve's podcasts and working on my listening and reading.  The languages I'm focusing on, all of which I already have a reasonable...but to me, pretty inadequate...degree of understanding, are Spanish, French, German, Russian and Chinese...

My May 2023 Running and Walking Report

In May I kept up my pace of running training, adding to it a regimen of incremental speed walking.  On the 6th and 20th I ran the Saturday morning Depot Parkrun 5K here in Gainesville, and on the 27th I walked the course.  I've also been paying regular visits late night after work to my local 24/7 gym, where I have been gradually increasing my walking speed on their treadmill...now up to 4.6 mph (13:02/mile) for a mile's duration.  I'd like to develop a good mix in the future for half-marathons...and possibly even marathons...of a steady running pace regularly interrupted with fast walking breaks: in other words, the Galloway Method perfected by marathoner Jeff Galloway.  In June I plan to do more of the same with my training and sticking to that Parkrun for public races...although they're PC about calling them "runs" and not "races".  I've also done a lot of my running in my own nicely air-conditioned house while listening to podcasts and watching race videos on YouTube...lots of fun and pretty convenient, too.  Hope you're doing well with whatever you may be training on...

Weekly Short Stories: 1991 Science Fiction, Part 4

Once again, it's Wednesday and time for me to continue with my look back at the year 1991 as I review three more sci-fi short stories appearing in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Ninth Annual Collection, edited by the late Gardner Dozois and featuring his picks from that year. In '91 Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, an icon in the civil rights movement, after 24 years on the bench, announced his retirement.  The Republican president at the time, George (H.W.) Bush, nominated very conservative judge Clarence Thomas, another African American, as Marshall's replacement.  Although the Democratic majority in the Senate wasn't enthusiastic about a conservative justice replacing a liberal as it would change the dynamics of future cases and rulings, unlike Republican Mitch McConnell with his more recent stonewalling of Merrick Garland, they processed Thomas' nomination. And even though Anita Hill accused Thomas of past sexual harassment, he was narrowly confirmed...and is now the senior justice on the Court.  But as I like to say, back to those stories... 

DISPATCHES FROM THE REVOLUTION by Pat Cadigan

This is another of those tedious "what if" alternative history stories, focusing on the 1968 Chicago anti-war protests during that tumultuous election year.  The lefties are the good guys here and the righties...especially Ronald Reagan...are portrayed as the evil villains.  I think the author was saying here that even if the tragic assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King that year turned out differently, horrible things would still have happened as they were all symptoms of an underlying sickness in the country.  It's up to the reader to agree or not with that premise...

PIPES by Robert Reed

There's a project in the future, kind of like Jurassic Park, where extinct prehistoric animals are to be brought back into existence and set in a vast reserve in the American plains, accessible to the wealthy and elite for study and entertainment.  The scientist spearheading it all has everything down about the needed genetic codes down on his computer in his apartment, when a Native American plumber pays him a visit to fix his pipes.  The point of his appearance soon becomes clear when he, apparently already aware of the project, proposes that the Indians also be returned their land that was taken from them.  A thoughtful and funny ending...

MATTER'S END by Gregory Benford

Trying to prove the decay of protons is a formidable task, especially in India of the future where much of the population has grown hostile to science and technology after biological "innovations" have unintentionally decimated their agriculture and even bred tiny predatory fish that lodge themselves in people's urinary tracts...shudder!  But deep beneath the surface near Bangalore is a facility that reports to have evidence that the world's scientific community has been waiting for...a western scientist is there to ascertain the experiment's validity and report on it.  The result: let's just say that once again here is a tale that pretends that religious dogma...in this case of India...rings of literal truth.  And that perceptions of truth...even greatly exaggerated...can create new truths, if you can wrap your head around that.  By the way, Benford is an astrophysicist as well as a sci-fi writer: he knows his science at least...

Next week: still more stories of 1991 discussed from Dozois' book...

2023 Atlantic Hurricane Season Begins on Thursday

The 2023 Atlantic hurricane season is set to officially start this Thursday, June 1, but already there is a low-pressure disturbance...albeit not yet tropical in nature...in the Gulf of Mexico that is slated to pelt the central part of Florida this week with much rain and storms.  The forecasters say that this year should be close to normal in the quantity and intensity of named tropical storms and hurricanes.  But all it takes is one big hurricane coming right at your home area to make a monumental mess of things, and I'll be keeping an eye a little more on those daily forecasts and tropical outlooks on the TV weather stations.  Gainesville has been almost providentially spared the head-on wrath of a major storm, although in recent years it has been sideswiped on a number of occasions.  My major concern is a Category Four or Five hurricane strengthening in the Gulf and coming ashore around Cedar Key, heading straight for my hometown.  It's not a high probability for a single year, but over a span of decades the likelihood of that occurring is drastically increased.  But for now, all seems normal...

On Memorial Day

Nobody I know ever says "Happy Memorial Day" like they would on a different holiday, for today is the time to somberly and gratefully reflect on those brave and dedicated people who in our past gave their lives in combat to protect our freedoms and way of life here in America.  People can argue...and rightly so...about the wisdom of our civilian leaders in various conflicts over our history, but the soldiers who carried out those policies with courage and the ultimate sacrifice deserve the greatest honor.  God bless them all...

Funny Old British Comedy Skit Sticks with Me

I was just recently mentioning to a friend a very funny British comedy skit I once saw back in the '80s on one of the many good shows my local Gainesville PBS station used to broadcast back then.  In it, a frumpy late-middle-aged couple is going off to bed, but first the wife insists that the reluctant husband take out the garbage.  Grumbling, he trudges outside and then, after looking around him, suddenly rushes to his car...still in his pajamas...and heads to the airport, where he takes off in a jet, super-high speed, to go partying and gambling in some far-off resort.  The jet zooms back in and he quickly gets back to the garbage cans, when he slowly makes his way back to his room.  Then his wife asks him if he got all the trash...and he's off again!  That skit stuck with me because, one, it was so damned funny and, two, it opened up the possibility of having a wacky, self-contained adventure during a weekend...and then getting back to "business as usual".  In particular, I think of various marathons and half-marathons scattered each weekend across America...and even in other countries of the world and wouldn't it be cool to pull off something like that dude emptying the garbage...except that I wouldn't be secretive about it.  I wish I remembered which series that skit came from: I've narrowed it down to Dave Allen At Large, Not the Nine O'Clock News, and Monty Python's Flying Circus... 

Walked Gainesville's Depot Parkrun This Morning

In recent days I've been embarking on a more strenuous training regimen for walking, as my schedule permits.  To this end I decided to use the free Depot Parkrun 5K event, held (almost) every Saturday morning at 7:30, to try at least once a month walking an entire race.  Today was my first complete walk, but the temptation just before race time was to go ahead and run it, the weather being an unseasonably cool and pleasant 58 degrees with 84% humidity.  But no, I had made up my mind and decided to hike that distance.  I do feel the need to mention that for the previous couple of weeks I had periodically been walking at incrementally faster paces on my gym's treadmill after work late at night, stepping off each time after one mile: yesterday I got my sustained walking speed up to 4.5 mph.  Today's race involved lots of runners naturally passing me...you need a certain degree of humility to speed-walk races.  Of course, I was also trying to go fast while maintaining foot contact with the path.  My goal was to break 50 minutes, but I was surprised not only to finish the 5K without breaking a sweat, but that my finishing time was 45:14, a pace just faster than 4.2 mph.  You can see today's results by clicking HERE.  I'm becoming more convinced that the treadmill, used wisely, can help to automatically improve the user's walking form by progressively increasing their speed at a manageable distance from workout to workout.  I'm thinking of expanding this principle to running, which in retrospect is what I did back in 2007 when I began training for races after a more than thirty-year hiatus.  Depot Park, site of this event, is about eight blocks south of downtown Gainesville... 

Quote of the Week...from Lenny Kravitz

We're getting so pulled in by computers and technology, and our kids have their face in computers all day. The human relationship is being diminished by this.                 ---Lenny Kravitz

Lenny Kravitz is an American solo rock artist who I've always considered as one of the most musically talented in the profession.  His singles hit Fly Away was my personal top favorite song for the year 1998, and he shined portraying Katniss' stylist Cinna in the movies The Hunger Games and Catching Fire.  Although I like his music and acting, I'd like to focus on Lenny's above quote.  Sixty-six years old now, I grew up and spent my early adult years free of the then-fledgling digital revolution, whereas it's the only thing that younger generations know of in life.  Fifty years ago, people would be astonished at a picture of a typical city street of today with half the people quizzically staring down at their hands as if in a trance.  When I went with my then-eighteen-year-old son Will to his college in Jacksonville fifteen years ago, we went to see what the main library looked like...the tables were full of students, without books, eyes glued in on their laptop computers.  Whatever happened to that "cognitive reverie" of hanging out at the stacks there, surrounded by books, which is what I used to do as a student?  And the video games...don't get me going with that.  Of course, I, too, have my head in computers all day as well...especially considering my "smart" phone.  And it's not all bad, don't get me wrong: I'm taking advantage of this wonderful opportunity to write this free blog for anyone (in a free country) in the world to read!  Kids do get outside and play and interact...at least some of them.  But computers have this instant feedback and reinforcement trait that can be addicting.  In generations past, children had their heads in books...with mine it was television all the time...and now with the young it's computers.  I wonder what the snare will be a couple of generations from now.  There is one glaring difference between computers and TV/books: people...not just young...find their personal validation through social media and the Internet, and that makes it much more likely that they can be manipulated by the ones pulling the strings on the other side, often hidden...

Just Finished Rereading The Long Walk by Stephen King

Before I began writing this blog back in April of 2007, I had already read most of Stephen King's published novels.  Since I tend to review books here that I just read, this means that I never got around to discussing those earlier books.  King early on liked to publish come of his works under the pseudonym Richard Bachman...The Long Walk, from 1979, was one of them.  And I just finished reading it...again. The setting...as in so many other Stephen King stories...is Maine.  America has turned into an authoritarian, militaristic state and the big sport on the day of the story is the annual Long Walk, where everyone wagers on who will survive the grueling ordeal...and only the last one left walking will.  Survive, because any participant who dips below the four miles per hour threshold will be warned three times and then shot dead by the soldiers patrolling the route.  Yet many young men volunteer for this "race", because if they do survive, they will pretty much have anything they want for the remainder of their lives.  Ray Garraty, a native of Maine, throws his hat into the ring and, along with 99 other boys, sets off.  The tale is about surviving, giving up, the limits of human endurance and the meaning of friendship and honor while the walkers all know that the others must die in order for them to continue living.  Ray has his friends and foes, and the story gets pretty worked up as you might imagine whenever a boy cannot physically go on any further...and here come the soldiers.  I picked The Long Walk as the first of a series of rereads I plan to continue with because, well, although I'm not going to go out on such a race myself, I have been working on my walking speed both around the neighborhood and at my gym on the treadmill.  The plan is to develop an athletic level of performance with walking, past the 4-mph standard of King's novel.  Oh, although the author was depicting a cruel American society that didn't exist, I might add that it doesn't exist yet: it will happen, though, if its people allow it to happen...

Weekly Short Stories: 1991 Science Fiction, Part 3

Here is another installment of my weekly review of science fiction short stories I have just read. I am currently going at a crawling pace through the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Ninth Annual Collection, featuring his picks from the year 1991. This was the year that my workplace moved to its new location in far southwestern Gainesville: still there...as a matter of fact I'm sitting in their employee parking lot right now typing this. I've enjoyed my work over the years...definitely a plus in my life with lots of good people around me as well.  But as I usually say at this juncture, back to those stories...

THE DARK by Karen Joy Fowler

A very curious story this is, weaving together three improbable narratives: a missing little boy in Yosemite National Park, the cyclic rises and falls of the plague over the centuries, and tunnel fighting during the Vietnam War.  Yet it works well in this tale worth rereading...

MARNIE Ian MacLeod

A man with a singular, horrible event in his past keeps coming back within his body from the future (presumably with the aid of a time machine) to avert the tragic event...but can't seem to get past himself as the time draws near. To me this story shows just how much folks go through their daily lives on autopilot, usually reacting without thinking to what happens around them. And also, that it's our own inner resistance keeping us from change, not always that which we think the world imposes on us...

A TIP ON A TURTLE by Robert Silverberg

A woman taking a vacation break following the breakup of her marriage finds on a tropical resort romance...and turtle races in the pool as a mysterious man she's attracted to has a gift for picking the winners.  It's all about the gift of foresight...or is it a curse?

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ÜBERMENSCH! by Kim Newman

What if Superman didn't crash land as a little child in Kansas, but rather in Bavaria, Germany during Hitler's rise?  This story is an exercise in speculation on that "what if" premise, peculiar since, after all, there was no Superman to begin with from which to create an alternative "history"...or is this just a spoof of the whole alternative history subgenre? Read it for yourself and get back to me...

Next week I will continue discussing short sci-fi from 1991...