My November 2017 Running Report

This month began on a positive note with my running as I gradually increased my endurance and mileage.  But then I began to experience some pain in my left heel that felt like plantar fasciitis and I took a break for a few days...later I came down with a really nasty variety of viral cold and I took a longer break...in the end missing running for 10 days in November.  I managed to run for a total of 69 total miles, most of it in the early part of the month...and my longest single run was for 5.4 miles.  I had been hoping to be able to run in a couple of races this past month, but circumstances conspired against me and I'll have to just see what's up in December and how well I'm back "into the groove" before I take on any of them...during the past week I have been gradually getting back into running but still have to deal with a residual irritation in my throat from that awful cold...

11/26 Sermon on Questions I'd Ask God, Part 4

At The Family Church here in Gainesville, our senior pastor Philip Griffin concludes his message series Questions I'd Ask God with the final question: What If I Have Doubts?  While customarily focused on one particularly section of scripture and its meaning for us, in this series...and especially with this message...Philip instead draws upon several references.  When I've indicated one, just click on it and you'll be able to read it via Bible Gateway...

Pastor Philip structures this sermon about doubt by first discussing the truth about it and then how to move past it.  His first point is that spiritually mature people can still have times of doubt (Matthew 11:2-3, Matthew 14:31, Matthew 28:17). Philip distinguishes between two different Greek words translating to "doubt"...one means a wavering between options while the other denotes judgment and making wrong conclusions.  The former is the acceptable usage of "doubt" that he is discussing here and that it is normal and healthy for people to ask questions when confusion arises before them. Secondly, God doesn't condemn questions, but encourages them (Matthew 7:7, James 1:6-8).  Jesus encouraged seekers...the problematic condemnation of doubt expressed in that passage from James refers to the second translation of that word which means judgment, not an open search for truth.  Now how does one move past doubt? Philip lays out four steps: go to the root (Jeremiah 20:18), ask God for help (Mark 9:24), trust scripture, (2 Peter 1:16), (Ephesians 4:14-15), and hold any remaining questions in perspective (1 Corinthians 13:12).  In this process our pastor stresses that the problem with doubts is when we hang onto them instead of seeking their resolution...

I have a couple of reactions to this message.  One is that there is another word in common use, "skeptic", that can be interpreted in two different ways...either as someone who actively and honestly questions the truth of something or as someone who has already firmly made up their mind in disbelief.  So nowadays you hear of climate change skeptics, 9/11 skeptics, Kennedy assassination skeptics...all of these have already committed themselves to a negative judgment.  My other reaction to this sermon...as well as to the series as a whole...is that I believe that there are things in our faith that don't necessarily lend themselves to seeking answers for the simple reason that they are a deliberate part of God's mystery, beyond inquiry.  I don't believe that my Lord wants me to stand behind him and have the same degree of understanding about him and his creation that he has, but rather that he wants me to be in relationship with him...to walk with him...

You can watch Pastor Philip's message on the church's YouTube video website through the following link: [link].  The Family Church, located at 2022 SW 122nd Street, meets each Sunday morning at 9:30 and 11 with the weekly message, worship music, prayer, and fellowship.  Next week will begin a new series...

Weekly Short Story: Imposter by Philip K. Dick

I first read Imposter, which is the first story by the great, late science fiction writer Philip K. Dick that I had ever read, many years ago.  It's the fourth short story I'm reviewing from the retrospective anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 15 (1953).  Maybe you know of it from the 2002 feature-length film starring Gary Sinise, but Dick's original tale only was only 17 paperback pages long...the movie obviously added a lot of extraneous material, something I don't dig at all...

The premise of Imposter is simple enough: Earth in a not-to-distant future time is at war with unseen beings called Outspacers, from Alpha Centauri.  The enemy's technology is developed to the point where they can create duplicate android robots that are indistinguishable from real people...and they can tailor them to copy specific persons, even their own memories.  Spence Olham is employed on a crucial project to develop a super weapon and gets up one morning with his wife Mary to get ready for another grueling day of work.  When the "bug" comes by to pick him up, he sees his friend and colleague Nelson...accompanied by a stranger, whom he learns is Major Peters.  After a little conversation, Peters explains his mission: the arrest of Olham, accused of being a robotic Outlander spy! Nelson and Peters grab and restrain Olham and then transport him to the moon for safe disposal, for they have been informed that the robot has a very destructive u-bomb within him and that it is activated by an unknown, specific phrase spoken aloud.  Olham loudly proclaims that he is himself, not an imposter...but Peters and Nelson always have an answer to each protestation...and Nelson seethes with hatred as he believes that the imposter killed his best friend in order to replace him...

The rest of this short story deals with Olham's struggle for survival and determination to clear himself by finding the real robot, which he believes is in a crashed ship in the woods nearby his home.  You can read it all for yourself (here's a link to it: [link]), but I'll just say that the ending was pretty surprising and abrupt...with a memorable final line.  I rather doubt that a drawn-out movie with its distracting subplots could have come anywhere close to capturing this compact tale's feel and effect...

If our memories are based within the complex neurological framework of our physical brains...and these can be duplicated...then it raises the question as to what constitutes one's sense of selfness, that is of having an identity, of being "me".  Have I been "me" my whole life and how could I prove it: no matter what calendar moment the "now" is resting on, at that moment I have access to my physically-based memories...but that in itself just means that I am "here" at this moment with access to them and not that I have been here in the past forming them.  This can get a bit overly metaphysical and speculative, but that's a trademark of Philip K. Dick, who was always trying to get his readers to stretch themselves...

Tuesday's List: My Favorite Songs with the Bo Diddley Beat

I once met the late rock and roll great Bo Diddley while he was getting a new set of tires put on his van at the Sam's here in Gainesville...I was there to get one of my tires repaired and was seated waiting for service while he was standing in line chatting with other customers.  I don't know what folks expect when encountering famous people like him, but he was unpretentious, friendly, funny...and very talkative.  I didn't get a chance to chat with him, but I did get to acknowledge him and say hi...that's good enough for me.  Bo Diddley, who sadly passed away nine years ago and whose real name was Ellas McDaniel, was a pioneer during the fifties in the development and popularization of rock and roll.  He may be best known for the special "Bo Diddley beat" that many other acts have used in some of their best songs.  The following is a list of my favorites songs with that unmistakable beat in order of preference.  But hey...they're all good!

1 WHO DO YOU LOVE?...... George Thorogood and the Destroyers (originally by Bo Diddley)
2 DESIRE................................U2
3 MAGIC BUS........................The Who
4 NOT FADE AWAY.............The Rolling Stones (originally by Buddy Holly)
5 DON'T LET HIM GO..........REO Speedwagon
6 (MARIE'S THE NAME) HIS LATEST FLAME.......Elvis Presley
7 HOW SOON IS NOW.........The Smiths
8 AMERICAN GIRL..............Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
9 I WANT CANDY................Bow Wow Wow
10 FAITH................................George Michael

The Ancestry Genetic Test Fad

A while back they began to show these DNA testing commercials on TV, Ancestry.com being the major company doing this.  In one of their ads, a man who had taken on the persona of what he deemed to be a "German" because he had a German-sounding name took one of these tests.  The result came back with little-to-no German ancestry, but a lot of Scottish...so he began to wear a kilt.  Oh, come on, folks...do people really take this ancestry thing that seriously?

Forgive me for being a little skeptical about this latest craze of people sending in their DNA samples to the big company for a fee and then getting a readout as to where their ancestors came from.  For one, I believe that there is a built-in bias in the process because of the names of the ethno-national groups and the criteria for dividing them from one another: since the company wants a saleable product pleasing to its customers, it will make familiar distinctions among the different groups that they can easily recognize.  Secondly, I wonder about the accuracy of it all, assuming that the DNA sample sent in is pure to begin with.  I wonder what the results would be if I sent in samples to various competing companies...how much would they vary from each other? And thirdly, all my life I have been educated to believe that, under the skin and outward appearance, we're all just fellow human beings.  The notion of "race" that we've been snowed under to believe for centuries isn't a matter of objective reality, but rather one of subjective perception.  After all, geneticists have concluded that our species is relatively very homogeneous in comparison with others, with very little genetic diversity between the so-called races and ethnic groups.  And lastly, I wonder whether people engage in genetic testing in order to classify themselves...at least partially...as members of a group that they want to identify with for whatever personal reasons...

The way I see it, you and I are what we are, and our respective lives, the things we have gone through, screwed up, learned, and accomplished create individual tapestries that are far more interesting and significant than any pie chart showing our ethnic origins...

Happy With New, Detailed Star Atlas

When I was seven, back in the spring of 1964, my father sat with me one evening and opened up his own very ancient, tattered boy scout handbook...showing me a series of star maps of the evening sky and explaining the constellations to me.  He pointed out that the sky, along with the positions of the stars, changes over the course of the day as well as throughout the year. I took it all to heart and have been enamored with star-gazing ever since.  I picked up a couple more star guides, one of them that my father and I saw at an outdoor Miami newsstand off Biscayne Boulevard...that was around '65, I believe.  Nowadays, of course, there are many resources and detailed star maps accessible through the World Wide Web, but there's nothing quite like having the paper maps in my hands.  The other day I was shopping at Publix and lo and behold, in the checkout line there was a special issue of Astronomy magazine titled Atlas of the Stars.  Not only do the maps cover all the celestial sphere from the north to south poles in great detail, but there are plenty of interesting accompanying articles.  It makes me want to pay another visit to my local Gainesville planetarium, located at Sante Fe College...and check to see whether there isn't still an astronomy club at the University of Florida...I remember that years ago they used to regularly hold telescope viewings of the night sky...

The Telephone Game, Updated with Google Translates

I imagine that most if not all of us have during our childhood experienced...usually at school or parties...the Telephone Game.  This is when a group of several kids sit around in a circle and each one whispers a short message to the next one...who then whispers it to whoever's on the other side.  When the message finally returns to the first kid after going around the circle, it is usually...and hilariously...very different from its original form.  Which is the whole point of the game, naturally.  We can in our Internet age do a different version of this, by starting with a basic sentence in English and then with the use of the Google Translates feature translate it into a different foreign language.  So 1 translates to 2, 2 translates to 3, and so on down the line until 14 translates back into English...which is usually altered from the original statement.  I tried this out by taking yesterday's quote from Igor Stravinsky and passing it from English through 13 successive languages and then back.  The result wasn't altered too much, but there still was a divergence from the originally expressed quote;:

1: I haven't understood a bar of music in my life, but I have felt it.
2: No he entendido un bar de música en mi vida, pero lo he sentido.
3: Ich habe kein Musikstück in meinem Leben verstanden, aber ich habe es gefühlt.
4: Я не понимал музыки в своей жизни, но я это почувствовал.
5: 我一生都不了解音樂，但是我感覺到了
6: Je n'ai pas connu la musique toute ma vie, mais je l'ai ressentie.

7: मुझे अपने सभी जीवन में संगीत नहीं पता था, लेकिन मुझे यह महसूस हुआ।

8: Tôi không biết âm nhạc trong suốt cuộc đời, nhưng tôi cảm thấy nó.

9: Nem ismerem a zenét egész életemben, de úgy érzem.

10: 나는 내 인생의 모든 음악을 모르지만, 나는 기분이 좋아.

11: Hayatımdaki tüm müzikleri bilmiyorum, ama hoşuma gidiyor.

12: أنا لا أعرف كل الموسيقى في حياتي، ولكن أنا يتمتع بها

13: 私は私の人生のすべての音楽を知らないが、私はそれを楽しむ。

14: Nie znam całej muzyki mojego życia, ale lubię to.

15: I do not know the whole music of my life, but I like it.

As you can see, between the translations somewhere "understand" changed to "know", "whole" was added, first to modify "life" and then switched to modify "music" (which dropped "bar"), the tense changed from present perfect to present, and "felt" changed to "like".   Now the fun in this game is to look back on the translations and see where the changes occurred.  For example, the change from "understood" to "knew" occurred between the Chinese (#5) sentence and the French (#6).  "Whole life" first appeared in Chinese (#5) as 一生.  Since I know some of these languages better than others, there are sections where the changes can be hidden and it takes some extra linguistic detective work to find them.  By the way, do you know which languages are featured here? 

Quote of the Week...from Igor Stravinsky

I haven't understood a bar of music in my life, but I have felt it.      ---Igor Stravinsky.

I feel tempted by this quote from one of the greatest composers of all time to put myself squarely by his side and justify my own shortcomings in intellectually understanding music, especially its very intricate technicalities.  After all, it is the feeling I get...just as Stravinsky stated it...upon hearing an especially compelling song or classical piece.  But I'm sure that Stravinsky knew quite well all there was to know about reading and writing music and that his "understanding" of it far, far surpassed mine...or the great majority of people in the world, for that matter.  Instead, I think his quote was intended to emphasize that the feelings and emotions that music elicits are much more significant than the nuts-and-bolts of the art and that while his often very complex compositions may have opened themselves up to much technical scrutiny and analysis, he did not create them from his mind, but rather from his heart...

Sometimes at night I listen to my local classical music station and it broadcasts various syndicated shows that discuss and play various pieces of the featured composer.  And sometimes I feel frustrated by their analysis, which often is over my musically-untrained head, and I just want them to shut up and play the entire work, not just snippets interspersed with drawling, affected chatter.  On a different level, I grew up listening to rock and roll, in particular during that time in the 1960s called the British Invasion.  Rock bands from Britain were forming in multitudes and the members, many of them teenage kids untrained in music theory and incapable of reading it, would imitate songs off records until they could cover them well and record them...and then later came up with their own compositions,.based on how they felt...someone else was given the job of writing them down.  Yet it was music all the same, and some of my favorite songs come from people who didn't know much of the technicalities of music beyond what they could do on their own instruments to create the effects that brought out the feelings they sought...

So while music lends itself to intellectual scrutiny, that isn't what makes it tick.  Feeling music, as Igor Stravinsky stressed, is by far more important than "understanding" it...

11/19 Sermon on Questions I'd Ask God, Part 3

This past Sunday I missed the weekly message of The Family Church here in Gainesville due to illness.  Instead, I watched it on the church's YouTube video website...you can, too, through the following link: [link].  The series Questions I'd Ask God continued as senior pastor Philip Griffin discussed another question: How Do I Know What God Wants from Me? The Biblical sources he used are varied...I'll put links to Bible Gateway for some of them as this summary continues...

Pastor Philip presented four fundamental transformations that God wants to work in me: he wants me to be saved, surrendered, sanctified, and spirit-filled.  The salvation part necessarily comes first and involves my recognition that I am powerless in my sin to save myself: only through the atoning sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ and my belief in him will this happen and my heart will truly turn toward God (John 6:40).  Surrendering involves that both of my will and my circumstance (Romans 12:1-2, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).  Sanctification involves avoiding immorality...in particular sexual immorality as the Bible passage states (1 Thessalonians 4:3-5).  To live a Spirit-filled life is important...instead of escaping from reality through alcohol or other drugs (Ephesians 5:17-18).  Philip once again employed the analogy of a sailing ship on the high seas with the sails full of the wind's power (like the Holy Spirit in us) as it drives the ship along...

The Family Church, at 2022 SW 122nd Street, holds its Sunday morning services at 9:30 and 11...there is free coffee between services in the hospitality room next to the entranceway.  A good message, praise music, prayer, friendly folks...a good way to spend a Sunday morning...

Weekly Short Story: The Three Hermits by Leo Tolstoy

I found the great Russian author Leo Tolstoy's 1886 short story The Three Hermits in an anthology designed for Russian language students: Russian Stories Русские Рассказы: A Dual-Language Book (1961, Dover Publications)...you can read it for yourself through the following link to the Online-Literature website: [link].  I suggest that you first do this, for this article will discuss the story's ending, something I usually don't do because I don't like playing the spoiler...

A church bishop traveling to a distant monastery learns of three elderly hermits living on an small uncharted island off the northern coast of Russia and insists to his ship's captain that he be allowed to visit them.  The captain sends him out to the island on a boat and waits...the Bishop meets the hermits and hears that they take care of each other, are generous and hospitable to visitors, and are seeking salvation and mercy...but do not know how to pray to God.  So he painstakenly sets out to teach them the Lord's Prayer...they stumble and forget, but after several hours he is satisfied that they have learned it.  He returns to the ship and they continue on their voyage.  But a little while later they see something quickly approaching on the water from where they were...it is the three hermits speeding...gliding...on the watertop toward them!  Upon reaching the Bishop, all three exclaim in alarmed unison that they had already forgotten parts of  the Lord's Prayer and would he please help them relearn it...the astonished Bishop calls them men of God and says that it is not for him to teach them...and for them to please "pray for us sinners"...

Book learning, formal training, and doctrine are useful things in a field...but Tolstoy (and I) would make the important distinction that one's heart takes precedence over all.  Knowing and repeating the "right" words to say to God is nothing better than a magically-intended incantation if there is no heartfelt spirit behind it, while a contrite, humble soul grounded in love for God and others will fare much better.  But that's my religious take on this overtly religious story: there is, I believe a broader application here...

I cannot begin to count the different times I have been in situations where I was captivated by what was around me, be it a spectacularly clear night sky full of stars, listening to a beautiful piece of music, riding a convoluted, looping, speeding roller coaster, running a very long distance along winding roads and paths, hunched over a radio trying to pick up distant stations, exploring the basics and intricacies of a foreign language, and so on.  There is that primal level of enthusiasm about a subject that I am always searching to tap and experience, but when I find other so-called "like-minded" people to relate with, I inevitably come across skeptical, nit-picking, correcting...and sometimes even demeaning responses...as if we're in some sort of competition with each other because of our common interest and they seem to feel the need to put me in my "place".  Like the three hermits, I don't seem to come across as being an "expert" in many areas that I maintain a high level of interest and enthusiasm for...it would be a refreshing change if the people I encounter who shared my interests were more "incompetent" like myself (and the three hermits) and less like the pedantic, "correct" Bishop in Tolstoy's tale...

Tuesday's List: The First-Magnitude Stars in Order of Brilliance

Way, way back in late 1960 I had just turned four and lived in a small apartment with my parents and sister in Opa-Locka, Florida...a little town just northwest of Miami with a strange penchant for Arabian architecture and street names.  My father worked close by at the Opa-Locka post office as a letter carrier and wanted to move us into a house...so the hunt began.  My parents apparently decided at the outset that our new neighborhood would be a commute a few miles away from Opa-Locka and so we ventured north into southern Broward County to look for a suitable house.  Had they instead gone south of Miami for a new home, I might well have been able to claim to have seen every star on the following list of all twenty-three of the first-magnitude (i.e., the very brightest) stars.  In West Hollywood, where we ended up moving, the latitude was just north enough that, combined with the city lights of Miami and obstructions on the horizon, I could never observe the brilliant southern hemisphere constellations of Centaurus and Crux that cross the meridian in the evening during mid-spring.  But south of Miami, the latitude would have raised them in the southern sky and the city lights would have been less of an interference, leading to a better shot at catching them from time to time.  As it is now, I live some four degrees further north in Gainesville, so forget it from where I am...I just have to get off my butt and travel to a more southern location (with clear skies) to finally get a look at these bright stars.  Crux, also known as the Southern Cross, has two first-magnitude stars and is situated in the sky right next to Centaurus' Hadar (also known as Beta Centauri) and Alpha Centauri.  Alpha Centauri is actually a three-star system, composed of Alpha Centauri A, slightly larger than our sun, Alpha Centauri B, slightly smaller...and Proxima Centauri, much smaller and distant from the other two as well as being the closest star to us besides the sun.  Alpha Centauri A and B are each bright stars in their own right, but are indistinguishable to the naked eye because of their proximity to each other...

Here's my list of the twenty-three brightest stars from the vantage point of Earth.  Their constellations are given in parentheses (our sun naturally traverses the Zodiac over the course of each year) and the numbers are their distances from us in light-years.  In the not-to-distant future I'll examine the nearest stars.  The distances I picked up from Wikipedia...I've noticed that some of them tend to vary from source to source...

1 THE SUN (The Zodiac)..................(.000016)
2 SIRIUS (Canis Major)...........................8.61
3 CANOPUS (Carina).............................312
4 ARCTURUS (Bootes)..........................36.7
5 ALPHA CENTAURI A (Centaurus).....4.40
6 VEGA (Lyra)........................................25.3
7 CAPELLA (Auriga)..............................42.2
8 RIGEL (Orion)......................................773
9 PROCYON (Canis Minor)....................11.4
10 ACHERNAR (Eridanus).....................144
11 BETELGEUSE (Orion).......................427
12 HADAR (Centaurus)...........................525
13 ALTAIR (Aquila)................................16.8
14 ACRUX (Crux)....................................321
15 ALDEBERAN (Taurus).......................65.1
16 SPICA (Virgo).....................................262
17 ANTARES (Scorpius).........................604
18 POLLUX (Gemini)..............................33.7
19 FOMALHAUT (Piscis Austrinis)........25.1
20 BECRUX (Crux)..................................353
21 DENEB (Cygnus).................................3229
22 ALPHA CENTAURI B (Centaurus)....4.40
23 REGULUS (Leo)..................................77.5

Just Finished Rereading Stephen King's The Tommyknockers

As I continue to look back through Stephen King's long bibliography, I just finished reading his 1987 allegorical science fiction novel The Tommyknockers.  While just about all good fiction is allegorical to a degree, this story is especially so.  Set once again in Stephen King's mythical Maine country, a huge chunk of its beginning focuses on Bobbi Anderson, a young writer of western novels who lives on the outskirts of the small town of Haven with her dog Peter.  The two enjoy their walks in the adjacent woods until one day Bobbi trips over some metal object sticking out of the ground.  As she starts to uncover it, she discovers not only that it goes down deep, but that it has an influence over her by giving her the ability to invent amazing things out of the ordinary objects she has around her.  The more the object is dug up, the more it exposes its effects in the air and soon more people in the vicinity and within Haven become similarly affected...one of the by-products being that they loose their teeth.  And they also become telepathic as the air around them changes its composition. Bobbi quickly becomes fanatically determined to fully dig up the artifact, and the townspeople join her...

In the meantime, Bobbi's on-and-off-again boyfriend Jim "Gard" Gardner, a poet of some talent with a drinking problem, has been making the recital circuit in the general area.  He has one issue that he regularly gets himself in trouble about: his adamant opposition to the use of nuclear energy.  One night at a party for the poets, he drinks way too much and encounters someone who is speaking in favor of nuclear power. A big fight ensues and when it is all over he finds himself waking up several days later out on a pier.  Wanting to end it all, he considering jumping into the sea, but mentally picks up the feeling that "Bobbi is in trouble" and returns to Haven.  There the two reunite and work together on the excavation: but Gard is impervious to the effects of what is now revealed to be a huge alien spacecraft because he has a metal plate in his head from a boyhood skiing accident...

So now, while necessarily leaving out a lot in this long book, I have essentially set up the scenario for The Tommyknockers...you're welcome to read it for yourself to find out what happens to Bobbi, Peter, Gard, and the rest of Haven (and others).  Instead, I'd like now to go back to that allegory, which is about the effects of drugs on people...since they are all mind-altering in nature and impart a sense of special power to their users, much like the effect of the ship on Bobbi and the Haven residents.  And abusers of the same chemicals tend to bond more with each other and insulate and rationalize their use against the "outside" world...just like in this story.  Of course, Jim Gardner is himself almost constantly in a state of intoxication through much of the narrative as well.  In the end, though, the altered people...the "Tommyknockers"...are really only smarter in a very specialized way and have very little common sense or social intelligence...

Stephen King himself admits that he wrote Tommyknockers while dealing with his own drug habit and that this was reflected in the story.  Today around us we are confronted with a dire opioid abuse epidemic that stems from carelessly prescribed pain medicine starting a few years ago and is now blossoming into mass heroin addiction across this country, with the death rate spiraling upward.  All drug abuse, from nicotine to alcohol to all sorts of illegal substances, functions to first imitate and enhance the effects of already naturally-established biological processes within our bodies and then, with regular use, to supplant them, thereby shutting them down when use is interrupted, causing withdrawal. Better to never get started with them in the first place, as Nancy Reagan used to urge us.  But seeing things for what they are is an important first step to recovery, and one useful lesson is that using this stuff doesn't really make you wiser or more enlightened in spite of what you might think while under the influence...

NFL Games in London and Mexico City

Starting in 2005 when Arizona played San Francisco in an October regular season game in Mexico City, the National Football League has been staging regular season games abroad, most of them in London, England and a few in Mexico City.  Apart from this project, the Buffalo Bills as a franchise decided to hold some games a few years ago in Toronto...that's a separate issue since all of those games were the Bills' home games.  One of the two main problems I see with this international promotion on the part of the NFL is that it interferes with the fairness of regular season team competition by regularly taking away a scheduled home game from one team while taking away an away contest from another.  This wouldn't be important were it not for the fact that home teams by and large do much better than the visitors...and some teams, like the Jacksonville Jaguars and Miami Dolphins, have too often had to bear the burden of giving up one of those precious home games during the year just to suit the league office's fancies.  This year, for example, both Jacksonville and Miami had "home" games in London while the Dolphins' chief divisional rival, New England gets a break with their ongoing "away" game against Oakland, the game taking place at the neutral site Mexico City.  I honestly don't know why the schedule makers go to so much trouble to ensure that every team in each division plays the same teams in other divisions in order to make it "fair" while at the same time pulling this grossly unfair stunt on some teams and their fans...

The other objection I have to staging NFL games in countries like England and Mexico is that the sport simply isn't played there.  When I was growing up, we were constantly starting up football games at the bus stop or during free time...in other countries like Mexico or England the kids would be doing the same with soccer, which is their version of football.  There is no way that American football will ever take hold over soccer in those countries, and the National Football League is very shortsighted for not seeing this.  But instead of cutting back, they keep expanding the schedule to hold more games abroad, penalizing certain franchises while favoring others.  Really bad idea, dudes...

Under the Weather, Resting and Watching TV

I could feel it coming on late Wednesday, and all day Friday I was virtually nonfunctional with this terrible viral attack that hit much harder than a regular cold...but not quite as bad as the flu.  Bad headache, coughing, sinus congestion, and general lack of vitality characterized this ailment.  Today was better...but I'm still a long way to recovery.  In the meantime, while I was essentially immobilized, I was able to take advantage of some free premium channel promotions that my local cable company (Cox in Gainesville) was offering.  All of the HBO channels and some of the other premium channels are being shown free of charge this weekend, and because of this I was able to "clean up" with some movies I had been meaning to watch.  I saw Spectre and Star Trek: Beyond, the latest two installments in the James Bond and Star Trek movie series, respectively.  I also watched Mockingjay, Parts I & II, based on the Hunger Games young adult book series that I had already read.  And I managed to finally watch JFK, Oliver Stone's conspiratorial masterpiece that laid out an alternative explanation for the assassination of our 35th president.  I enjoyed all of these...but that Star Trek movie was hard to follow with the plot's too-fast pace coupled with the overwhelming special effects: sometimes you can go just a little too far with the visuals at the story's expense.  I also enjoyed watching the University of Miami come from behind this afternoon to beat Virginia 44-28 and remain unbeaten, as well as "my" Florida Gators finally putting on an impressive performance while beating a good University of Alabama-Birmingham team 36-7.  And Michigan with their obnoxious coach Jim Harbaugh got whupped by Wisconsin, hooray...

Mexican league soccer is also on the boob tube right now, and I'll probably flick back and forth between football and that.  Speaking of soccer, after the American national team failed to qualify for next year's World Cup in Russia, I predict that the growing interest within this country for that sport will sadly diminish.  Aggravating the problem is that Major League Soccer, which is the premier professional league for the United States and Canada, had become very stingy with showing its games on TV, opting instead for premium packages that require extra payment.  Hey you soccer bigwigs: you don't pull that kind of nonsense with the viewing public when you're trying to promote your league and keep it afloat...

Quote of the Week...from Ludwig van Beethoven

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.      ---Ludwig van Beethoven

Music seems to be an intrinsic part of humanity, interwoven into the diversity of cultures all across the world.  From infancy onward we are exposed to songs that open up a part of our consciousness to a different way of communicating and thinking...my life memories have always had a parallel track of musical experiences that, while in themselves worthy of being remembered, also serve to help me vividly recall by association...often in detail...what was going on at different times in my past.  Recently I have begun to listen in earnest to classical music...it was inevitable that I would pick up a CD of one of my favorite works: Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in D-Minor, featuring what I consider to be one of the most fascinating pieces of music ever: the Second Movement...

Like many of you of a more senior age like myself, I was introduced to the Second Movement of Beethoven's Ninth as a child, at the closing credits of the Huntley-Brinkley Report, which was NBC's weeknight news program.  Eventually I learned that a very important musical genius named Beethoven composed it, which he accomplished while stone deaf!  But music does not have to be perceived through functioning ears to be heard: once I've heard a song a number of times, it independently plays itself within my mind...and to a trained musician like Beethoven this ability was probably greatly magnified.  In any event, I have that CD in my car and play that movement over and over again...and yes, my brain now plays it as well long after I've shut off the engine...

To bring Ludwig van Beethoven's quote to its proper conclusion, let me just say that music transcends language in its effect on people's personalities, values, and behavior.  And if a talented artist can effectively combine the music with meaningful lyrics, he or she can yield an enormous influence over others.  If you want to evaluate how our society has changed over the past few generations...for better or for worse...you cannot reach any reasonable conclusions as to the causes unless you seriously consider the effects that music has exerted on our world...

11/12 Sermon: Questions I'd Ask God, Part 2

Senior pastor Philip Griffin at the Family Church here in Gainesville continued his message series titled Questions I'd Ask God with this week's topic/question: How Could A Good God Allow People to Suffer?  In presenting it he focused on the New Testament story of Lazarus's death and resurrection found in John 11:1-44...here's a link to it in the New International Version translation via Bible Gateway: [link]...

Implied within the question "How could a good God allow people to suffer?" is the accusation that God is responsible for that suffering. As Pastor Philip pointed out, scripture however reveals that sin has brought into the world suffering and death. In this fallen world, people suffer yet they can turn to God, who not only uses their trials to accomplish good, but is also deeply moved by them.  Philip continued by noting that, while God is not the cause of people's suffering, he has entered into it and conquered death by sending into the world his son Jesus, who took on the sins of the world so that those who believe in him will be saved.  In the end, God will make all things new...and as written in Revelation 21:4-5, "He will wipe every tear from their eyes".  God is compassionate, but he is also good and just.  He wants all of us to freely choose to follow him and, through this, he will be glorified...

I think that this idea of people suffering because of the sin in the world can be one of the hardest doctrinal points of this faith to understand.  Little children can suffer more than anyone and yet they have little power or knowledge to understand fully the doctrines of sin and salvation.  I personally grasp that God has allowed us the free will to either accept or reject him, and that he did this in love.  But the kind of suffering that doesn't directly arise as a result of one's own behavior...say a devastating cyclone in Bangladesh, a tsunami in Thailand, a hurricane in Puerto Rico, or an earthquake in Mexico...can be hard to figure out in terms of our own sinful natures...

This sermon can be viewed on the Family Church YouTube video website...here's the link to it: [link].  The Family Church is at 2022 SW 122nd Street on the far western edge of Gainesville.  It holds Sunday morning services at 9:30 and 11 with inspiring, lively music, a relevant message, and opportunities for prayer and fellowship.  Wonder what the question will be next week...

Weekly Short Story: The Liberation of Earth by William Tenn

I read The Liberation of Earth several years ago when I bought the science fiction anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 15 (1953), published by DAW Books in 1986.  For some reason 1953 featured several outstanding short stories of this genre...I discussed Time is the Traitor by Alfred Bester in an earlier article.  Today's story is another one by William Tenn, the pen name for Philip Klass...you might have read my article about his 1959 story The Malted Milk Monster...

The narrative in The Liberation of Earth is from the future...nine generations after the described events.  One day an alien ship arrives on Earth and proclaims that they are the Dendi, who preside over the galactic federation and have been observing humanity from a distance...without interference...while we develop to the point when we are admitted as a participating member.  But events have interfered with this as the invading Troxxt have occupied nearby star systems and our solar system is within their sphere of influence.  To counteract them and "liberate" Earth from the Troxxt, the Dendi have arrived to set up their own base here.  Then the Troxxt attack and drive away the Dendi and proclaim themselves as liberators.  This conflict between the two galactic powers goes back and forth...and each time untold numbers of people are killed and the environment progressively ruined.  At the end, well...the story is told as an oral history handed down from generation to generation...the narrator gives a hint of his current situation on Earth by stating. "Looking about us, we can say with pardonable pride that we have been about as thoroughly liberated as it is possible for a race and a planet to be!"

The Liberation of Earth is a very thinly-veiled satire about how the East and West during the Cold War treated the many different countries that they deemed as strategic in their struggle against the other.  It was written at the opening of the Korean War in 1950 and published at its conclusion, three years later.  Each side in that conflict...as well as in Vietnam a few years later...made great public fanfare about "liberating" the country's people...while increasingly making their homeland uninhabitable.  After the Cold War we still have our proxy conflicts...look at the devastation in Syria and Yemen as other countries interfere with them while proclaiming themselves as liberators...

Earth as a proxy war target between two much more advanced alien races may seem a little bit too speculative for anyone to seriously consider as a possibility, but if you happen to live in one of the Third World countries with relatively little military might to defend themselves and you have little to interest you other than taking care of yourself, your family, and immediate community, the relatively sudden presence of super military powers and "wars of liberation" on your land may seem just as far-fetched to you...and just as tragic...

Tuesday's List: Ten Leading Causes of Bankruptcy

I was watching the U.S. Senate floor proceedings on C-Span2 this morning when Senator Dick Durbin (D, IL) spoke about the proposed Republican tax reform bill...specifically its provision eliminating deductions for medical expenses.  Durbin pointed out that many households have large accrued medical expenses and need this deduction to keep themselves afloat...he said there were more than 300,000 in his home state of Illinois alone.  This is nothing minor: as the senator stated, medical expenses account for the number one cause of bankruptcies in this country...and it's not even close.  Well, Durbin's speech made me wonder exactly what are the primary causes for bankruptcy, so afterward I did a search and quickly came across Clear Bankruptcy, which seems to be designed to help people in tough financial straits: good for them, I suppose...there are other sites that have similar lists.  On their webpage they listed the top ten causes of bankruptcy, which I've listed below:

1 MEDICAL EXPENSES (42%)
2 JOB LOSS (22%)
3 UNCONTROLLED SPENDING (15%)
4 DIVORCE (8%)
5 UNEXPECTED DISASTER (7%)
6 AVOIDING FORECLOSURE (1.5%)
7 POOR FINANCIAL PLANNING (1.5%)
8 PREVENTING LOSS OF UTILITIES (1%)
9 STUDENT LOANS (1%)
10 PREVENTING REPOSSESSION (1%)

Now I believe that for many of the bankruptcy cases the causes are probably a mixture of different factors coming together for a "perfect financial storm", but it is inarguable that medical expenses present a very big problem for Americans, regardless how well they plan their finances and handle their money. And it's because of our health care system here that, Obamacare notwithstanding, still regards medical treatment more as a privilege than a right.  It is almost academic that as people age their health will decline and more and more serious medical problems will present themselves.  And with the improvement of the medical community's means to handle those problems with often very expensive treatments comes a drastic increase in the costs, which can devastate people's finances, often just as they are either preparing for retirement or already there.  And now one of our political parties apparently wants to aggravate the problem by eliminating medical tax deductions. If this provision of the tax reform bill becomes law, expect that "42%" figure to get higher (other sources already have it as high as 62%)...

Need to Learn Robert's Rules of Order

I regularly watch the televised proceedings of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate on C-Span1 and C-Span 2.  Sometimes, though, I get confused and lost as to what exactly they are talking about...tabling, reconsidering, quorum, objections...these and many other aspects of parliamentary-constructed meetings are obviously necessary, since they are used so much.  Yet I don't know all the ins-and-outs on when, how...and, most importantly...why they are used.  My own union local also uses the rules of order, and having started attending its bi-monthly meetings in September, I am similarly taken a little aback at how the proceedings flow there.  Supposedly, Robert's Rules of Order lay out everything one needs to know regarding how to conduct such meetings, and I feel it's about time I learned them.  Of course, sometimes in these assemblies the rules can get to be stretched or overlooked, and it's always good that the participants go into them with a spirit of comity, which is the attitude and expression of mutual courtesy and respect.  Sometimes this can be difficult with some folks by their nature, and also the degree of familiarity they might feel about those with whom they are attending.  I do know from watching the U.S. Senate for some sixteen years that it is possible to engage in some pretty passionate verbal combat on some issues while at the same time maintaining a sense of at least formally-expressed goodwill toward the opposing speaker, being deliberately generous with praise...and absolutely NO criticism or animosity on a personal level.  So order and civility go hand in hand in formal meetings, be they legislative, labor, or any other kind...it's probably a good idea to become well-trained in both...

Some People Change When They Get Behind the Wheel

I never was a particularly adept middle-to-long distance runner, although in the end that seems to be the sport I took to for much of my life, especially for the last ten years.  When I was growing up, I was in fact a pretty ferocious sprinter in high school and did very well in the 50-yard dash...until around the 11th grade when fellow classmates grew up past me.  But one crucial difference that made running the longer distances more attractive to my higher instincts was that it forced me to go out into the world to train...when my natural inclinations were bent toward staying home, safely indoors. And consequently, I got to observe the flow of that world around me, including how people tended to compartmentalize themselves in their motor vehicles...anonymous to the world while I was out there in the open, along with the other runners, pedestrians, and bicyclists.  I noticed that when folks were safely ensconced in their cars, they would sometimes shed the common respect and courtesies they would normally be careful to display were they personally identifiable.  So cars would honk at me for exercising my right-of-way, curses yelled safely from behind windows as they sped by...once someone threw their soft drink at me just to be an [expletive deleted]. And I've experienced eggs, glass beer bottles, and even a firecracker thrown at me while riding my bicycle on different occasions.  This dichotomy between the insulated and unaccountable masses and the vulnerable few (like me) came to influence my view of the world and human nature...

For most of us, we slip in and out of situations where we are traveling in motor vehicles and walking, running, or bicycling.  Yet a few don't have that option: for various reasons, someone may be forced to walk or bike to wherever they need to go...many others have to take public transit and spend much of their time walking to and from bus stops.  But in a city like Gainesville, the traffic is weighed very heavily in favor of road travel, and pedestrians are often overlooked as drivers allow themselves to get distracted by their various gadgets that they like to play with when they should be paying attention to where they are going.  The other day, Tommy, a middle-aged man whom people in this area had come to know well and who due to his life circumstances had to resort to walking to get where he wanted to go, was crossing NW 39th Avenue from his home, just across from where I am sitting here in this Starbucks.  A car was switching lanes and took no notice of the pedestrian stepping out onto the pavement and struck him, killing him.  Now there is one of those sad flowery memorial displays at the site to remind us...or at least try to remind us...to please look out for people and not just take the narrow view of the vehicles around us when we drive.  But I look back at the conclusions I drew from running roadside way back then in the 1970s and I know it's all probably an exercise in futility: some people just go through an ugly metamorphosis whenever they get behind the wheel.  I don't know the exact details of what the driver who hit Tommy was thinking or doing...or even whether Tommy may have stepped out too soon...but I have had too many personal experiences over the years with drivers who imperiled my life with their distracted or aggressive driving and others who harassed me while I was out there walking, running, or bicycling.  Yet if I encountered any of the same people in a store or restaurant...in person...I'm confident that they would all be on their best behavior...