WMI Blog

Slogging Through Life Lately

2012-02-02T11:48:00.006-05:00

Sometimes life can get to be a real slog, when just getting through the day intact without giving up while maintaining possession of one's mental and emotional faculties represents a triumph. As far as my family is concerned, each of us seems to be in this state to varying degrees, dealing with ongoing difficulties that are specific to each of our personal walks through life. One reason for this is that we tend not to be satisfied with the status quo and "take it easy". Instead, we immerse ourselves in various projects, often with no guarantee of success. And if that eventual success does come, it may be too far down the road to enjoy any immediate satisfaction or even encouragement. In the meantime, pressures and stress can cause anxiety and discouragement.

I have set out on this blog to shield the private, personal lives of my family, so I will just speak for myself. I feel great physically and could even run a marathon right now, but had decided that half-marathons were the way to go with my running. But because of a medically diagnosed congenital anomaly that is symptomless, I have been advised by my doctor to be more cautious with my running. But I know that running doesn't stress me. Still, I feel that others in my family get concerned when they see me go out on long runs. And I know there is opposition there to me running in races, especially a race on the order of a half-marathon. Still, I think that running one more before the marathon season closes in Florida won't hurt me, and I am considering doing this. Just an hour ago I ran seven miles around my neighborhood under very unseasonably warm and humid conditions. No problem.

I have various academic projects that I am engaged in and, in my own personal estimation, am making unsatisfactory progress with (according to my own standards). This are activities I undertake on my own, so self-motivation and discipline are essential to success. But these projects are at least under my personal control, with outside forces playing no major role in hindering my pursuit of them.

And then there is my work environment, existing under a cloud of uncertainty as to what the highest levels of management within my organization will do regarding the consolidation of processing plants and forced employee transfers to other work locations (in the case of Gainesville, either to Jacksonville or Tampa) during the next few months. And whether they will try to change the parameters about retirement eligibility and then force those employees thus deemed eligible into retirement.

Let's just say that, around me in my current life, exists a state of instability and uncertainty that runs contrary to what I want to experience from day to day. I want more control over my circumstances and don't like the feeling that whatever happens, in many different areas, seems like a roll of the dice...

Florida GOP Primary and Gainesville Commission Election

2012-01-31T23:33:00.005-05:00

Today was the moved-up date for the Florida Republican Presidential Primary. Simultaneously, Gainesville held elections in two city commissioner races, open to both Republicans and non-Republicans to vote in. Since the GOP primary occurred on the same day, there was a higher percentage of Republican voters in this election, and consequently the possibility of conservatives being elected to the commission. This was not to be: a liberal won one race outright while a liberal and conservative will participate in a run-off election in a few weeks. Generally, unless there is some special issue involved, these types of at-large elections in Gainesville end with the liberal candidate winning with about 55-60 % of the vote. We'll see what happens.

Mitt "Not Obama" Romney, formerly Mitt "Not Newt" Romney, formerly Mitt "Not Herman Cain" Romney, formerly Mitt "Not Rick Perry" Romney, may have finally found a name that will "stick" after his lopsided victory in Florida today. But as Romney's overwhelmingly negative ads against Gingrich have affirmed, this man's identity and appeal to Republican voters seems to be that he isn't somebody else they dislike even more. The Republican establishment, however, seems to have come to the conclusion that Mitt Romney is a potential president that they can handle, much like the way George W. Bush was. God help us.

Super Bowl Approaching, Pro Bowl Happily Past

2012-01-30T04:15:00.006-05:00

So once again we will see the New York Giants squaring off against the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. Four years after the last one, won by NY with a last minute touchdown pass, the teams have a lot of different players. However, their quarterbacks Eli Manning and Tom Brady, along with their head coaches Tom Coughlin and Bill Belichick, are back.

As I earlier had written, of the twelve teams making this season's National Football League playoffs, the Giants were my favorite while the Patriots were my least favorite. So there's no wavering on my part as to which team I'll be pulling for: New York!

Actually, it's kind of sad about New England and me: the only reason I don't support them is that they are divisional rivals to my Miami Dolphins. Otherwise, I probably would have been "on their side" because of the smart and cohesive way this team has consistently played their games over the past eleven years.

The Super Bowl will be played next Sunday. Yesterday we were subjected to the all-star Pro Bowl, a complete joke to watch with its special rules designed to protect the players from injuries (e.g. no blitzing allowed). So the offensive players get to look like the heroes while the defensive players get to look like goats as the touchdowns accumulate, making this annual fiasco's final scores look more like basketball scores than football. If I were an NFL defensive player, I would take "offense" at this...

Tragic Accidents on I-75 in Fog, Fire, Darkness

2012-01-29T23:58:00.004-05:00

There was a terrible highway disaster this morning a few miles south of Gainesville on I-75 as it crossed Paynes Prairie, a grassland area suffering a brush fire during a very foggy morning. Combined with the early morning darkness, driving visibility along this stretch was suddenly nonexistent, causing a series of collisions and explosions. At last report, there were ten fatalities from this calamity. Photos from later today revealed a nightmare scene full of burnt out fragments of vehicles, some piled on others. Here is the CNN story about it.

I first heard of this as I was taking my family to lunch at the Cracker Barrel off Archer Road. The Interstate overpass was clearly visible: nothing but a long stream of standstill traffic. I-75 was closed following the accidents and at this late time may still not be open. The very slow-moving vehicles we saw through the restaurant's dining room window facing the overpass were probably eventually forced off at the next and last exit before the closure.

To compound things, it was reported that this treacherous stretch of I-75 running through Paynes Prairie had been closed by the Florida Highway Patrol earlier in the night due to the very same problem of hindered visibility from the fire, fog, and night conditions. However, somebody with authority made an early morning decision to re-open the road. Soon thereafter the accidents occurred. I would not like to be in that person's shoes...

Offering Nonexistent Running Race Photos

2012-01-28T22:16:00.003-05:00

During the longer, more expensive running races like marathons and half-marathons, the race organizers usually allow a professional photographer to take pictures of the entrants and later offer to sell whichever prints the runner may want to buy. While I am running in these events, I do see these people from time to time, apparently looking right at me with their impressive looking cameras and ostensibly photographing me in the act of running past them. Sometimes I am bunched in with other runners and my race-tag number may not be openly visible, but usually I am by myself. And my entrant number is also clearly visible. So tell me, then...

Why is it that always, in the inevitable e-mails I get from these "pros" hawking their racing photos of me, they just didn't happen to get any pictures of me? It happens race after race after race. Since 2008 I have run many races, many of them supplied with a photographer for hire. But NOT ONCE has ANY of them been able to come up with ONE SINGLE photograph that they could sell me!

It reached the point of absurdity a few days ago when I received an e-mail from the photographer of the recent Ocala Marathon/Half-Marathon telling me my pictures were ready and would I like to view them. One problem, though: I didn't even show up to run the race!

These photographers seriously need to get their act together, especially in this age of convenient digital photography. After all, I could bring my own digital camera (or even my cellphone) and just ask a spectator to please take my picture. Nevertheless, I have entertained the notion of actually buying one of these professional photos of me running. But it's hard to do that when nothing's offered...

The "Newt is Mean" Mantra

2012-01-27T09:54:00.004-05:00

Being no fan of Newt Gingrich and having no desire to ever vote for him, I am nevertheless a little taken aback at how the media, on both the political left and right, has been recently coming down on him for being mean to opponent Mitt Romney. It seems that the much-more financially-powerful Romney campaign can barrage television with an endless string of ads disparaging Gingrich's past in a very distorted way. At the same time, whenever Gingrich puts out any ad criticizing Romney, a drove of media political pundits (or hacks, depending on your perspective) like Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, and Chris Matthews (strange bedfellows, right?) rush to attack Newt. This double standard reminds me of the 1980 Carter-Reagan campaign in which Jimmy Carter couldn't bring up anything in a critical manner about "nice guy" Ronald Reagan without being accused of being mean.

Newt Gingrich, no doubt, has a very aggressive, abrasive nature to his speech. He panders to the audience in these debates by verbally dressing down the moderator every chance he gets. In this way, he reminds me, in a very negative way, of the arrogance of an earlier candidate, Herman Cain. But after seeing the monolithic bloc of Republicans in Congress hell-bent on stymieing ANYTHING the Obama administration is trying to do in the country's interests, I appreciate the independent thinking of Mr. Gingrich on various issues.

For one, Newt Gingrich is the only candidate I know who has a vision about America's future in space. He wants bases on the moon. Somehow, that makes him a target for ridicule, but isn't that more in line with our earlier goals (including the previous president George W. Bush)? I like the way Gingrich defends Israel. I like the way he has demonstrated interest in a more reasonable policy toward undocumented immigrants that includes a timetable for eventual amnesty. I like the way he understood the need for both political parties to come together on the issue of climate change. In other words, I appreciate that this candidate seems to have a sense of vision, something that Mr. Romney, with his ledger sheet mentality, is sorely lacking.

But Newt Gingrich nevertheless still stands for the very wealthy over the rest of us when it comes to taxation. He is bellicose when it comes to nations with which we have problems. He is unsympathetic to the plight of the poor. He supports the government legislating morality and intruding on the very personal, private sexual and reproductive matters of its citizens. He is gung-ho about selectively interpreting the Second Amendment on gun rights, like others on this issue ignoring the part about "a well-regulated militia".

I don't want to grow old poor, nor do I want my children and their descendants to have a bleak economic future. I don't want another Republican war, and sadly, I see a distinct possibility of this if either Gingrich or Romney are elected. And I don't want to live in a country where one version of religion has co-opted our government to the point where I have to abide by a new set of laws promoting one narrow interpretation of morality.

So nix to Newt, as far as I'm concerned. But that being said, he deserves more respect and even-handed treatment than he is currently enjoying...

Dude, Where's My Winter?

2012-01-26T07:32:00.004-05:00

This morning at 7:30, as I sit here writing this, the temperature outside is 60, about 30 degrees warmer than what I would have expected this time of year. Today's high here in Gainesville, Florida is forecast to reach 83, a near-record and not representing anything like winter conditions. And with the exception of a couple of cold days earlier this month, this has been typical of this year's edition of winter.

I have mixed feelings about this. I really, really deeply dislike it when we get around freezing (and below). And I even have a tendency to complain in the morning when it's only down into the 40's. But as the day progresses, I usually become accustomed to the cold and switch from "dislike" to "dig". Forget this year, though, at least so far...

Tomorrow it's supposed to rain a lot and then gradually get cooler. Yeah, I'll believe it when I feel it!

Philbin New Dolphins Head Coach

2012-01-24T23:38:00.002-05:00

Joseph "Joe" Philbin, who has been a very successful offensive coordinator for the Green Bay Packers, has been hired as the new head coach of the Miami Dolphins. Since this is his first professional football head coaching job, who knows how he will do. But I see a lot of promise in this team and its current roster of players. I think the Dolphins are at a crucial turning point, much like they were when they finished 3-10-1 and in last place after the 1969 season. Then they hired Don Shula, made the playoffs the very next year at 10-4 and then went to the Super Bowl the following three years, winning two and enjoying the only perfect, undefeated season in NFL football in 1972. Not that they will do that well under Philbin: I just would like them to return to their old tradition of consistently enjoying winning seasons and occasional playoff appearances.

But just because Miami has a new head coach, that doesn't mean that he has control over which players the Dolphins draft or trade for. So he has to work with what he is dealt by others, although I certainly hope that this franchise's owner and general manager will take his expert opinions into account when they make these crucial decisions. And some of these decisions will come soon, with the looming April college draft and the prospect of possibly even getting the great Peyton Manning from the Colts...

A, B, C, and Facebook

2012-01-23T00:02:00.005-05:00

There are three people, all of whom I personally know, who use Facebook (I have consistently tended to avoid it). To protect their identities, I will take a page out of the old sci-fi/spy TV series The Prisoner and simply refer to them as A, B, and C.

Each of A, B, and C has their own individual Facebook account. A is friends with B and B is friends with C, but A is not friends with C (I certainly wouldn't include C as a "friend" either, although we're on amiable terms). Still, the two know each other mainly from years gone by but are now primarily "connected" due to the fact that B is friends with both. A's social network wouldn't necessarily include B, but sometimes compromises have to be made and B became A's Facebook friend because they are bound together within the same family unit. Also, B's friends generally are not the kind of people that A would want as a Facebook friend...including C. Got all that?

The way Facebook is set up, unless a member takes draconian measures to greatly restrict others' access to their page, parties not considered to be their friends can nevertheless conveniently access their page due to a mutual third party friend, in this case B. This unfortunately allows for a bit of unwelcome snooping, which is probably an unspoken, secret source of appeal for a lot of Facebook users. The imperative "mind your own business" has very few adherents here in this neck of the "Webs".

The other day, A apparently wrote something on A's own Facebook page that C, viewing (or, to put it more accurately, snooping) via B, read and found to be offensive language. C then wrote on A's page a strongly worded, self-righteous rebuke for this. But A wasn't even remotely considering C to be a reader of that message, and C must have known that but decided to butt in anyway. And it's true that C could have accessed A on Facebook via their search engine, but the facts that A and B were family and B was C's friend probably emboldened C to make that post (and made it much more likely that C read A's page in the first place). Keeping up with me? Good, because then you can explain to me what I just said. So...

There are some clear conclusions to be drawn from this. One is that Facebook is a very flawed way to share one's thoughts with others, especially if those thoughts are of an emotional or intimate nature. For unless the user has put major restrictions on access, it must be assumed that, eventually, pretty much anybody will have access. So user beware!

Another pitfall is the use of the designation "friend" to describe someone allowed in another user's personal network. This puts pressure on the user to avoid hurting people's feelings and let them be "friends" when in truth such a title should be handed out with care and good judgement. Also, removing someone from a "friends" list is bound to ruffle some feelings as well, with the implication of personal rejection that it implies. Why not use something neutral, even maybe nonsensical, like "gizmo" or "node" instead of "friend"? After all, I'm not particularly interested in being anyone's "gizmo" to begin with, so ending that relationship wouldn't exactly send me into fits of despair...

Now with this blog of mine being nearly universally accessible on the Internet, you might wonder why I wouldn't want to just transfer it over to Facebook. And you know, I might just try that by deliberately offering links to articles certain to rankle the sensibilities, not necessarily of my small number of Facebook "friends", but rather of the uninvited closet Facebook voyeurs who would access me through others. As a matter of fact, having witnessed Newt Gingrich's feisty performance in that recent GOP debate in South Carolina, I have been inspired: after all, I can do better than some gingry anthropomorphized salamander, for crying out loud!

Wrapping all of this up (which is hard to do because I could keeping going on and on), Facebook itself has some pitfalls that can snare users who are not careful with what they put on it. The solution is two-fold: primarily, users need to grow up, grow some common sense, and start taking personal responsibility about how they express themselves. And Facebook either will change its structure or another competitor will eventually displace it as the primary Internet networking site. As it currently exists, I'm not all that keen on Facebook. But then again, I may have the opposite problem than does A: I haven't yet used it to express myself. Once I do, though, I expect a constant stream of rebukes, not just from C, but also from D, E, F, G, H, ...

Missed Ocala Half-Marathon But Still Running

2012-01-22T19:34:00.004-05:00

Well, it was disappointing for this morning to go by without me down in Ocala running in their half-marathon race, for which I had already registered and paid the entry fee. Still, I'm doing all right, considering. Yesterday I drove down there anyway to pick up my racing packet, along with this year's Ocala Half-Marathon tee-shirt (which I plan to proudly wear during my future running, falsely giving the impression that I actually ran in it). Later today I went to run on my YMCA's treadmill, initially planning on around 4 miles but ending up running 9. I guess that's a consolation of sorts, and it was the longest run I have done since my January 1 DeLeon Springs Half-Marathon.

I don't plan to keep running this length, but rather keep the distance around 4 miles. I think that's a pretty reasonable balance, at least for the immediate future, between the various options that have been presented to me lately. Also, I may be resuming my swimming in the near future: that's almost a sure bet to cause the weather to turn cold in this very unseasonably warm winter!

The Firm, Mitt, Cayman, Synchronicity

2012-01-21T23:58:00.000-05:00

I just finished reading John Grisham's excellent, gripping novel The Firm. Perhaps you have either read it or watched the film version starring Tom Cruise (or both). Or maybe you're going to get involved watching the spin-off TV series. But for me, a novel many years old is suddenly very, very timely.

Part of the story in The Firm involves how the tiny Caribbean island of Grand Cayman is used as a haven for wealthy American tax dodgers to legally avoid paying federal tax on their holdings by depositing their money in one or more of the hundreds of banks set up there just for that one purpose. Several important scenes in the novel take place there (even though it isn't the primary setting). But it is crucial to the story...

Call it coincidence or call it synchronicity (which I personally define, for all practical purposes, to be "useful coincidence"), but this decades-old novel I just happened to pick up recently and read suddenly has relevance in the news of today.

Enter now Mitt Romney and the very recent allegation that he also has large deposits on the Caymans in order to, well, you know...

In The Firm, those who used offshore tax havens like Grand Cayman to avoid paying taxes were depicted as being technically law-abiding, but still shady and slimy characters that perhaps a young, idealistic lawyer like the story's protagonist may not take too kindly to (no worry: he really was O.K. with it, in a fictional sort of way). So I wonder to myself whether our possibly next president fits the description of someone who would take every legal means possible to squirm his way out of paying his due share of taxes? I think that is a more relevant question to ask than for the intimate, personal details of a very private conversation that Newt Gingrich may (or may not) have had with a former wife, don't you? After all, isn't the president, by virtue of his position in office, heavily involved in determining how much tax you and I will be paying?

Running Cut Back for Health Reasons

2012-01-20T23:58:00.000-05:00

After consulting on January 17 with the physician/specialist/surgeon tending to my particular ongoing medical condition, I decided to suspend further participation in half-marathon races until the issue is eventually resolved. Instead, I will cut back my running to my old 1970s level, which was about 3-4 miles per run. I respect my doctor's recent more cautionary input (than what he told me three months ago), although in fact the recent test procedure I underwent produced no sign that things were worsening. However, the fact that he has run a marathon himself gives his advice more credibility to me than had it come from someone with a more sedentary lifestyle.

I hate to sound so cryptic about what's going on with me medically, but for the time being that's all I'll say for now, except that it is congenital in origin and can be surgically corrected. I am not suffering at all and continue to go about my business as usual. Life goes on like before, and so does my running...except that I'm neither entering half-marathons nor training for them.

Wikipedia 24-Hour Protest Blackout

2012-01-18T09:17:00.002-05:00

This morning I got on the Wikipedia site to look up something. Suddenly, a black screen came up with the notification that the site was blacked out for 24 hours in opposition to congressional legislation that they believe would greatly restrict and hamper the free flow of information on the Internet. While noting that today's Gainesville Sun carried nothing about the protest blackout being staged by various sites against anti-piracy Internet legislation in Congress, I was able to find an article about it in the Independent Florida Alligator. According to it, the SOPA and PIPA bills, under consideration in the House and Senate respectively, would allow entertainment companies to shut down domains that not only host material they deem to be pirated but even just offer a link. I had read earlier on that the Obama Administration opposed these bills for a different reason: the technical parameters included in the bills would inhibit our nation's security agencies from effectively combating cyber-terrorism and malicious hacking. Not being technically versed in the subject, I wonder about a few things...

How do I know for sure if some site I link to on this blog contains pirated material or not? So how would closing my site down in any way be justified? And I have surfed the blogosphere many, many times and discovered how much other bloggers make free use of obviously copyright-protected pictures to enhance the visual appeal of their own blogs. Since this is a pervasive phenomenon, would all of these blogs get shut down, too?

Entertainment companies do not own the Internet and should not have the right to cut the flow of free speech based on their desires for profit. I am sure that piracy and copyright infringement are big problems, but there has to be a better way to deal with them other then give big business even more power over individual people. There is already too much of that going on as it is!

Anyway, isn't there already a mechanism for dealing with piracy and copyright infringement? If you think that someone is messing with your proprietary rights in these ways, then take them to court and sue them if notifying them first doesn't do the trick! I'm not all that well versed in law either, but it seems that these bills are an attempt to criminalize activities that traditionally have belonged in civil, not criminal law courts. Not good.

NFL Conference Championship Games Next

2012-01-17T23:11:00.000-05:00

After the first two rounds of the National Football League playoffs this season, we are finally approaching the weekend when the conference champions will be crowned and set against each other for the next Super Bowl. So far, I have been generally pleased as my favorite playoff teams from each conference have still survived: the Baltimore Ravens in the American Conference and the New York Giants in the National. Unfortunately, my most disliked team has made it as well: the New England Patriots. And another team I don't particularly care for (because of its very annoying coach), the San Francisco 49ers, finishes the field. Hopefully, Baltimore will take care of New England and New York will continue to shine in the post-season against San Fran. But for this to happen will entail two underdog victories, both on the road. Certainly possible, but not likely.

Regardless who wins the upcoming games, this year's Super Bowl matchups will be interesting, with the following possibilities:

New England vs. New York: A rematch of the great Super Bowl four years ago when the Giants scored a come-from-behind touchdown with 35 seconds left in the game to upset the undefeated Patriots.

Baltimore vs. New York: A rematch of the Super Bowl eleven years ago, won convincingly by the then-surging Ravens 34-7. I rooted for Baltimore back then, but if this scenario repeats I will pull for the Giants instead.

New England vs. San Francisco: This would be for bragging rights as the best team spanning many years as each has already won several titles and is looking to add to their totals. San Francisco has never lost a Super Bowl.

Baltimore vs. San Francisco: This game would pit brothers against each other as head coaches: Baltimore's John Harbaugh and San Francisco's Jim Harbaugh.

So we'll see how it all turns out. I have enjoyed this year's playoffs more than those in the past, it seems. And I see both of these games as promising a lot of excitement. Of course, I would rather have seen Miami or one of the other two Florida teams in the Super Bowl, but they were all pretty bad this year: all three of their head coaches were fired!

Tiring Training Run Today

2012-01-16T17:05:00.001-05:00

Today I went on a more strenuous training run to prepare for the upcoming Ocala Half-Marathon next Sunday. I covered 6.76 miles today, a little over half the race's distance. But my main emphasis was to run some hills: the Ocala event is loaded with them. I managed the run O.K., but I felt more tired than usual. There was a very strong easterly wind hitting me for about two miles on the course, so that probably contributed a bit to the unpleasantness of this run.

I'll try a couple more of these runs on Wednesday and Friday with the other days either running around the block a couple of times or just not running at all. Hopefully, I will have more energy...

Gingrich Falters Against Romney

2012-01-15T23:58:00.004-05:00

Recently I wrote an article decrying the smear TV ad campaign raging against Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich by shadow groups supporting Mitt Romney. The ads went out of their way to claim that they weren't affiliated with any specific candidate. No, they just happened to come out when Gingrich was riding high in the polls against the only other serious contender. However, I didn't hear any of the other candidates crying foul about the mud being anonymous slung at him and at great expense. But when the former Georgia representative and House Speaker began to run his own anti-Romney ads, it seemed that most of the Republican Party establishment as well as media blabbermouths like Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham vociferously chastised him for this. Gingrich's popularity in the polls plummeted, leaving only theocratic extremist Rick Santorum as the only real challenger left to Romney. And what do you know: now we are seeing stealth ads attacking him as well, of course again without mentioning Mitt Romney as their source.

No fan of Newt Gingrich, I nevertheless feel that I can listen to the guy and at least believe that he is telling me what he is thinking, as slanted and opposed to my values and priorities those opinions may sometimes be. Mitt Romney, on the other hand, is a chameleon who sizes up whatever situation he is in and simply delivers what he thinks his audience wants to hear. Can anyone truly say what kind of president he would be if elected? At least, with Gingrich, you have a reasonable idea of what you are going to get.

In the final analysis, I believe Newt Gingrich’s biggest mistake was to direct his ad campaign against Romney based on the latter’s cutthroat business management techniques, when he took over a large corporation and proceeded to make a killing by chopping up companies and laying off workers. By criticizing him for this, Gingrich ran afoul of the true Republican base agenda, which when all of the emotional hot-button issues like guns, Muslims, abortion, and gay rights are factored out, consists of promoting the interests of the rich and powerful. He should have known better, but at least I respect him for this more than I do Mitt Romney.

Full Speed Ahead for Upcoming Ocala Half-Marathon

2012-01-14T12:24:00.005-05:00

I am looking forward to returning to Ocala and points south for my second go at their annual race. This year, though, I am forsaking their marathon event for the half-marathon (actually, both races take place simultaneously) in line with my firm decision to pursue the 13.1 mile races (along with 15K races) as a regular, sustainable "hobby". Training for marathons is just too time-consuming and injury-producing for me, and I have other things to do in my life other than just run, run, run. Besides, since I switched my emphasis to the "short" race, I noticed that half-marathon races are much more common and available (and cheaper) than are the marathons. In fact, the two I have run in recently had no marathon component. Also, as is the case with the Ocala Marathon, the 26.2 mile version involves repeating a substantial portion of the course. Still, I prefer that to the "there and back along the same road" courses I've experienced recently on the Hawthorne Trail with November's Tom Walker Memorial race and (Volusia) County Road Three with New Year's De Leon Springs race.

The Ocala Half-Marathon has a non-repeating course, and I am pretty familiar with it from last year's marathon. In fact, I got to know parts of it TOO well as I slowly walked the race's last seven miles due to an IT-band leg injury that made it too painful to run the full distance. This year, although experiencing different health issues, I seem fit enough to handle the course, at least the half-marathon course, that is.

After the January 1 race, I had toned down my training distances, although I still maintained a daily running regimen. Yesterday I ran seven miles with plenty of energy and a good recovery, giving me much-needed confidence for the January 22 Ocala race. I needed that run when I did it, too, because this race's organizers require registration by this weekend in order to participate in it. Today I'll sign up...

The Ocala Half-Marathon will be the third straight race for me that takes place in a primarily rural setting. Personally, I prefer city races, which are more interesting with their landmarks and interesting sites. Next month, if all goes well in Ocala, I should be running in two such races: Tallahassee on February 5 and Gainesville (Five Points) on February 19. We'll see...

The Code

2012-01-13T09:09:00.009-05:00

The NFL's New York Jets, for me, is a very interesting team. Be it not for the fact that they are divisional rivals to my Miami Dolphins, I would probably be rooting for them on a regular basis. For the previous two years, nevertheless, as soon as it became clear that the Dolphins wouldn't make the playoffs, I pulled for the Jets instead. They did well, coming within a game each time of making the Super Bowl. This year, however, they seemed to undergo an internal meltdown. I blame the coach, Rex Ryan, for this.

Ryan is a boisterous, larger than life (both literally and figuratively) person who initially whipped up a lot of enthusiasm, both among the players and the fans, with his loud, opinionated banter. But lately that banter has turned into rancor, with the Coach running down other teams' coaches and even opposing players in the media. Now we hear certain anonymous Jets players following their coach's example as they run down their own starting quarterback Mark Sanchez.

There is a unspoken code governing not just football teams but also just about any organized group that frowns very heavily upon members going public with their grievances. But when one of the leaders is an undisciplined motor-mouth, an example gets set that encourages this type of behavior among the ranks. How different it is in other organizations, say the Green Bay Packers, where respect and discretion prevail from top management to the lowest sub players on the roster!

Wow, I just wrote an entire article about NFL football without mentioning HIS name. At least I THINK I did...

Afflictions Again

2012-01-12T23:58:00.001-05:00

Once again I am dealing with a small assortment of annoying afflictions that are causing some grief in my daily existence. Still, I am managing to function through it all, although without very much enjoyment. My running training has suffered somewhat, with my mileage taking a substantial dip. I still plan to enter the Ocala Half-Marathon, scheduled for Sunday, January 22. Hopefully, by that time things will have improved for me.

Cramped, Overcrowded Running Races

2012-01-11T09:53:00.004-05:00

I am primarily a lone runner. I don't run in order to compete in races. Races to me are just a punctuation to my running hobby, nothing more, although I do tend to train up to an approaching event. So when I do compete in an occasional race, my reaction to it and how it is organized is bound to be different from others with a more competitive motive to their running. One of these differences is how I react to the number of participants in a race.

As such a solitary runner, I don't need that many accompanying runners to give myself the feeling of participating in a social, group event. For example, the two relatively low-key half-marathons I have recently run in had around 200 runners in each of them. But even with this small number, I found the races' starts to be overly cramped and constricting, even having to wait several seconds before even walking, then running very slowly (so as not to trip over anyone or be trampled), and then finally reaching the starting line. I ran my last half-marathon in well under 1 hour and 56 minutes, but left with the "official" time of 1:56:07, some of that time patiently spent just waiting to get to the starting line! And even after that was accomplished, I spent the first mile or two boxed in by slower runners. So who knows how fast I could have run had the field been much smaller. And the idea of lining up near the front at the race's beginning, which I had done before in earlier 5K races, doesn't work either: many slow runners seem to take a perverse pleasure in maneuvering themselves ahead of others at the beginning, even though they should well know that they are just impeding faster runners.

But having said all that, I still think that these races were worth running. And then I read about an upcoming March 15K (9.3 miles) race in Jacksonville: 10,000 runners are expected! Still, that's nowhere near the 24,000 who "raced" in the Walt Disney World marathon. Why run in such an overwhelmingly crowded event? I pondered about this a little while, and then it hit me...

It's the mob appeal phenomenon that one sees on Times Square at New Years Eve, rock concerts, major sporting events, mass protest demonstrations, etc. It is as if, after a certain threshold has been passed, the appeal of these events is not the nature of the event itself but rather in being in the midst of the gathering of a very large mass of people in close quarters pursuing the same agenda. That's why people will continue to sign up for overcrowded races that are a complete joke to run in.

The only reason I will ever participate in one of those mega-races with its thousands of runners is to play the role of tourist and engage in a lot of sight-seeing during my run. Otherwise, I think that I'll just stick to my more enjoyable (and much less expensive) jaunts around my neighborhood and vicinity...

Saban's Title Shallow to Me

2012-01-10T23:58:00.005-05:00

The University of Alabama's head football coach Nick Saban is currently relishing his team's NCAA championship after they drubbed top-ranked and formerly unbeaten LSU 21-0 Monday night. They certainly looked like the best team in the country to me after they took total control over that game. But I still don't think they deserved to be in it.

You shouldn't see a season-ending title game scenario pitting two schools from the same conference, especially the same division within that conference. The teams within that division, in this case the SEC West, spend the entire season playing each other, along with a few teams from the East. That does not automatically establish the ultimate winner as the country's best team. LSU already defeated Alabama in the regular season. Alabama just won a rematch, and convincingly. So kudos to Alabama, the truly best team in the Southeastern Conference (although not its champion).

Oklahoma State, the top-ranked team elsewhere in the United States, should have been picked to play LSU for the national championship. So while Nick Saban added another title to his collection, I don't think it is truly merited. But...

If Mr. Saban, who wrote a book about character a few years ago, is satisfied with his victory, than I have a suggestion for him. He has truly reached the pinnacle of achievement in coaching college football. Why not now return to the pros and the Miami Dolphins, the team he completely abandoned after only two seasons in 2006, and restore his reputation to many as a man of character?

I know, I know, Nick, writing a book about character is one thing, as is demanding integrity and loyalty from everyone else around you. But yourself? Forget it!

Yesterday's NFL Playoff Games

2012-01-09T16:28:00.006-05:00

This past weekend saw the first round of the NFL playoffs. Three of the four teams I was rooting for won, including both games yesterday. The outcomes of those contests were the most meaningful to me. The early game was between the Atlanta Falcons and the New York Giants, which is the team I am rooting for the hardest in the playoffs. After a slow offensive start, New York built up and expanded on its lead, winning the game 24-2. The later contest was between the Denver Broncos and the Pittsburgh Steelers, which is one of the teams I am rooting AGAINST the hardest. Once again, "my" team in this game got off to a slow offensive start. But then Tim Tebow began to throw bombs for long gains and touchdowns and, before anyone could catch their breath, Denver had amassed a 20-6 halftime lead over their heavily favored opponent. The Steelers did come back in the second half to send the game into overtime, but that went for naught when, in the first play from scrimmage, Tebow threw an 80-year touchdown pass to Demaryius Thomas to seal the victory. The final score was 29-23.

Denver plays at most-reviled (by me) New England next week, while New York travels to good old Green Bay (my #2 favorite NFC playoff team after NY). The other upcoming games feature my AFC non-Florida favorite Baltimore at home against Houston and San Francisco at home against my preferred New Orleans. More offensive fireworks are in store, I'm sure...

...Just one post-scripted comment here about Tebow and his detractors. I am thoroughly beside myself with wonder at the expressed ignorance of the so-called "expert" analysts (especially on ESPN Radio) who continue to run him down because of his relatively low percentage of pass completions. I saw yesterday's performance, in which Tim completed less than half of his passes. But many of those incompletions were thrown away as an deliberate offensive strategy, not at all a reflection on the quarterback's accuracy. I never hear anyone bringing this fact up. But at least some sports media talking heads are finally realizing the value of Tim Tebow's versatility in the pros: you don't know if he's going to pass, pitch back, hand off, run around the end, or run straight ahead. This confusing of the defense went a long, long way toward enabling what was almost universally considered to be a weaker Denver team to pull off the big upset yesterday over last year's conference champions.

Negative Presidential Political Rant

2012-01-08T23:58:00.002-05:00

I don't like any of the Republican candidates for president. On the other hand, I am not very happy with our current president either. Barack Obama, in my opinion, broke his promise to the Florida people when he assured them late in the 2008 campaign that he would support NASA's proposed mission to the moon and later Mars. Instead, a few months after he took office, he thoroughly scrapped it. With Democratic control of Congress for two years, he could have done something to rescue the U.S. Postal Service from its financial problems, caused largely by an unfunded mandate passed by a lame-duck Republican Congress and signed by President Bush in December 2006. But instead he did nothing. He wasted too much time trying to reach compromise agreements with the opposition Republicans who clearly expressed that their primary objective was not to pass responsible legislation, but rather to make Obama's presidency a failure. When revolt broke out in Libya and dictator Gadhafi was hemmed in around Tripoli by advancing rebel forces, Obama kept our naval fleet, stationed just off the coast in the Mediterranean, from taking out the dictator's air force while he hemmed and hawed for two weeks trying to amass an international coalition. The result was thousands of lives lost as Gadhafi regained the upper hand and nearly retook the country; the bloody conflict then dragged on for several needless months. Obama displayed shortsightedness and naivete by trying to pressure Israel into concessions in order to resume peace negotiations with a Palestinian government that had NO EFFECTIVE AUTHORITY to carry out any resulting agreement. And I take issue with our president's extremism on the environment in the face of the urgent national need to develop our own, domestically-produced sources of energy.

There, I said it: I am not a happy camper regarding our president's record. I think the dude-in-chief has screwed up quite a bit, in fact.

But with all that having been said, I still think that Barack Obama is on the right track in general with both our domestic economic policy and with our foreign policy. Some of the problems he has had in office have come from the absolute refusal of the Republicans to even present an appearance of working with him to achieve a reasonable policy.

I don't think I have ever been so dismayed by the deteriorating level of politics within our government. Of those currently running for president on the GOP side (as well as the couple who have recently dropped out), I would say that they are all pathetic, lame jokes, except for the possibility that one of them may actually end up as our next president!

Scary stuff, scary stuff...

Blog Thoughts

2012-01-07T23:59:00.002-05:00

Although I have more or less kept up with this blog on a daily basis, it has been many months, possibly even more than a year, since I actually surfed the blogosphere for interesting sites and articles. There is no doubt that the twin plagues on humanity known as Facebook and Twitter have drawn away many former bloggers, who see in these sites a more ready-made means of networking and sharing ideas. Truth be told, I have accounts in each of them, but never make any entries for others to read. Why?

It is a sad fact of human nature that people in general often invest too much emotion into preciously held notions and prejudices. Many of these people I personally know and would like to maintain a modicum of goodwill with them. And since I write about sensitive topics like religion, politics, and social issues, expressing in no uncertain terms how I really feel about these topics, I am sure to deeply offend some, if not many of these small-minded folks. So I avoid Facebook. If any of them happen to stumble across this blog, well, let the reader beware!

I follow Twitter not because of its reading value, but rather because the terse notes expressed on it often serve as quick flashes of interesting items that I can then research further. As far as Facebook is concerned, I have "friends" whom I have rarely or even never met putting up messages about their personal lives that I really don't care to read. Would they consider me rude if I were to "break" our "face" friendship? And for those I do know, I am put off very often by the degree with which some of them express their personal goings-on and sentiments.

I have been rather selective in revealing to various people I personally know about the existence of this blog, which will be five years old in April. Yet of the ones I have told about it, very few have taken even a few short minutes to read it. You might think that they would at least have the courtesy to read something from it every now and then, especially since I obviously put much of myself into writing it and made an issue of telling them about it. Instead, my readers tend to be strangers who come up on my "WMI Blog" through searches of topics that I discuss in articles therein. I like their readership, but I would also like for there to be a larger number of regular readers scattered around the U.S. and the world: people who check up on my blog from time to time just to see how I'm doing and what I'm thinking...

I suppose, though, that the most likely regular readers of this blog would be bloggers themselves. If I value others reading my articles, then I should read theirs as well, leaving constructive and pertinent comments on them.

I sincerely hope that the concept of a free, widely available blogosphere will always be with us. Having a blog like this has done much to increase my confidence with writing, and it has further enhanced my ability to effectively express my thoughts to others in spoken form. In fact, I often find myself, in the midst of conversations, almost verbatim repeating sections of articles I've written.

I plan to keep this blog going on as long as possible. (Non-spam) comments are always welcome!

Underhanded Smear Ad Against Gingrich

2012-01-06T23:58:00.005-05:00

I am noticing something with Mitt Romney that happened with George W. Bush. The candidate himself comes across as a congenial nice guy, while he apparently has a shadow crew of very nasty people behind-the-scenes taking care of his opponents with smear ads. On the other hand, I expect that both sides in the general election will be hard at work to personally vilify whoever is finally running for the presidency.

I already knew of Newt Gingrich's tarnished past, but apparently many Republican voters needed to be reminded of it in a widely-shown ad claiming that Obama wants Gingrich to be the GOP nominee because he'll be easy to beat. The ad's disclaimer at the end states that no candidate authorized it. Just some concerned citizens wanting to spend a "bucket"-load of money to enlighten the electorate with altruistic zeal, right? And smiling, sparkling "Max Headroom" Mitt had absolutely NOTHING to do with it. Yeah, sure. Here we go again...

I am already pretty sure as to how I will be voting for president this November, regardless which Republican candidate survives the absurd TV reality show titled "The GOP Campaign", with its cast of deeply flawed characters taking turns being in the lead and then falling back because, well, they are discovered to be human after all, apparently a disqualifying trait for a Republican nominee. The truth is that I have become very deeply disillusioned with how the political opposition has dealt with Barack Obama ever since he stepped into the White House in January, 2009. It is one thing to carry on a spirited public debate with your political opposite; it is another thing entirely to treat that opposite as an enemy to the nation who must be countered at every turn with no room for the necessary give and take on that our political process in Washington traditionally functions with. In spite of the fact, though, that the Republican Party leadership decided to stonewall practically everything that the duly elected Democratic president has proposed, the fickle and memory-impaired American electorate will quite possibly reward them this November for such callous irresponsibility with both the Presidency and control of both houses of Congress. Unbelievable.

Colmes, Santorum, and the Death Taboo

2012-01-05T23:36:00.005-05:00

Alan Colmes, the token liberal commentator on FoxRepublicanNews, has recently apologized to former Pennsylvania senator and current presidential candidate Rick Santorum for bringing up in a critical manner how the latter handled the tragedy of his newborn child's death in 1996. The fact that Santorum handled the matter as he did, and the further fact that many think it to be peculiar behavior, points out to me how much the death taboo is so deeply entrenched within our society.

From what I have been able to gather, Mr. Santorum took the dead baby home for the sake of showing his other children that they had a little brother at one time. He "played" with it for a short period, and then it was over. That's all. Maybe I'm a little bit weird, but his reaction to me was completely understandable and compelling. Maybe it's those who seem put off by his behavior who bother me much, much more...

Death happens, people. We like to be surrounded by the living and would like to see those who are gone to be REALLY gone. But it is a simple fact of "life and death" that when one dies, the body usually is still there to be dealt with. I think Rick Santorum's way of dealing with his grief over his loss is more in line with not only how other cultures deal with this issue, but even other animal species. Let's not be so quick to try to demean this individual before we take an honest, hard appraisal about how much we ourselves are under the "spell" of this taboo against handling the dead...

My Preferences in This Year's NFL Playoffs

2012-01-04T06:50:00.012-05:00

This coming weekend will see the commencement of the National Football League playoffs, with the teams sporting the best records receiving a bye until the following week. Although none of the Florida teams came even remotely near to making the playoffs, I still have some favorites. So in a downsized version of my "favorites" lists, here is the order that I prefer to see the teams do. The top is my favorite, down to the bottom,which is composed of the "bad guys":

1 New York Giants...I still appreciate them beating undefeated New England in the Super Bowl four years ago, I like the location (NY), I like their coach Tom Coughlin, QB Eli Manning, and offensive standouts Victor Cruz and Ahmad Bradshaw. Plus, even when they play badly, they still seem to function as a team.

2 Baltimore Ravens...I've rooted for them since back in 2000 during their playoff surge, powered by their incredible defense headed by Ray Lewis, that brought them their one Super Bowl win. They still impress me. Besides, they are in the same division as the Steelers, a team near the bottom of this list.

3 Green Bay Packers...Now that they are no longer a threat to go the entire season undefeated (thanks to QB Kyle Orton and the Kansas City Chiefs defense), Miami can breathe a sigh of relief (their 1972 unblemished record is still unrivaled). So now I can once again sit back and enjoy this offense, powered by its talented QB Aaron Rodgers.

4 New Orleans Saints...They're "kind of" close to Gainesville. And Drew Brees rivals GB's Rodgers with his talent.

5 Cincinnati Bengals...Just because they, like the Ravens, are a divisional rival to Pittsburgh.

6 Atlanta Falcons...Atlanta is another regional pick, relatively close to Gainesville.

7 Denver Broncos...I am not a Tebow fanatic, but he's got "spunk" and the team is fun to watch (sometimes). Plus, their first (and probably only) playoff game is against those doggone Pittsburgh Steelers.

8 Houston Texans...I couldn't care less about this team, one way or another. Whether I root for them or against them hinges completely on which team they are playing.

9 Detroit Lions...I would have them higher on this list, but they seem to have some serious issues with unsportsmanlike conduct. Can their coach control his players' antics?

10 San Francisco 49ers...With SF, it's the coach Jim Harbaugh and his arrogance, not the players, who is the problem, at least as far as I am concerned. However, I do like QB Alex Smith, unfairly maligned from last year.

11 Pittsburgh Steelers...I'm still harboring a decades-old resentment about the Steelers stealing the Dolphins' thunder with their "dynasty" of Super Bowl championships in the Seventies. There's only one way I'll root for them, and that's if they end up playing:

12 New England Patriots...All of Miami's AFC East rivals are anathema to me, since, after all, I am a Dolphins fan. However, I have been recently known to root for the spirited New York Jets for the last couple of years in the playoffs after Miami abysmally failed to qualify for the post-season. But New England or Buffalo? NEVER!

Brief, Intense Cold Spell Here

2012-01-03T23:58:00.004-05:00

Winter has finally arrived here in Gainesville with drastically colder temperatures. Last night, accompanied by a very strong, cold northwesterly wind, it dipped down to the upper 20's. Tonight's low may dip to 21 or lower, a Gainesville record low for January 4th. Tomorrow's highs probably won't reach 60, and then at night it will dip down to freezing again.

It's funny, and a little sad at the same time: for most of the year, I complain about how hot it is. Then, the cold hits and I almost instantly wax nostalgic for the heat. Still, this cold spell does help me in that it keeps allergens out of the air, something that I unfortunately am susceptible to.

Not to mention the fact that it keeps the grass stunted in my lawn!

Tomorrow's Iowa GOP Caucuses

2012-01-02T11:15:00.004-05:00

Tomorrow is the long-anticipated day of the Republican Iowa Caucuses, an event that supposedly will help to establish the eventual party nominee for president. Like it did back in 2008, when Mike Huckabee won it. Wait, he didn't win the nomination, did he? Oh, I see...

The winner of the Iowa Caucuses doesn't necessarily get the nomination. It's one's own prime time Fox News Channel show that is the prize for victory (that's what Huckabee got). And the runners up? They will probably be recruited as Fox Political Analysts, assuming that they aren't the one actually getting the nomination in the end.

The problem with the Iowa Caucuses, as I see it, is three-fold. One, it is just that: an open-hall statewide caucus, held at one special time in the various precincts, not a legitimate, secret ballot election spread out over the day to give voters more time to get to the polls. Although the Republicans have adopted a secret ballot system of voting, in practice this has not always been followed, nor is it legally mandated. As a result, participants will tend to be more ideologically-driven and fanaticial, not representative of the typical voter who actually has a life aside from politics or preciously-held hot-button emotional issues. Two, every candidate has their own excuses for not doing well in Iowa, should that happen. Some have played the double game of downplaying the significance of the caucuses while spending money and time there. The fact that true primaries in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida are coming up soon thereafter will quickly diminish the significance of the Iowa winner anyway. Three, with almost instant nationwide polling and seemingly endless nationally televised debates, the focus on the campaign isn't as intense on individual states in the early campaign like Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina as it has been in the past. This is especially true with the current theory that the 2012 election will hinge on a very small number of key states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Michigan. So while the Florida Primary may be important in revealing a candidate that has Republican voter appeal there, Iowa won't because it isn't really a primary and New Hampshire and South Carolina are too regional in character to make a deep nationwide impression.

Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are the leaders in this Republican run for the 2012 nomination. Maybe the most significant result of the Iowa Caucuses will be to convince some of the other candidates to drop out of the race, especially with financial resources drying up. But since they are almost all media-seeking egomaniacs with plenty of opportunities in nationally-televised debates and powder-puff interviews on FoxNews to keep their sense of importance hyperinflated, I don't see this dropping-out process beginning until after the true primary season has been underway...

My 2012 De Leon Springs Half-Marathon Experience

2012-01-01T14:59:00.010-05:00

De Leon Springs is a rather small community in western Volusia county, Florida (most widely known for Daytona Beach). It is about 100 miles of a drive from Gainesville. There is a pancake restaurant called the Old Spanish Sugar Mill Restaurant nearby in a state park. Other than that, there is really nothing attractive to me about this place. But for some reason, going on 28 years now, this insignificant and relatively remote community has seen fit to offer a half-marathon race. Seeing an opportunity to run in an event a good three weeks from my long-planned Ocala Half-Marathon on January 22, I signed up yesterday and ran it this morning. The conditions were not hospitable: there was intense fog throughout the drive from Gainesville to De Leon Springs, and the fog and humidity made the race not enjoyable at all. Although the temperature was in the low 50's at race's start at 8 AM, by the end it had warmed to an unpleasant level. And then again, there was the race course itself...

The De Leon Springs Half-Marathon runs mostly down one street and back: County Road Three. The view is monotonous, to say the least: straight and flat, with trees, trees, and more trees. Add that to the fact that the race wasn't closed to motorized traffic and you have a frustrating situation. Still, no place is perfect and I approached this New Year's Day adventure with a positive attitude.

At the race's beginning I got a good-looking red, long-sleeved tee-shirt with De Leon Springs Half-Marathon on it. At the end I got a medallion (picturing that aforementioned sugar mill) to hang around my neck and show that I actually finished the 13.1 mile race. Other than that, I got very little...

There were a couple of spots along the race where Gatorade was offered; other spots just carried water. After the race was over, no Gatorade was to be found. I later saw some other runners walking to their cars carrying some fruit that was apparently being offered somewhere (but I didn't see any). But that's all O.K. because...

Running 13.1 miles is in itself a pretty grueling activity. To get all steamed up over the lack of creature comforts is to miss the point. In truth, there was enough rehydration offered to the runners, although it may not have been exactly what some of them wanted. I did have a beef with the shortage of toilet facilities but, having anticipated this possibility, I took care of "business" before I got to the race site.

I mentioned that I didn't really enjoy the run, for the various reasons given. Late in the race, although I was generally passing the runners in front of me with only one "competitor" passing me, I felt weak and sore. But much to my astonishment, as I crossed the finish line, I discovered that I had completely wiped out my previous half-marathon personal record time by more than two and a half minutes, officially finishing at 1 hour 56 minutes 07 seconds (here is the race results website). So go figure. It seems that lately, some part of me pushes me harder than I had intended. The result has been faster runs without the fun I am used to having.

I think, all of this event's shortcomings notwithstanding, that it is pretty dang cool that such a tiny town as De Leon Springs would hold such an event. Kudos to them! I suppose, though, that they would do a lot better with the runners' opinions of them were they to provide more toilet stations, not just at the starting and finishing points, but also at intervals along the race course (I saw none along the run). I have read a couple of very negative reviews about this race from 2011 and it seems that this scarcity of facilities was a very big deal to those individuals.

So now I go back to shorter training runs in preparation for the Ocala Half-Marathon. I wonder what the weather will be like on that race day morning three weeks from now. Last year it was around 26 degrees when the race began...

My Personal Top 20 Favorite Songs in 2011

2011-12-31T16:08:00.009-05:00

I go by the name Billy Irwin, not Billy Pilgrim. Still, at least musically speaking, since 2009 I have become quite "unstuck in time" regarding my favorite songs for each year. The reason is quite simple, really: for the past three years or so, when I become interested in a particular act, I amass its collection of songs from years gone by and then discover some gems often residing deep within albums, some of them recorded and released long ago. In January of 2011, I started with my continuing exploration of Radiohead's music. Then, as the year progressed, I followed, in succession, Spoon, Arcade Fire, and Gorillaz. Finally, toward the end of 2011, I rediscovered The Police and their incredible five studio albums from 1978 to 1983 (with consistently, eerily appropriate lyrics for the times we now live in). Scattered throughout the year, I listened to my old favorites Sufjan Stevens, Regina Spektor, Beck, and Metric. Plus, I acquired the latest Linkin Park album, the cerebral A Thousand Suns, which I highly recommend. There was only one song on my year's favorites list that I actually heard by listening to broadcast radio: DeVotchKa's 100 Other Lovers. So, at least temporally speaking, my 2011 favorites are spread out a bit over the years (even going back to 1982). Well, here goes my list:

1 To Binge by Gorillaz
2 Soft Rock Star by Metric
3 Neon Bible by Arcade Fire
4 100 Other Lovers by DeVotchKa
5 Last Living Souls by Gorillaz
6 These Are My Twisted Words by Radiohead
7 Rebellion (Lies) by Arcade Fire
8 Stylo by Gorillaz
9 Darkness by The Police
10 My Mathematical Mind by Spoon
11 Man Research (Clapper) by Gorillaz
12 Goodnight Laura by Spoon
13 Earthquake Weather by Beck
14 Windowsill by Arcade Fire
15 The Ghost of You Lingers by Spoon
16 Rehash by Gorillaz
17 Blackout by Linkin Park
18 Revolving Doors by Gorillaz
19 Little by Little by Radiohead
20 Don't Let It Get You Down by Spoon

My personal choice for musical artist(s) of the year? That shouldn't be too difficult to discern, just looking at the above list. It's Gorillaz!

Change of Half-Marathon Plans

2011-12-30T23:58:00.000-05:00

I have decided to do an about-face with my immediate half-marathon plans. Instead of running around my neighborhood and its surroundings on my own for 13.1 miles on Saturday (12/31), I am entering the DeLeon Springs Half-Marathon for Sunday morning, New Years Day. Although this will entail a bit of a drive (DeLeon Springs is a few miles from Daytona Beach in western Volusia County), I will enjoy the benefit of having the preceding night off from work. So, I will be able to rest up some before heading off to run this event.

Although doing this ends the idea of running a half-marathon each calendar month, I am instead running in a public race. Sounds like it will be a lot of fun, assuming, of course, that it doesn't rain. Then again, that might turn out to be fun, too...

One Last Shot at a December Half-Marathon

2011-12-29T11:11:00.006-05:00

Now it's getting to the end of December and I am wondering whether I couldn't fit in one half-marathon run anyway, in spite of the fact that I missed that Jacksonville race on December 18. No, it wouldn't be an official, public race. And no, I wouldn't "get" to spend forty-plus dollars for the privilege of running in it: it would be free. I would simply step out of my front door and run my own personally designed half-marathon course around my neighborhood (and some adjacent locations) as I have done many times in the past. So that is what I am thinking of doing...

Saturday, December 31, as far as my employer is concerned, is my official "New Years Day" holiday. And so I am off from work and free to stretch out a nice, long run into the afternoon. If I am to accomplish this run and continue my string of "one half-marathon per month", it will be that day...or no day. Actually, it's pretty nice that my work situation gives me this one last opportunity: a heavy December work load was the primary reason I wasn't able to run that Jacksonville half-marathon earlier this month.

I suppose that it was inevitable, anyway, that I would live through months without the opportunity to run public half-marathon races. From April through October, this event is pretty much closed off to me, due to the fact that I live in generally-hot Florida and they just don't schedule long-distance running events for most of the year. And I have a job and don't have the luxury of just hopping on a plane whenever I get the whim to run in a race more remote (although I think that would be a cool thing to try at least once). So, after the more local events are through in March, I'll either have to run my own private half-marathons or tone down my running to a shorter distance.

Soldiers For Jesus

2011-12-27T23:16:00.002-05:00

There is a curious, tight bond between evangelical Christians and the militarism of the United States in the past few years, especially that aspect which involves mortal combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. On one level, it makes some sense: Christianity promotes, at least in theory, the idea of selfless sacrifice. And soldiers either patrolling a hostile, foreign environment or engaging in open fighting are definitely putting themselves in harm's way, an act that could be realistically regarded as selfless. But they are also killing people whom Christianity regards as being lost, i.e. those who don't accept Jesus as their savior. If a believer, a TRUE believer in Christianity and its doctrine of eternal life after death being possible ONLY by accepting Jesus as savior, enlists in one of the armed services and goes overseas to fight and kill the "lost", then isn't that a sort of blasphemy? Isn't that soldier condemning, according to his or her own confessed belief system, the fallen enemy to eternal damnation? So I ask, isn't there something wrong with that?

There was one instance during the life of Jesus on Earth when an armed conflict was taking place around him and he had a chance to weigh in on it: the very time he was being arrested by the Roman soldiers. His disciple Peter reportedly instantly went into a state of intense combat, in the process lopping off the ear of one of his adversaries. The reaction of Jesus to this was not to encourage and praise Peter in the spirit we nowadays go about "supporting our troops": on the contrary, the Lord of the Christian faith rebuked Peter and ordered him to stop fighting. And then he healed the soldier's ear. H-m-m...

There is still a minority of Christian thought that still holds true to the pacifist teachings of Jesus, but they are just that: a minority. Most Christians, especially within the evangelical churches, hold on to this strange two-pronged, mutually-incompatible worldview: on one hand, they invest so much time and resources to take the Gospel in missions projects throughout the world in order to save as many souls as possible. On the other hand, they have no qualms about non-Christians dying in war at the hands of their believing sons and daughters.

I just don't get it...

Back to Double-Digit Running

2011-12-26T17:27:00.005-05:00

Today marked an unexpected triumph in my attempt to return to last year's endurance level in running. Well...maybe not completely to last year's level: I was then training to last a 26.2 mile marathon run. This year, I just want to be able to run in various half-marathon events that interest me. I did well in one in November, even setting a personal time record, finishing under two hours. However, I missed the Jacksonville race I had planned to run on December 18. Next month's Ocala Half-Marathon is something that I have been looking forward to running in for a long time: last year I completed the Ocala Marathon but due to a leg injury had to walk for the race's final seven miles. I want a more pleasant running experience down there among the rolling hills and horse farms. Then, in February I want to run the Gainesville FivePoints Half-Marathon again.

With the intention of getting used to running up and down hills for that upcoming Ocala race, on Christmas Eve I embarked on a different training course that involved some easy hills, instead of just my flat neighborhood streets. I ran 3 miles then and felt pretty good. Christmas, my "off-day" regarding running, saw me run a couple of laps around my block. Then, this afternoon, after gorging myself on food (and many carbohydrates) the day before, I set out on a more ambitious run that combined my neighborhood course with the hilly NW 53rd Avenue path. The end result was that I ran 10.21 miles in a typical time (for me) of 1:35:27. At the end of the run I felt like I could have gone further, but stuck to my recent "rule" of letting the half-marathon races themselves be the tests of my distance endurance. The temperature throughout the run hovered around 70 degrees with the humidity around 50% (very close, in fact, to the conditions during my memorable 20 mile Christmas run in 2010).

My initial goal for today's run was to succeed in running 7 miles. But carb loading is a pretty awesome thing: I felt crummy and short on confidence at the beginning of the run. But as it wore on, incredibly I seemed to have more energy, and the confidence surged. So I tacked on those extra miles at the end. I feel ready to run that Ocala race, although I'll have to wait until January 22.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T18:20:00.004-05:00

I hope all of you are enjoying your Christmas Day this year. I am currently in the middle of a three-day stretch of being off from work. I think I've pretty much generally taken the time off from a lot of other stuff as well, including writing blog articles! But things are good, and I'll pick back up in a day or two...

Unseasonably Hot December Weather

2011-12-23T23:58:00.000-05:00

Last year, on Christmas Day 2010, I was a bit bummed out at the unseasonably warm weather: 70 degrees in mid-afternoon with high humidity. Today, a couple of days from Christmas, it's mid-afternoon (at this writing) and 80! The really sad thing is that this has been the typical weather pattern here in northern Florida during December so far: cooler temperatures have been the glaring exception. Maybe in some mythical place like South Park, Colorado, where even Al Gore is distracted from his pet issue of global warning in favor of another pursuit, the weather is bearable. But not around here, no-sir-ee...

The deciduous trees around my neighborhood have shed their leaves and gone into their own "flora" state of hibernation for the winter. If they only knew...meanwhile, weeds are sprouting up everywhere and growing with reckless abandon. My seasonal allergies are beginning to resurface as well. The grass in my yard has been growing, making an unplanned (and undesired) lawn mowing session necessary in the near future. And there seems to be no relief in immediate sight to the heat...

Melissa mentioned to me that she heard the weather in January and February will be much colder. I would just like chilly, moderately cold temperatures. But instead I'm either suffocating in the warmth or freezing, similar to that old classic Twilight Zone episode The Midnight Sun.

Still, I guess I shouldn't complain. After all, hot as it is, I am still getting a kind of reprieve from the stifling summer weather. Or should I more accurately say, from the stifling spring, summer and fall weather...

Where's Al Gore in the midst of all this? Dude, don't leave us in our hour of need! Stop chasing after that dangblasted ManBearPig, get off that cartoon show, and get back to cooling our planet back down!!!

Wish Thinking Was Like Changing Channels

2011-12-22T23:58:00.005-05:00

Sometimes I wish my mind operated more like a television...well, in at least one important way, that is. It's all in the way that one channel switches to another, something that I have always taken for granted since my literally infantile days of TV watching in the late 1950's.

When I am engaging in a bout of channel surfing and, say, I change from South Park on one channel to an old James Bond movie on another, I'm not still seeing Stan standing there next to Sean Connery. Goldfinger isn't getting his heavy, Oddjob, to throw his razor-edged hat at poor, unlucky Kenny. And conniving Cartman isn't on the golf course switching golfballs to play a trick on Goldfinger. The change from channel to channel is abrupt and complete, with the old show completely obliterated on my screen in favor of its replacement. And that's how I wish my mind worked as well...

...with the one caveat that I am still consciously aware of the real world around me and able to react to urgent situations, I wish that I had more control over my train of thought. And maybe other people already do: NO, I'm sure they do, because...

A few months ago, my wife got hold of a questionnaire that supposedly enabled the respondent to determine whether or not he or she had adult attention deficit disorder. The scoring was such that the highest (most extremely attention deficit) number was "20". If you received "15" or higher, the advice was to get to your doctor as quickly as possible (why, to get drugged?). I answered the questions with unswerving honesty and got a "17". Wow, that was a bummer...

I have a great memory, but that isn't exactly the same thing as being able to keep my thoughts on track without wondering off in other directions. I am too easily distracted, and even when I purpose to think about a particular subject, it is often difficult to put other thoughts out of my mind. And I am completely averse to drug treatment, even if it is prescribed as the result of an official diagnosis by a respected and licensed physician. Who knows, maybe that's a mistake on my part. So, I suppose at least for a while, my thoughts are going to continue to be a bit like South Park superimposed on Goldfinger!

List Madness: The Police Songs Rated From Top to Bottom

2011-12-21T11:38:00.006-05:00

The Police was a trio comprised of the British musicians Stewart Copeland (drums), Andy Summers (lead guitar), and Sting (bass guitar, keyboard, lead vocals, main songwriter). Their specialty was a seminal form of alternative rock based largely on an ingenious blend of reggae, punk, new wave, and jazz. They recorded and released five studio albums from 1978 to 1983 and then called it quits, with Sting enjoying a very successful solo career to this day.

From my perspective as someone who then listened primarily to single hits on the radio, the Police was a good band with some interesting songs. But after the release of their fourth album Ghost in the Machine in 1982, I finally took notice of them. But the album I first purchased was their third, Zenyatta Mondatta (on vinyl, with all of the cool pictures and cover art, so sadly lacking nowadays). I then realized the depth of this act's quality music and eventually acquired all five albums. To this day I regard them highly, and one of their songs, the apocalyptic Invisible Sun (which I discussed in this 2007 article), remains as one of my top all-time favorites.

Lately I have been listening to my Police collection on my mp3 player in shuffle mode while running and at work. It didn't take long to refamiliarize myself with the 54 tracks. Eventually as has been my custom with other artists I like, I decided to rate them from top to bottom according to my personal preferences. The list is below: no doubt you probably disagree with some of the rankings, but that's part of the fun of doing lists like this.

I didn't include the extra songs that the Police recorded. They had a few B-sides to their singles not appearing on their albums, and I have never heard them. I also omitted alternative versions of their original hits, such as the entirely different Roxanne recording. After each song, its album is indicated through the following code: Outlandos d'Amour [OA], Reggatta de Blanc [RB], Zenyatta Mondatta [ZM], Ghost in the Machine [GM], and Synchronicity [S].

Well, here goes...

1 Invisible Sun [GM]
2 Darkness [GM]
3 Synchronicity I [S]
4 Can't Stand Losing You [OA]
5 The Bed’s Too Big Without You [RB]
6 Canary in a Coalmine [ZM]
7 Synchronicity II [S]
8 It's Alright for You [RB]
9 Don't Stand So Close to Me [ZM]
10 Miss Gradenko [S]
11 When the World is Running Down You Make the Best of What’s Still Around [ZM]
12 Masoko Tanga [OA]
13 Spirits in the Material World [GM]
14 Too Much Information [GM]
15 De Do Do Do De Da Da Da [ZM]
16 Hungry for You (J’aurais toujours faim de toi) [GM]
17 Omegaman [GM]
18 Secret Journey [GM]
19 King of Pain [S]
20 No Time This Time [RB]
21 O My God [S]
22 Driven to Tears [ZM]
23 Roxanne [OA]
24 Peanuts [OA]
25 The Other Way of Stopping [ZM]
26 Regatta de Blanc [RB]
27 Next to You [OA]
28 Walking on the Moon [RB]
29 Bring on the Night [RB]
30 Man in a Suitcase [ZM]
31 Every Little Thing She Does is Magic [GM]
32 Truth Hits Everybody [OA]
33 Voices in My Head [ZM]
34 On Any Other Day [RB]
35 Hole in My Life [OA]
36 Death Wish [RB]
37 Message in a Bottle [RB]
38 So Lonely [OA]
39 Demolition Man [GM]
40 Bombs Away [ZM]
41 Be My Girl/Sally [OA]
42 Wrapped Around Your Finger [S]
43 Does Everyone Stare [RB]
44 Rehumanize Yourself [GM]
45 Walking in Your Footsteps [S]
46 Murder by Numbers [S]
47 One World (Not Three) [GM]
48 Every Breath You Take [S]
49 Contact [RB]
50 Shadows in the Rain [ZM]
51 Born in the 50s [OA]
52 Tea in the Sahara [S]
53 Behind My Camel [ZM]
54 Mother [S]

Quarter Infomercial Follow-Up

2011-12-20T23:44:00.008-05:00

As a follow-up to my "Commercial Dream Seepage" article a few days ago, I happened to tune in to that same infomercial, in which an obnoxious man was hawking a couple of albums full of American commemorative quarters. In my original article, I dreamed (yes, dreamed) that the asking price was $99: in full consciousness, I observed that the price was TWO payments of $99. However, there were a lot of quarters in this TV offer, and according to the annoying gentleman, they constituted a complete set of all the variants produced not only in the "American States" series, but also the "America the Beautiful" series in the second album. So it finally made sense boasting that the image of Smokey Bear would be on the album cover: it was for that latter album featuring beautiful American scenic places engraved on the quarters.

Watching this, although convincing me that it wasn't really a monumental rip-off after all, gave me pause for reflection. This offer was ostensibly targeted for coin collecting enthusiasts, but was it really so in the final analysis? After all, the fun in any collecting hobby is in the gradual amassing of the "stuff" that the hobby constitutes. That includes starting small, noting the items that are wanted, and investigating various ways to add them to the collection. And a great part of the enjoyment in going over one's collection is recalling how the various items were acquired. This goes for collecting cards, stamps, coins, or anything else. I was an avid card collector as a kid. I envied others who had a larger collection than me and wanted to build up my collection to their level. But if someone just handed me a series' complete collection, then I would get no real satisfaction from possessing it. So that leads me to the probable "real" target of this infomercial.

Investment, pure and simple. People are looking for ways to invest their money into hard, tangible commodities that will appreciate in value over the years. It matters not whether the buyer of these quarter sets is a numismatic enthusiast: collecting coins is (very) secondary to the goal of investment for future financial gain, at least the way I see it...

Blog Entries a Little Sparce Lately

2011-12-19T23:58:00.000-05:00

It has been a little difficult getting out blog entries lately. Hopefully, as the week progresses, I will have more time, energy, and mental focus to devote myself to more writing. As of this moment, though, I am tired and just want to rest...

NFL Ramblings

2011-12-18T20:43:00.006-05:00

Regarding National Football League quarterbacks, I am not a big Tim Tebow fan. Actually, I tend to like his predecessor at Denver, Kyle Orton, more. It was pleasing to see him have such a good game with his new team, the Kansas City Chiefs, as they further endeared me to them by beating the Green Bay Packers 19-14. You see, I am a longtime Miami Dolphins fan and see any team that goes late into the season unbeaten as a threat to the unique legacy left by the 1972 Dolphins team, which won the Super Bowl that year and lost not a single game. The Pack fell on its back, so to speak, and I largely credit Mr. Orton's deft performance for it. Way to go, Kyle...

As for Tebow, I'm still a little miffed at his late heroics in a game earlier this year, leading the Denver Broncos to an improbable comeback win against my Dolphins, just as they were finally on the verge of winning their first game. I don't care one way or another about his open expression of his Christian faith: what bothers me is that a huge swath of the population is behind him for that reason alone (and then again, there are those who oppose him for that same reason). But one thing about his success which pleases me is how he is making fools out of the sports talk show "experts" who said that he was completely lacking in the skills needed to be a competent pro quarterback. I already knew of Tebow's versatility from his years here in Gainesville as the Florida QB. And he does a great job encouraging his teammates to play as a unit and to their best individual abilities, and to feel that victory is always possible (well, almost always).

Speaking of the Dolphins, they actually climbed out of last place in the AFC East Division by beating Buffalo 30-23 today. The two teams both sport 5-9 records, but Miami has the edge by having beaten the Bills twice. They have good prospects for next year. I hope the new "permanent" coach they get is a wise choice.

I'm trying to figure out which teams I'm going to support in the playoffs this year. It hasn't been fun for the state of Florida, with all three NFL franchises having pretty lousy, losing seasons. I like Green Bay (now that they've lost a game) and New Orleans in the NFC. I wish the New York Giants were doing better: their play is so inconsistent that they don't look to make the playoffs (unless everything goes their way in the last two weeks of the regular season). NFC teams that I absolutely dislike? The San Francisco 49ers for their arrogant head coach and the Detroit Lions for their dirty play. In the AFC, the "enemies" are more traditional: New England and Pittsburgh. I clearly like Baltimore more than any of the others, but after them I don't see a whole lot to like, sorry to say. Denver is an interesting (albeit way overhyped) team, but I think that should the New York Jets make the playoffs, I would prefer them. I would like to see San Diego make it, but like the Giants in the NFC, they are practically out of the playoff picture with their mediocre record. Of all the teams technically remaining in the running, I like the New York Giants the most, but like I said, their prospects don't look too good right now. So, assuming they don't get into the playoffs, I am now picking my two favorites to make it to the Super Bowl: the Baltimore Ravens and the Green Bay Packers. With the Ravens prevailing in the end.

Actually, that "wish list" stands a pretty reasonable chance of coming true, from where things stand right now...

I Will Miss Jax Half-Marathon

2011-12-15T11:58:00.001-05:00

I probably should have known how this would go down, but I thought it was a good idea to at least set forth the goal: to run a half-marathon race each month through February. The weak link in this plan is the month of December because (1) working at the post office, I am heavily engaged in the holiday parcel processing season and (2) this is the month I would have to travel a good distance out of town to find a half-marathon race. The closest one will happen this coming Sunday morning in Jacksonville, but I will have worked late into the night before. I just don't think it will work out for me this time around.

Right now, it is enough for me to concentrate on keeping myself rested each day for work as the load and intensity increases. Some time next week, it will lighten up. But at least, while passing up on a half-marathon this month, I can continue to run a reasonable amount of miles with the idea of resuming the racing next month.

Commercial Dream Seepage

2011-12-14T12:18:00.004-05:00

Last night, after an especially grueling shift of work processing Christmas season parcels and working overtime, I fell asleep in front of my television. For some reason, it was on H2 (formerly History Channel International) when I dozed off. I can't remember: did they really have a show on about history, for a change? But anyway, it couldn't have been all that exciting: apparently, before I knew it, I had fallen sound asleep.

I found myself having one of those interesting geographical dreams. I approached a place that had some kind of roller coaster ride going on. In my dream, I thought that it was familiar, but later couldn't place it: it was most likely just a composite of other rides I had experienced over the years. Anyway, I went into the little building where the ride's entrance was. A friendly, elderly gentleman (who seemed to be the ride's operator) greeted me as did a younger man. The younger man then suddenly began to go on babbling incessantly about some great deal he was offering, selling those old U.S. quarters from the 50 states. I calculated within my dream that $.25 X 50 = $12.50 (I wonder how many people can do that while asleep), so the deal had better be comparable. I was surprised when he instead asked for 99 bucks! But the dude was making clear that, not only was he selling every single version of these quarters, but was also putting them in a album with the official "Smokey Bear" logo on it. This began to seep into my mind as a confirmation that I was having a wacky dream. Moreover, this son-of-a-gun was not only bothering me with his heavy-handed, aggressive speaking reminiscent of some of those obnoxious fire-and-brimstone preachers (like John Hagee, ugh), but he was also keeping me from my ride! So I managed to arise out of my slumber. Only to find myself facing a TV infomercial (on H2, of course) featuring a different son-of-a-gun spewing out the same sales pitch, with the same overbearing manner, about the same coin album offer. With Smokey Bear on the cover. Surreal.

Still wondering whether I was still dreaming, I managed to get up and flick off that TV. In the process, I flicked off that salesman as well...

Dolphins Owner Fires Coach Sparano

2011-12-13T12:42:00.003-05:00

The Miami Dolphins, headed for their third consecutive losing season under head coach Tony Sparano, after enjoying an improbable turnaround from a dismal 1-15 record in 2007 to a division-winning 11-5 in his first season after being hiring by Bill Parcells, have just fired Sparano. Apparently, this coach, who showed plenty of sideline enthusiasm, just couldn't keep his team together as a tight unit throughout games and over the course of a season. I thought the move was correct: there was no sign that the Dolphins' fortunes stood to change with Sparano in there. But the owner Stephen Ross, with the firing, stated that he wanted a young "Don Shula-type" to coach the team. Well, duh, doesn't everybody? After all, Shula is one of a kind: the all-time winningest coach in NFL history, with only 2 losing seasons in 26 while coaching Miami from 1970 through 1995. From 1996 through 2003, Shula's successors Jimmy Johnson and Dave Wannstedt (at least until 2004), managed to produce moderately successful seasons, none of them with a losing record. But in the last 8 years, Miami has suffered through 6 losing seasons. Enough is enough.

There are plenty of good coaching prospects out there, and Miami is an attractive place in which to work. Hopefully, the new coach, who will start his job after the end of the season, will fulfill owner Ross's vision at least to the point of establishing a more long-term, consistently winning team. But another Don Shula? Forget it!

About Three Dates

2011-12-12T00:02:00.001-05:00

First, let's look at May 19 and October 9.

If I told you the "death days" for the famous people whose birthdays the above two dates represent, you might say, oh yeah... really? But instead, we remember November 22 instead of May 19 and December 8 instead of October 9 to remember the lives of John F. Kennedy and John Lennon. How come?

After all, these individuals were respected and even loved, not reviled, so their dying days were sad and tragic occasions. Why not remember their birthdays instead? After all, we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday as a national holiday on January 15...or the nearest Monday to it. Why not mark May 19 and October 9 as well for some positive celebration?

I think the reason is pretty self-evident, actually. We weren't around JFK or the former Beatle great when either were born, but their deaths were a kind of shared event among us: most people remember where they were and what they were doing when the tragic news was heard (presuming that they were old enough at the time, of course). So although their births weren't all that personal for us, their deaths certainly were...and unforgettable. But I think that there is still room enough on the calendar to give a little more attention to the birthdays too, don't you?

On an almost completely unrelated note, connected only because it's about dates, I remember the first time I ever followed the New Years Day college football bowl games. I was out with my father in some shop somewhere on US 441 in Hollywood, Florida in the afternoon on January 1, 1968. They had a television there tuned in to the Cotton Bowl game in Dallas, that year pitting Texas A&M against Alabama (the Cotton Bowl actually meant something back then). Just because I thought that "A&M" was an intriguing part of a college's name, I began to root for them. And they won, beginning the process luring me in as a habitual televised football spectator. In subsequent years, I looked forward to New Years Day with its major bowl games. As time passed by, the number of bowls proliferated. Finally, one, and then more of them began to be moved to the days immediately following in January. Still, I always knew that there would be some good college football to watch on New Years Day. Right?

Wrong! This coming New Years Day features ZERO bowl games! But don't despair, football junkies: it's on a Sunday that just happens to be the final regular season day for the NFL. I guess the television networks pretty much control the scheduling for football nowadays. Still, I miss that New Year's college bowl tradition...

An Exquisitely Gloomy Weather Day

2011-12-11T20:59:00.004-05:00

Today has been one of those special weather days here in Gainesville, with the sky completely overcast, the temperatures hovering around 60, a strong wind circulating around, and the impression that it is always on the verge of raining without ever doing so. In other words, my kind of day!

No, I am not a "bright sunshine" kind of guy. I like the kind of brooding, dark weather that often befits my personality. So today rocked! It also reminded me of last Christmas, which experienced the same outside gloom the entire day with the cloud cover so thick that the night began to befall the area in mid-afternoon. I would know, since I was out running 20 miles in it! The main difference between then and now is that on Christmas it did finally let loose and rain (right at the end of my run).

Alas today, with its exquisite weather, would not see me performing a long run: I did that yesterday and now space them at least two days apart. I did run 1.34 miles, though (two laps around my block). Afterward, I just had to stand out in the backyard for a spell and let the weather overcome me, it was so wonderful...

Maybe tomorrow will see more of the same. But my experience tells me that this sort of weather pattern is fleeting. We'll probably either get rain or the clouds will abate. Right now, though, it's a little after nine at night and the weather is still the same as it has been all day...

British Online Spy Contest

2011-12-10T21:52:00.004-05:00

A couple of days ago, I was watching CNN and saw a news story that I had some trouble believing. But no, it had to be true: British intelligence was holding an online contest to see who could decipher a difficult code on their website. Those with winning solutions received a prize: a job interview to become a career spy for the Crown!

So let's suppose that I am from any nation on Earth besides Great Britain. That most likely means that my country has its own intelligence/spy network at work and would love to infiltrate Britain's network, even if we were allies. So my country, most probably with more advanced technology and methods of cracking codes than do ordinary, individual citizens, solves the puzzle and has one of its agents stationed within Britain submit the winning solution. Presto, a mole served to order!

But wait, maybe that's what the smart guys in British intelligence are thinking and they are using this "contest" to filter out potential double agents. But...

Maybe those countries who would use this contest to plant moles see through this and will deliberately use people who can give misinformation to the British. But then again...

Maybe the British know that those countries will do this and they want to throw them off the trail of their real intelligence schemes...

Well, I suppose this could go on indefinitely. But I think I've already cracked their online code. You see, I have my own source of code deciphering material, delivered by a mysterious short, bespectacled operator going by the tag "Ralphie".

The solution is: "Be sure to drink your Ovaltine!"

O.K. Brits, I'm ready: sign me up!

Weis Leaves UF, No Big Loss

2011-12-09T10:21:00.002-05:00

Florida offensive coordinator Charlie Weis, whose much-heralded presence in his first year on the job produced one of the worst offensive seasons that Gator fans have seen in recent decades, has decided to leave UF to become head coach at Kansas after stating just a few days earlier that he would stay at Florida for several years. Apparently, that school's athletic director decided that he wanted what Mr. Weis brought to Florida: a completely uninspired, lackluster offense and a leader whose words they can't believe. Good luck, if that's what they want out there; it's just one more item I can add to my long list of reasons I never want to move to an already lackluster state. On the other hand, my current governor, teabagger and suspected space alien Rick Scott (who has yet to produce any official, stamped, signed, and dated document specifically stating that he was born within our Solar System), is doing all that he can to make Florida as equally unattractive to live in...

Florida is now looking for a replacement for offensive coordinator. They need someone who will be able to salvage the ongoing recruiting season, which doesn't seem to be going very well at the moment with highly-sought-after prospects signing on with other schools. But then again, the current Gator team is largely made up of what sports analysts had regarded in the past as some of the nation's top recruiting classes. Still, they'd better hurry up, hire someone, and get the new o.c. on the road to add some more Gators! Oh, and how about adding a little razzle-dazzle to Florida's offense for a change?

And by the way, let's do something about getting ourselves some size and talent on the offensive line! It was downright embarrassing to see the Gators being pushed around on the line of scrimmage this year, game after game after game, sometimes against just average opponents...

Twelve Eight...Then and Now

2011-12-08T23:47:00.006-05:00

Today marks the anniversary of the shooting death of John Lennon in 1980 at the hands of a lunatic at the entrance to the former Beatles' home, the Dakota Apartments in Manhattan just across from Central Park. He was only forty and had just begun to renew his musical career with a double album release, a team effort with his wife Yoko Ono. The assassin, whose name does not merit mention, supposedly believed that he was compelled to shoot Lennon for being an impostor of sorts, in conflict with his own inner mental model that he somehow took for real. And that's all I have to say about that.

I had just come back from having a pleasant meal at IHOP in south Gainesville and quickly tuned my tiny black and white TV on to ABC to watch the tail end of the Monday Night Football game featuring "my" Miami Dolphins, struggling through a rebuilding year and trying to ruin the playoff hopes of their divisional rival New England. Which they accomplished, booting the game-winning field goal at the tail end of the game, to loud cheers from the home Miami crowd. But I quickly learned with that good news that something very bad had happened: John Lennon had just been shot. It wasn't long before his death was reported, and soon after the game (then) ABC correspondent Geraldo Rivera was given free rein to discuss the matter, especially in the context of the friendship he had developed with the Lennons.

When someone dies, like Lennon in 1980, there is no next year, no 1981. For him, the universe has been extinguished while, from the viewpoint of the rest of the universe, the converse is true. The question I have may sound a bit silly, but I think it is pertinent nevertheless: is there such a thing as 1980? That year (well, most of it) contained within it the life essence of John Lennon, walking and breathing on Earth. Yes, that sweeping line of the "now" that separates past from future is currently 31 years down the road. But does that "now" determine reality in and of itself?

What do you think?

Twelve Seven

2011-12-07T11:16:00.013-05:00

Seventy years ago, on the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy launched a surprise aerial attack on the American fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, precipitating the U.S. entrance into World War II. This conflict had been going on for two years in the West, with Nazi Germany and fascist Italy pitted against the Allies (the national composition of which kept changing due to invasion and occupation). But truth be told, for all practical purposes, this horrible conflict that took so many lives began in 1931 with Japan's invasion of China.

For ten years before the Pearl Harbor attack, Japan, then ruled by a totalitarian military dictatorship that imposed the harsh Bushido nationalist doctrine on its population, brutalized the Chinese people as it enacted its own "Lebensraum" policy long before Hitler invaded Eastern Europe. In fact, the brutality of the Nanking occupation was so severe that the Nazi German officials stationed there were reportedly horrified enough to allow fleeing Chinese sanctuary in their embassy. But I'm not trying to rip on the Japanese here...

The fact is that countries like Japan and Germany epitomize high civilization for me. As does my good ol' U.S.A....and that has me worrying a bit.

A totalitarian society practices strict control of its population through a secret police network, informants, and harsh punishment of any perceived "deviants" from the state's line. But history has shown us in a frightening way how the perception of economic prosperity as well as the notion that outside enemies are threatening the country can lead its people not only to rationalize the plight they are experiencing under their ever-diminishing liberties, but also to fully embrace their oppressive government's policies, even if they lead to war and genocide.

So here we are in America, worrying about our precious economy. We see all these enemies out there trying to undermine us and we think that we need a strong leader who will lay the law down to those other countries. And what about the moral decay that is weakening us within? We need the government to pass laws which restrict immoral behavior among the population so that we can be internally stronger. And let's also fully support the state and whatever police tactics it employs to squelch constitutionally-protected peaceful dissent, because we all know how those good-for-nothing protesters are just trying to undermine us. Well, at least SOME of us want that, judging by the crowd reactions at some of these debates that have been going on lately.

I think that the lesson most commonly taught about Pearl Harbor is to not let your guard down about your enemies. But while taking care not to let that happen, let's make sure that we don't become the enemy ourselves. Prosperity is the great justifier: be careful not to relinquish your precious rights to the state for its sake, and don't rationalize the state's behavior based on your own economic well-being: your great civilized country could turn into something very ugly...

Lord of the Rings: Added Scenes

2011-12-06T10:08:00.005-05:00

The other day I was watching Lord of the Rings: Return of the King on one of the Encore channels. I expected a repeat viewing of a movie I have seen so many times that I can predict what the characters are about to say. But this time around, things were different: they had added many new scenes to the movie.

The part where, at Isengard, the hobbits Merry and Pippin are reunited with the rest of the "fellowship" (sans Frodo, Sam, and Boromir) is rather puzzling in the original movie. After dominating Gandalf and terrorizing the surrounding people in the first two movies with his massive army of orcs, the wizard Saruman is reduced to residing hidden in his tower, without any real power left. That is, according to a terse statement that Gandalf makes. Then, mysteriously and without explanation, after safely in Saruman's possession within the tower for the first two movies, the black palantir (a magical psychic transmission ball) appears to Pippin at the bottom of the water just outside. I found this sequence frustrating and unsatisfactory in the original movie. But the revised version I saw the other night tied up all the loose ends and nicely cleaned up the story. I wondered to myself why they didn't include this in the original.

Other scenes were added as well: some were clearly superfluous to the story, such as the drinking contest between Legolas and Gimli. Others were important, such as what happened right after Aragorn made his enlistment pitch to the army of the dead. Or the time that Frodo and Sam were in Mordor and were forced to march for a time with Sauron's orc army. These scenes were exciting, making me wonder why they were left out of the movie.

I bought the DVD set for Lord of the Rings a few years ago and now feel a bit ripped off, knowing that I am missing all of those extra scenes. But this reinsertion of scenes into established movies has been going on for quite some time. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, The Godfather, and the Harry Potter flicks have all undergone this process, making their presentation on TV always a question of whether it's the old movie or the "new, improved" version.

What is interesting to me is that the extra scene in Return of the King with Saruman, while making the story more sensible, actually makes a complete break with J.R.R. Tolkien's writing. In the book, Saruman and Grima escape to foment trouble in the Shire, which the four returning hobbits have to deal with near the ending. In the movie, the Shire residents are blissfully ignorant of all the tumultuous events that had just transpired around them, regarding the returning hobbit heroes with apathy, even a little disdain.

I welcome the new scenes: actually, I'd like to see a whole lot more...

Recovery Day

2011-12-05T23:58:00.000-05:00

Today was one of those days that my tired body just took over and told me to step back and take it easy. Fortunately, I was off from work and could afford to do this. After dropping off my daughter at school in the morning and then sitting at the nearby Starbucks in a near-stupor for about an hour, I went home to prepare for a good, long run. Only that never happened: I went back to bed and slept a few more hours. When I awoke, I realized that this was just going to be a "recovery" day for me.

With an expected intense day of work tomorrow due to the holiday season rush, I am glad I am taking this time to rest. Who knows, I may even take it easier on my running for another day...

December Mail Rush Upon Me Again

2011-12-04T23:10:00.009-05:00

Well, the year has once again come around full circle and here I am in early December, a postal processing employee during the intensely busy Christmas season. I expect a very busy three weeks ahead of me as we are inundated with a seemingly endless amount of parcels to sort and send to their appropriate destinations. For I operate one of the parcel sorting machines at my local plant, along with my crew of eight other workers and a supporting cast of help from other parts of the facility.

Unfortunately, with the (what I consider very ill-advised) decision by upper-level postal management to move outgoing mail processing from Gainesville to Jacksonville after December, this is probably the last great Christmas mail rush I will be working. Unless, of course, I become one of those who end up excessed to Jacksonville or Tampa a few months from now as ALL of Gainesville's mail processing operations are transferred to those two cities.

There is a lot of uncertainty regarding where I will be working in the future, and what I will be doing. But whatever happens, I will still be a proud employee of a quality organization: the United States Postal Service, as well as an even prouder member, in my 25th year, of the best labor union in the nation: the American Postal Workers Union.

Since I may be working a lot of overtime (and sleeping overtime the following day), this blog may suffer a bit in the form of gaps. But rest assured, "constant reader" (with a tip of my hat to the great Stephen King), I'm keepin' the faith here: just you keep reading my drivel, O.K.?

Even if you just hit my blog and casually read it, go ahead and anonymously leave a comment (as long as it's not spam), especially if you have a criticism...

LSU-Alabama Title Pairing Not Right

2011-12-03T23:58:00.004-05:00

Now that LSU has beaten Georgia for the Southeastern Conference championship this year in college football, that leaves, in all probability, two SEC schools to play for the national championship: LSU and Alabama. These two teams already played each other just a month ago, with LSU prevailing 9-6 in overtime. But one might say that, just because they were from the same conference (even the same division within that conference) and already played each other, that doesn't matter since they are the two best teams in the country (according to the determining BCS ranking system). So these two, from a six-team division within a conference, have been determined to be the best two teams in the country. Why?

The Southeastern Conference has distinguished itself in the previous six years by winning every one of those national championships. But the deciding championship game that each of the SEC teams won in those years was against a school from another part of the country. The fact that the other SEC schools, apart from chiefly small colleges, dominated the schedules of LSU and Alabama, means that there is not, in my opinion, a sufficiently strong enough point of reference to automatically lift the SEC high above all of the other conferences in stature and give Alabama, the team that lost to LSU, a shot at the title.

I would much rather see a team like Oklahoma State play LSU than Alabama. The BCS system in college football is an abysmal failure. It needs not just reform: it needs to be completely overturned in favor of a nationwide playoff system.

Stealth Spam Comments

2011-12-02T12:21:00.009-05:00

Since you are obviously currently reading this blog, you are probably doing everything you can right now to keep yourself from becoming completely overcome by its dazzling, profound wit and wisdom. Seriously though, to be perfectly truthful about it, I don't promote this blog on the Internet and not that many people read it. Maybe they like it, maybe they don't: I don't know since few of them leave comments. Of the ones that do, though, I appreciate those comments whether they agree or disagree with me. Well....except for one type of "comment", that is...

Blogger, the Google blog publisher under which I write this blog, has a spam comment feature that keeps a lot of that unwelcome stuff from ever bothering me. Unfortunately, some of those out there promoting their own little businesses on the Internet have recognized that their free-advertising-via-comments is being cut down by spam-filters, so they adapted to this by actually leaving terse, bland, and unspecific pseudo-comments. With their business websites accessible through their "names" they used as submitters. Such was the case, among way too many I have been getting, with the phony comment for my "Two Bumper Stickers" article the other day. The writer wrote a broken tweet-length sentence saying that my bumper sticker article was nice and thanks for sharing it. Just enough to pass through a spam filter. No way am I going to publish it as a comment. And his name referred back to a business, naturally.

Once again, I strongly welcome comments. As a rule of thumb, though, just make sure that (1) you address specific things I wrote within the article and (2) don't advertise your business through your comment.

I don't think that's asking too much.

Unit 3 Arabic Vocabulary

2011-12-01T07:00:00.000-05:00

Once again, this is from Teach Yourself Arabic by Jack Smart and Frances Altorfer. The pages where the new words are mark after each initial word for a new page.

أين...ayna.....where, 55
عن إذنك...:an idhn-ik.....excuse me (to a woman), 56
إنجلترا...ingiltarra.....England
عمان...:ammaan.....Amman
أردني...urduni.....Jordanian
إنجليزي...ingliizi.....English
مع الأسف...ma:a l-asaf.....I'm sorry
لا...laa.....not
فقط...faqaT.....only
العلربية...al-:arabiyyah.....Arabic, the Arabic language, 57
بطلاقة...bi-Talaaqah.....fluently
قليلة...qaliilah.....a little, few (fem.)
ما عملك؟...maa :amal-ik.....what do you do? (to a woman)
جامعة لندن...jaami:at landan.....University of London
طبيب...Tabiib.....doctor
طالب...Taalib.....student, 58
مدرس...mudarris.....teacher
مهندس...muhandis.....engineer
مدير...mudiir.....manager
رئيس...ra'iis.....boss
متحف, متاحف...matHaf, mataaHif.....museum, 59
كثيرة...kathiirah.....many, much (fem.)
جسر, جسور...jisr, jusuur.....bridge
محل, محلات...maHall, maHallaat.....shop, store
جامعة...jaami:ah.....university
وسط...wasT.....middle
غرفة...ghurfah.....room, 63
أتكلم...atakallam.....I speak
تتكلم...tatakallam.....you speak (masc.)
تتكلمين...tatakallamiin.....you speak (fem.)
يتكلم...yatakallam.....he speaks
تتكلم...tatakallam.....she speaks
مكتوم...maktuum.....concealed, 64
مكتوب...maktuub.....written
مسموح...masmuuH.....permitted
ممنوع...mamnuu:.....forbidden
مبصوط...mabSuuT.....contented, happy
مفروض...mafruuDH.....necessary, obligatory
أية...ayya.....which (fem.), 66
قليلا...qaliilan.....slightly, a bit
مشهور...mashhuur.....famous, 67
صيدلية, ات...Saydaliyyah, -aat.....pharmacy
سعيد...sa:iid.....happy, joyful

Urban Meyer Takes On Ohio State Coaching Job

2011-11-30T09:54:00.004-05:00

At the close of his valiant and pressure-packed attempt at the national title for the 2009 college football season, University of Florida head coach Urban Meyer suddenly announced his resignation, for undisclosed medical reasons. A little while later, he changed his mind: he would return for 2010, but allow an assistant coach to temporarily take over the head coaching role until the fall. But still, a few months later, Meyer couldn't hold himself back and once again took charge of spring practice. The following 2010 season, though, saw him play a much more passive, seemingly detached role on the sidelines; the Gators also suffered through a lackluster, disappointing season. Coincidence? Maybe, but Meyer resigned for good at the end of that season.

Now, after a year away from coaching, and working as a very good and respected ESPN football analyst, Urban Meyer is once again diving head first into a challenging, high-stress coaching position, this time taking over scandal-riddled Ohio State. Meyer is from Ohio and once served as an assistant coach at Ohio State. Still, I have heard some unhappy rumblings around me here in Gainesville from UF fans who think that he somehow betrayed the Gators by going over to Ohio State. I beg to disagree, but am still a little worried, although not at all surprised, by our esteemed former coach's decision.

I don't have the slightest doubt that Urban Meyer suffered some sort of serious medical condition aggravated by his Type-A "alpha male" personality that seeks out stressful situations as challenges to be conquered. The fact that he first resigned late in 2009, then decided to came back to coach in the fall, and then couldn't wait to do that before jumping back into the fray during the spring, shows me that he is suffering from an inner conflict between his competitive nature and his better health interests. And now he has done it again: since the Florida job is taken by Will Muschamp, Meyer can't go back. Besides, he saw the unexpected opportunity to coach in his old place in his old home state and took it. When Meyer finally did resign from Florida for good, there was no hint that the Ohio State program was running headlong into a scandal and that its longtime coach would be terminated. So this is no "Nick Saban" scenario: unlike Saban, who deserted one team after only two years (without accomplishing anything for it and leaving it in complete disarray) for another the next year, Meyer gave the University of Florida two national championships and a close run for a third while serving for six years. His departure was for health reasons, which is why I'm a little worried about his new job.

The fans in Columbus are just as rabid for their Buckeyes as is the Gator "Nation" for their team. Urban Meyer is once again jumping into a situation with this Ohio State job, this time for six years, that may well tear him apart. Maybe I'm wrong and that the pressure won't get to him and destroy his health. I hope so, but for his sake (and that of his family) I wish he had stayed in broadcasting. As far as the University of Florida is concerned, though, he has absolutely nothing to apologize for.

I wish Urban Meyer the best in his new job and his life. Not that I intend to start rooting for Ohio State anytime soon..

The Precious Rings and Cellphones

2011-11-29T09:57:00.004-05:00

One of the Encore channels was showing the Lord of the Rings trilogy the other day. I've seen it many times before, but always enjoy repeat viewings. Tolkien's story is full of insights and lessons about human nature and society, and I usually pick up something new each time I watch it. This time was no exception.

The whole premise of Lord of the Rings is that, in the distant past on Middle Earth, different sets of rings were forged and presented as gifts of power to the leaders of the men, elves, and dwarfs. Unknown to them in their utter attachment to these rings, which they wore and treasured, was the fact that the dark lord Sauron had forged a separate ring that bound all who wore the others under his power and control. The result was the ascendency of Sauron to power and war against the peoples of Middle Earth.

I can't help thinking that, with today's increasingly compact and Internet-fast cellphones, something similar is going on. Like Tolkien's rings, their possessors tend to be almost fanatically attached to them; they really represent in some ways their "precious". And it does seem that these little gadgets provide their owners with a lot of power, don't they? But...

It seems that, with each new advent in information technology comes a corresponding decrease in personal privacy. For not only is it much easier to pick up signals from portable devices and hack personal information from them, but simply transacting any kind of business on them seems to be fed into various data banks that build up dossiers on the users. But there is something, in my opinion, even more foreboding than this...

My particular phone has a feature whereby all of the individual phone locations within my plan (with me there are four) can be pinpointed and revealed through GPS (presumably as long as the phone is "on"). This phone-locating service is supposedly a purely elective option available only to the subscriber, but my suspicious nature just can't keep me from wondering whether other parties have access to this information besides me. You can see, can't you, how much concentrated power could arise if some one party knew the exact whereabouts of everyone? Especially if the people didn't know this? Coupled with the increasing ability to launch precision remote-control military attacks, this could make that party almost invulnerable and all-powerful. Remind you yet of Sauron?

So please forgive me this near-paranoid rant. After all, this is America and something like that could never happen here, only in some made-up fantasy land like Middle Earth...or could it?

Change WRUF-FM's Format

2011-11-28T10:59:00.009-05:00

Chuck Woods, a University of Florida journalism graduate and retired faculty member, has written an article appearing in today's Gainesville Sun editorial section. In it, he decries the decision that the School of Journalism made last year to switch UF's powerful 100,000 watt radio station, WRUF-FM, from a rock format to country and western music. The intention was to increase the station's ratings, but as Woods points out, there is more to this than ratings: the community's interests should have been taken into account.

Gainesville is a college town, with a high demand among its population for fine arts programming. Indeed, Woods reports that in Tallahassee and Tampa, the state universities there that own two FM stations (like UF) devote one to Public Radio news/talk and the other to fine arts. But not here in Gainesville!

It's bad enough that I am stuck with a U.S. representative, based in Ocala, who is an arch-conservative and consistently votes against the interests and desires of most of the Gainesville residents who were gerrymandered into his district by a Republican-dominated state legislature a few years ago. Now my local Gainesville radio station has been "gerrymandered" as well to serve a particular cultural demand that is already being met by two powerful Ocala stations.

As a matter of fact, as Chuck Woods reports, the predicted boost in ratings didn't happen, instead going down from #7 to #10 in the area market. So it turns out that NOTHING positive came out of this programming switch.

I agree with the writer that WRUF-FM is in dire need of a format change, and his suggestion that it be to fine arts is something that, if implemented, might well herald my return to listening to broadcast radio on a regular basis.

Two Bumper Stickers

2011-11-27T20:49:00.006-05:00

The other day I was behind two different cars with interesting bumper stickers on them. One featured a stereotypical image of Jesus looking kind of hippie-ish on the left, with the accompanying message declaring, "Change you can believe in". The other's words were pretty blunt, too: "I'm in the NRA...and I vote". So why would I think these two bumper stickers are interesting?

Well, we all know (that is, those few remaining of us with attention spans worth mentioning) that Barack Obama ran under a banner of "change" throughout his successful 2008 presidential campaign. And most of the evangelical right-wing Christian community fervently voted against him in that election. So the "Jesus" bumper sticker was a nifty blending of politics and religion, implying not-so-subtly that Obama, that Democrat, is a false "changer". This dovetails nicely with the Republican Rich People's Party's strategy, which aims to add to its base support group of 1% of the population by pushing hot-button issues among the electorate. The proud possessor of this bumper sticker most likely believes that it's the Republican Jesus Party. As for the other sticker...

I'm not exactly sure whom that pro-NRA message was for, unless its owner thinks that politicians are always driving close behind. But truth be told, I am NOT an National Rifle Association member...and I vote, too! What this gun-o-phile probably is saying with this message is that he or she places this issue way above all others as far as a motivating voting issue. Once again, no doubt this individual would see the GOP as something different from its core agenda, which is to further the interests of the already very wealthy and powerful at the expense of everyone else. But you know, instead, it's the Republican Gun Party, as far as this person is concerned.

I have heard the various arguments for the pro-gun viewpoint, and they always come back to the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment as the end to all discussions on the subject, with the inexorable conclusion that gun ownership should be universally available and unrestricted. Only one problem, though...I have read the Second Amendment many times: what exactly is it that these people don't understand about the words "well-regulated"?

It wouldn't surprise me if the GOP didn't play a role in putting out either or both of these bumper stickers. That's because the only way that they can survive as a viable, popular party is to push issues that arouse fear and suspicion among the population. The Democrats are thus portrayed as the party of anti-Christian values and will take away your guns, so vote for the Republican {Rich People's} Jesus Gun Party...

Entering Jax Half-Marathon in December

2011-11-26T23:58:00.002-05:00

This year, starting with my recent Tom Walker Memorial race, I decided to try and run in a half-marathon race each month, from November to February. November's race is behind me, January will have me entering the Ocala Half-Marathon, February I'll enter the FivePoints Half-Marathon in Gainesville, and December...what about December, anyway?

Owing to my work situation (December is the busiest month of the year at the post office, with plenty of overtime to deal with), I can't exactly plan on going anywhere far from home to run a half-marathon race. And since I won't be able to get Saturdays off for the duration of the month, I am limited to Sunday races relatively close to home. So after looking at my options, I have decided to run in the December 18th Jacksonville Bank Half-Marathon. It isn't too far away, and although I will have worked the night before, I don't anticipate having to stay late at work on Saturday.

Still, I will be facing a bit of driving after not very much sleep, and then a 13.1 mile run starting early in the morning. And who knows what the weather will be like...

Well, nobody said it would always be easy!

Being Offended

2011-11-25T11:27:00.008-05:00

A few weeks ago, while playing Tim Tebow's Denver Broncos, a Detroit Lions defensive player sacked the popular quarterback. Immediately following this play, the Lion knelt down on one knee facing Tebow, still on the ground, mocking his habit of doing this as a short prayer on the sideline. Tebow reacted later to what I consider to have been very offensive behavior by saying that they were just having some fun and that it wasn't any big deal. On the other hand, Tebow has shown a knee-jerk tendency in the past to act offended at the treatment of his coaches or teammates by someone in the press. So there always seems to be something that will set somebody off, although it may not be the most apparent.

I myself can relate to Tebow taking up offense on behalf of others, most recently regarding what I see as egregiously hateful and racist treatment of my president and, worse, his wife and children. The other day, acting as First Lady, Michelle Obama was introduced at a NASCAR event and was roundly booed by many in the crowd. Why? For being the spouse of someone they politically opposed? Rush Limbaugh then seized upon this story and said on his radio show that the NASCAR fans had it right: they were booing Michelle for being too "uppity". Racism if I ever heard it.

Personally, though, there is one thing above all others that truly offends me. I know that others may rudely and even crudely express something derogatory about my appearance, behavior, or opinions. To me, I try not to take it too personally, although I have been accused in the past of being a little bit too touchy about such things. But there is one thing that I will take up the banner of personal offense in a heartbeat and not let it go: when someone denies my own reality.

When I tell someone that I saw something with my own eyes and they refuse to believe me, I am offended. When someone at work says that I am missing a certain placard, I respond to them that not only do I have it, but I just posted it, and they look at me like I'm crazy, I am offended. And when I tell a friend that not only did I hear on the radio a specific story of common interest, but that I also read it in the newspaper...and he refuses to believe me until he consults with someone else...I am offended. And sadly, I suppose, these offenses tend to stick with me.

No, I don't get offended like all of those pious, self-righteous religious people who take to the streets and riot if any of their religious symbols are improperly presented in the media ANYWHERE in the world (or even on the Moon or Mars, I suppose) according to THEIR dictates. But denying my own stated experience (which includes my own very personal, vivid childhood memories) probably stirs up as much anger within me as does any offense that another decides to take up for any other reason...

And you know what, I have absolutely no inclination to change: if someone doesn't believe what I say I DIRECTLY EXPERIENCED, then they need to discretely keep it to themselves...and out of my face!

Football, Food, Movie Marathons

2011-11-24T11:03:00.005-05:00

So being the homebody couch potato that I tend to personify on my days off, here I am at home on this Thanksgiving holiday, musing about what lies ahead for me on this day. And giving thanks, of course, that today I am off from work!

The house is currently permeated by the heavenly aromatic mixture of cooking foods, with serving time set around 1:30 this afternoon. Among the many items I am anticipating are turkey, stuffing (an all-time favorite), and pumpkin pie. Oh, and there are few things that surpass Melissa's home-made macaroni and cheese. And after the meal, a prolonged period of sleepiness, I am sure, highlighted by falling into a snooze in front of the television.

Television will be featuring the usual complement of football games and movie marathons. The Dallas Cowboys will be playing their traditional Thanksgiving afternoon game, and today it will be special: a rematch of the incredible 1993 turkey-day battle against the Miami Dolphins, which the latter won by virtue of a freak play at the very end. This year Miami, although pretty much out of the playoff running, has been surging of late. As has Dallas, so this game promises to be very entertaining (especially if you follow either team). Still, should things turn boring here, there are also a couple of interesting (to me) movie marathons going on as well.

The Sci-Fi Channel is running James Bond movies all day long while AMC is showing The Godfather Parts I and II (and not that disappointing Part III). Not that I plan to just sit there glued to my chair: my family is planning a trip to the movie theater, although we haven't yet finalized what we will watch there.

Before all of this, though, in just a few minutes, I will be going out on a neighborhood run. The weather is finally cooperating, with the humidity below 60% and the temperature in the mid-sixties.

Well, I guess I'll be off and running: Happy Thanksgiving!

Heat and Humidity Still Impedes Running

2011-11-23T12:17:00.005-05:00

The last few days have seen me either curtailing my road running distance in my training sessions or fleeing to the air-conditioned sanctuary of my YMCA treadmill, all due to the unseasonably hot and humid weather we have been suffering through here in Gainesville. Supposedly, after the "cold" front passes through later today, it will get a bit cooler, possibly even dipping down into the upper forties with daytime highs in the mid-to-upper seventies. Still, that's better than what I have been experiencing recently. Sunday's conditions forced me to the treadmill, on which I ran 9.3 miles. Monday I ran a couple of laps around my block (1.34 miles) and was sweating profusely in the 87% humidity. Yesterday, initially intending to run seven miles, I felt the need to shorten it to five because of the stifling moisture permeating the air. And today I only made it once around the block (.67 mile), hoping for better conditions tomorrow.

We'll see how things go tomorrow on Thanksgiving. I expect a good, relatively lengthy run, with the only serious limiting factor being the danger of stuffing myself with too much food beforehand. Still, since I'm off from work tomorrow, I can wait for a while to do my running after what promises to be a very large meal...

Eleven Twenty-Two

2011-11-22T10:05:00.007-05:00

Today marks one of those sadly-increasing dates, like 4/4, 9/11, 12/7, and 12/8, that represent tragic events. Of course, today is the 48th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination in Dallas, Texas. Many people think of this as a pivotal moment in our history: too many important things happened differently under the subsequent Johnson administration, some good and some very, very bad. The worst of the bad was the massive military escalation in Vietnam even after intelligence reports clearly indicated that this strategy wouldn't work. I can't imagine Kennedy making the same stubborn, bone-headed and callous decisions that LBJ did: it just wasn't a part of his character. Also, I wonder whether we would have abandoned our Apollo/Moon landing program prematurely had JFK stayed in office for two whole terms, as he was clearly headed for an easy reelection in 1964. With no Vietnam to burden a second term, the political resurrection of Richard Nixon in 1968 becomes a major question as well. And although Johnson was lukewarm to Apollo, Nixon was outright hostile to it, being the one who was instrumental in curtailing the missions and leaving us in low-Earth-orbit ever since (actually, we've now regressed so badly that we can't even do that anymore).

On the bright side (if you can imagine a bright side to a horrible act of cruel violence like an assassination), Lyndon Johnson, with his experience twisting arms as Senate Majority Leader, was able to get a torrent of progressive legislation quickly passed upon entering office. This included landmark bills like the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and Medicare. Had Kennedy been able to stay in as president, this legislation probably would have dragged on for years, being impeded in large part by boll-weevil southern conservative Democrats sitting on the bills while sitting as committee chairmen. On the other hand, perhaps the racial unrest that rose up under Johnson wouldn't have materialized under Kennedy; at least JFK may have been able to handle it better, who knows...

The feeling that history turned in a big way on Kennedy's murder has inspired Stephen King to write a novel about it, soon to be released. I may not be able to wait for the library this time to check it out: to the bookstore I say!

Goodkind Driving Me Nuts With Boring Novel

2011-11-21T00:02:00.001-05:00

I wonder how many people picked up the first of Terry Goodkind's 12-volume Sword of Truth fantasy series with the firm determination to read through the entire series, only to become so frustrated in the first few chapters that they put it down, never to pick it up again. I know that's how I am feeling right now, about halfway through the first book, titled Wizard's First Rule.

One of my major gripes about Christopher Paolini and his Eragon fantasy series, besides the suspicion that he ripped off just about every major (and minor) idea of his from other writers, is that he tediously goes on for page after page exploring the innermost thoughts of his characters. Maybe you're the kind of reader who digs this, but I find it to be a literary cop-out, a short-cut around using the unraveling story as a way to better get to know the characters and their personalities. But at least I thought that, well, at least here Paolini is writing with some originality (very boring originality, that is). Ooops, maybe he wasn't after all...

No, I don't know whether Paolini read Goodkind or not. But I would be surprised if he hadn't at least begun to read the first book even if he, like me, later laid it down in frustration. Because Goodkind, who began writing his Sword of Truth series several years before Paolini, is eerily similar to the latter with his endless excursions into the thoughts, sub-thoughts, and micro-sub-thoughts of his characters. No wonder that this series is so damned long! Ironically, though, Goodkind has (at least so far) spared the suffering reader with this torture regarding the antagonist, Darken Raul (doesn't that sound a lot like Star Wars?). With Raul, Goodkind lets his actions speak for what kind of person he is. And although those actions are dastardly and nasty, at least I know when I come across a chapter featuring the "bad guy", I will enjoy a kind of reprieve from the mental tedium pervading the "good guy" narrative. The result is that I am unwittingly beginning to root for the antagonist to vanquish those god-awful-boring heroes!

So I don't think I'm going to make it through the first book, much less the whole series. But that may be just as well: I saw Stephen King give a speech and Q & A on C-Span and he is soon coming out with two very interesting stories.

Now what will I ever do if THE KING retires from writing??!!

Gainesville Sun Ignores Local Running Races

2011-11-20T22:43:00.003-05:00

Last week's Tom Walker Memorial Half-Marathon race in Gainesville represented a major sporting event in this community of mine. Promoted in advance in the local papers, nevertheless NO coverage was provided of this event's results. No, not even a flimsy article anywhere indicating the very top finishers. Yet, especially in the Gainesville Sun, we get an endless stream of yawn-inducing drivel about various aspects of the Gators football team. Reality check, Gainesville Sun: there's more to sports than your precious NCAA football and the grossly underachieving and overindulged Florida Gators!

It could well be just that the sports editor has some kind of grudge against the sport of running. Maybe he was a nonathletic or out-of-shape little kid and the other kids laughed at his meager attempts to run back then. Yeah, I bet he hated that aspect of physical education class. Maybe at least with football, he was good at just standing there on the line and blocking. Or maybe he WAS a good runner once and was slighted at some time in the past, holding onto a grudge all these years. Or maybe he just can't get along with the Florida Track Club, the organizer and promoter of this event. No, that can't be it: the Gainesville Sun is an equal-opportunity ignorer of all local running races (unless they are officially affiliated with colleges or high schools).

Then again, it might not be the sports editor at all.

Maybe it's just that my hometown Gainesville Sun sucks, pure and simple. But no, that can't be it either: sometimes they do come out with some interesting articles. So then what is it they have against running?

Running is very popular here in Gainesville, with many people engaging in the activity on many levels. It's a shame that those "running" my local newspaper, which does have some positive features, seem to think that this sport isn't important enough to report...

Florida Eases Into a Bowl It Doesn't Deserve

2011-11-19T10:58:00.010-05:00

The University of Florida football team has a good thing going for themselves in spite of this year's mediocre edition. They are currently 5-5 and will probably lose next week's regular season finale against a superior Florida State team. And why do I emphasize the words "regular season"? Because, in spite of their difficulties and probable humbling 6-6 finish, they will still be eligible to play in a post-season bowl game, full of its pomp and glory (and financial reward). This is due to a rule allowing schools with non-losing records to participate in bowls and likewise prohibiting the "losers" from "disgracing" these games with their presence. But Florida?

The Gators aren't the only major college school that pads their schedule with easy opponents, but they may well be the worst offender. They opened their season against two pushover small colleges, giving the world (and sadly even themselves) in doing so the false impression that they were a much better team than they actually were. Add to this the fact that their next two conference opponents were having dismal seasons and you had a 4-0 team pushing to be included in the Top Ten. Then, the bottom fell out of their season as they played against several highly ranked teams and went 1-5 (and barely pulling out their one victory during this stretch). So UF is 5-5 with the Seminoles to play next week. So how do they get to go to a bowl?

For some reason I cannot fathom, a few years ago the bigshots who set the rules for college football decreed an extra game in the regular season, making it twelve games. Florida reacted by scheduling a powder-puff pushover college late in each season. This year they are playing Furman, a team that hasn't exactly sparkled, even against other schools in their level of play. That game, which the Gators could win blindfolded, is going to begin here in Gainesville less than two hours from now. This "victory", hollow as it will be, will nevertheless be the one that gives them a pass into a bowl game, one that I think they don't deserve at all.

What's really sad about this Furman game today will be the feigned excitement expressed by the play-by-play radio announcers whenever Florida pulls off a successful play against their grossly (and deliberately) outmatched opponent.

Bicycling in My Life

2011-11-17T23:30:00.003-05:00

When I was a kid, I hardly ever rode a bicycle. In fact, it wasn't until I was sixteen that I even owned one. The only reason that I instantly could ride it from the time I set it out in the parking lot was that, many years before when I was about eight, there was an old beat-up bicycle in our storage room at home that I would repeatedly get up on and try to balance myself in our backyard. But once I actually began riding one on the street in 1973, I fell in love with this activity. Yet I never did fall for the trappings and expense of "serious" bicycling. To me, that would have detracted from the utter simplicity and freedom of being so mobile with a vehicle that ran on no fuel, could be parked just about anywhere, had very cheap maintenance, and cost me only about a hundred bucks.

I continued my fervent bicycling for about 22 years, finally cooling off in late 1995 when I changed my work schedule to a shift when bicycling conflicted too much with the local traffic. You see, although I lived about eight miles from my workplace, I would often ride my bicycle to work and back. This also meant riding up some pretty steep (for Florida) hills. So I kept myself in pretty good shape with this activity.

Since that time, my bicycling tapered off considerably. Along with that went my physical fitness as well, and at times I got quite overweight. A few years ago I began to exercise at my YMCA's workout room. Then, a local Starbucks manager, Marty Bower, told me that with his suggestion Gainesville had started to hold an annual marathon/half-marathon in February (put on by LifeSouth). I told him that I wanted to run in it, but tarried in getting back to running. Finally, in 2007 I began to run in earnest, first on the treadmill, then in the vicinity of Gainesville's Westside Park, and finally settling down to designing and running lengthy courses up and down my neighborhood roads. So my fitness level improved again with the running, but I never did get back to bicycling very much. And I did manage to run and complete the 2010 LifeSouth Half-Marathon, but unfortunately Marty had left Starbucks by then and I couldn't brag to him about it.

During my "heyday" of bicycling, I felt relatively safe on the road. Sadly, I can no longer confidently state that. Motorists today seem very impatient and are too easily distracted with their assorted "toys", the worst being their cellphones. They tend to drift off the road too much into the bike lines that are reserved for me, not them. No, I have to admit it: I'm a little bit scared to undertake bicycle riding again to any appreciable degree.

Not that, from time to time, I won't just get on my bicycle and ride around for a little bit. My days of "extreme" bicycling are probably over, but I'll always cherish the memories of my journeys in the now-receding past...

Atlas of Middle Earth and Its Appeal

2011-11-16T12:34:00.002-05:00

Every now and then I get into a whimsical mood and check out a peculiar spin-off book from my local library: The Atlas of Middle Earth by Karen Wynn Fonstad. It is based on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, known best for The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. This book goes into meticulous detail about the various stages of change in Middle Earth, a thoroughly fictional place, through the different "ages" as Tolkien laid out in his often cumbersome tales.

Fonstad is herself a geographer with cartographic experience. It shows in this excellent book, although as I study its pages I get the disturbing feeling that my time would be better served looking over maps of real places. And yet, because I have enjoyed an affinity with maps since early childhood and feel quite comfortable around them, I keep coming back to this book.

As for the Third Age, the era in which The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings transpires, I am pretty familiar with the geography of this completely non-existent world. As for the earlier ages, there were a lot of cataclysmic upheavals that occurred with Middle Earth, raising and sinking islands and parts of continents, making one place move to another realm, and even changing the shape of Middle Earth itself. Definitely pure fantasy, not science fiction!

Since Atlas of Middle Earth is based on stories and illustrates where events took place involving those stories' characters, how about a personal "Atlas of Real Earth" compiled in a comparable manner? Let's say, for example, that I want such an atlas for my family and friends. The maps would feature migration routes as we moved from southern Georgia in my infancy to Alexandria, Virginia, and then to Opa-Locka and later Hollywood in southeastern Florida. Then in my adulthood to Gainesville, Leesburg for a seven-month respite, and then back to Gainesville. There would be a special page showing the various places in Gainesville I've lived as well. Not to mention the vacation excursions and other travel I've undergone. And of course, friends and other members of my family would have their own tales and "trails" featured on the maps.

I think that would be a pretty cool idea for a business: make and sell a highly stylized atlas, patterned after Tolkien's maps, depicting your own life's events and journeys just as if you were the one living out some fantasy adventure!

Unseasonably Hot and Humid Weather

2011-11-15T23:58:00.003-05:00

I am beside myself at the sorry weather we're experiencing here in the middle of November in north-central Florida. After the cold morning (32 degrees) on Saturday when I suffered at the beginning of my half-marathon race, the temperatures rapidly surged upward until we are now left with lows in the 60's and highs in the 80's. And the humidity? Earlier today around 11 am, the humidity, normally dissipated by that time of the morning, still stood at an oppressive 87%. So instead of running outdoors, I felt the need to run inside on the treadmill. And tonight while driving home, I marveled at the combination of the warmth and a very, very thick fog.

I don't see any relief in sight from this horrible weather. I guess the only way it's going to get cold again is for me to sign up for another running race...

Anthropology and Race

2011-11-14T17:08:00.004-05:00

Former University of Florida Anthropology Department chairman and professor emeritus John Hartwell Moore has written an important opinion piece in last Sunday's Gainesville Sun concerning the need to emphasize the field of anthropology in our university curriculum, our extreme right-wing governor Rick Scott's loudly-expressed opinions on the matter to the contrary.

Moore's main argument is compelling: before the advent of modern anthropology during just the last century, academic discussion about diversity among humanity was based on an orthodoxy dividing people into distinct "races", each one with its own particular traits of intelligence and personality. Even though this racial eugenics-based theory was used to justify slavery and discrimination in America and persecution of Jews in Europe, encyclopedias and texts continued to display articles about the three main "races" in the world and how other groups were "mixes" of these "races".

Professor Moore named a group called "Southern Physicians" who used racist theory as "science" to try to justify racial segregation. Modern anthropology, on the other hand, does not recognize "race" as a legitimate scientific concept with an applicable meaning.

As a child, I remember looking in my home encyclopedia at pictures of different racial types throughout the world, classified under the banners of "Caucasoid", "Negroid", or "Mongoloid". This implied that there was such a thing as "racial purity", a very dangerous concept as history has tragically borne out. Children born of parents of differing "races" were deemed as "mixed race". We still (regrettably) generally adhere to these notions today, modern anthropology notwithstanding.

Since there is no such thing as "race" there is also no such thing as "mixed race". Race is a matter of subjective perception, not objective reality. On those annoying questionnaires I get from time to time, I am just as entitled to bubble in next to "black" or "African American" for my racial/ethnic affiliation as I am to fill in for "white" or "European". But I actually just see myself an almost universally human "brown", thank you. Funny that they never offer THAT choice on a questionnaire of this type...

I agree with John H. Moore's conclusions: anthropology needs to be emphasized more in schools, not less. After all, in a world full of misinformation, widely-believed conspiracy theories of all sorts, the closet-racist "birther" movement about President Obama, and denial of solidly established facts like the Jewish Holocaust and evolution, the last thing we need is to retreat from science and reason in our educational system. If anthropology fades, then something more insidious and false will surely replace it as a model of humanity's diversity. And then I'm afraid we'd be in for more trouble...

Too Many Presidential Debates

2011-11-13T18:16:00.004-05:00

I am wondering whether anyone else is picking up on the same thing: aren't there way too many Republican presidential debates? I'm not saying this because I am anti-Republican: I thought the same about the Democratic campaign against Bush in 2003-2004. To me, all these debates seem to accomplish is give the other party (this time it's the Democrats) ammunition to use in the general election whenever a candidate commits a gaffe (which sometimes happens several times in a single debate). Also, if the Republicans are really serious about regaining the White House in the 2012 election, then these debates are also counterproductive in that they force the candidates to play up to the more extreme conservative elements in the party. Instead, the candidates should be demonstrating to the nation that they are reasonable leaders with the country's greater interests at heart, not just towing some narrow ideological line that has little broad appeal to the electorate.

Perhaps the reason we are currently experiencing so many debates is something that I have alluded to in some previous articles: Americans seem to have some serious issues with their attention spans and memories. Or at least enough of them do to potentially effect the outcome of close elections. Maybe the GOP organizers see this, too, and feel that only with these continuing debates can they keep the campaign (and their candidates) in the public eye before that public quickly forgets about them!

My Half-Marathon Race Earlier Today

2011-11-12T11:29:00.005-05:00

Earlier this morning, I ran the Tom Walker Memorial Half-Marathon as planned. And as has usually been the case with me, the temperatures spiked severely downward. It was 32 degrees at the race's start (about 8:10) with 100% humidity. Not fun at all for me. I spent most of the pre-race waiting in the car with the heater going. But eventually I shivered my way somehow to the starting line, once again deliberately behind as many entrants as I could get.

This race is basically along a single paved trail (with a slight divergence at the beginning), with the second half of the race a retracing of the path back to the beginning (or close thereto). One thing that I noticed this time around above 2010's run was that the first three miles (and the last three) of the race had a lot of hills and valleys. It was more difficult for me this year since I have only been either training around my immediate, very flat neighborhood or on the treadmill. Last year I incorporated a path that had some small hills into my training, so the race course's hills weren't such a big deal then.

In spite of the hills, I felt pretty strong throughout the run and once again decided to run the race through from beginning to end without walking breaks. Still, I was certain that my time would be much slower than last year. Imagine my surprise when I came to the finish line with a new personal half-marathon record, turning in a time of 1:59:38.

After the race, my legs were sore. But that was pretty much it for the recovery, which has gone quite well. I am very encouraged by my successful run today. After all, I hadn't covered a half-marathon distance in a run since this past January 23's Ocala Marathon. My training strategy instead consisted of alternating long runs with short ones on successive days, with the long runs varying from 7 to 10 miles. Apparently, this is the way to go for me with half-marathon training. After all, it is hard for me to argue with the results!

My Half-Marathon Tomorrow Morning

2011-11-11T13:40:00.005-05:00

Tomorrow morning I will be running in Gainesville's Tom Walker Memorial Half Marathon for the second consecutive year. Last year I ran without employing my customary run-walk method, going nonstop for the 13.1 mile distance. I was also training for a marathon race then, so this race was a "way-stop" for me, so to speak. Now, it's a little bit different. For one, the half-marathon is my chosen full-length race for the present and future. For another, I fully plan to do my usual "run six minutes, walk one minute" routine throughout the run. But like last year, I am going about it will little concern for my time and finish. My practice pace is my race pace, pure and simple.

In training for it, for more than the past two weeks I have been alternating my days between long runs and very short ones. Today, though, I deliberately broke my string of 16-straight running days to rest my body for tomorrow.

It looks as if the weather will be dipping down to almost unbearable cold, just for my race. This is the fourth straight race of half-marathon length or more that it has done this for (or to) me. So far the prognosticators have the temperature dropping to around 37. Let's see how low it really goes.

Well, I had better post this, sign off, and review the location of the park where the race begins and ends. I haven't been there since the last one..

Penn State Students Borderline Psycho Over Paterno

2011-11-10T09:43:00.009-05:00

And I thought it was bad enough here in Gainesville during the Urban Meyer/Tim Tebow era, with any criticism of the two local football demigod/heroes met with angry rebuffs. But we're quite reasonable here in comparison to the lunacy currently transpiring at Penn State University, which last night fired its long-time head football coach Joe Paterno.

You see, in 2002 Paterno received direct information from an eyewitness who saw his former assistant defensive coach Jerry Sandusky RAPING a little boy in an athletic-area shower on campus. All Paterno did was to perfunctorily refer the matter to his "superior", athletic director Tim Curley. Curley essentially sat on his hands and not only covered up this atrocity without contacting the police, but also continued to allow Sandusky on campus, although he was under "university" orders not to bring any of "his boys" with him (that rule in itself was incredibly bizarre: the suspected serial rapist can appear on campus, but his victims can't). I have no doubt that Paterno must have encountered his old colleague on numerous occasions during that time, but he apparently decided that the welfare of little children was trivial in comparison to his good-old-boy relationships, even if one of the good-old-boys happened to be a sexual predator. In response to Paterno's apathy and inaction, the board at Penn State in charge of firing people did just that last night: they fired Paterno. So what was the reaction around Penn State?

I'd like to think that people around campus felt a little shame and a lot of letdown that their revered authority figures allowed something this horrible to go on for so long (the 40-count indictment against Sandusky spans 15 years, from 1994 to 2009). Unfortunately, this isn't the case. Instead, students are taking to the streets and angrily demonstrating, not for the young victims, but rather for Paterno, who helped to enable this to continue by conveniently looking the other way. And I heard snippets of the press conference there last night when the firing was announced. The local reporters there were just as irrational as the students, angrily telling the college official there that Paterno was being treated unfairly (once again without expressing any concern for the little boys who suffered these crimes).

When I think of the shame that supposedly responsible people at this once highly respected university have brought down upon it, I then look at its student body and local media. Don't they see that they are magnifying their disgrace to the world?

Penn State? No, how about Psycho State!!!

GOP Needs to Wise Up About Cain, Romney

2011-11-09T10:11:00.007-05:00

Look, I'll admit it: at this time in my life, I tend to vote more in line with Democrats than Republicans. And I think that many of President Obama's difficulties so far are due in large part to the absolute and even hateful opposition of the Republicans as a bloc in Congress. When Ronald Reagan was president, he was able to engage in some give and take with enough Democrats to get a modified version of his agenda passed, and in a timely manner. But with Obama, the Senate minority Republicans, under reactionary leader Mitch McConnell, have openly expressed that their primary objective is to make our president a failure, with the nation's interests lagging behind in their priorities.

Having said that, just so you know where I'm coming from, I have to admit to some disappointment with the motley group of GOP presidential candidates so far, above and beyond my ideological differences. The latest letdown has been with current frontrunner Herbert Cain, who is suffering allegations that he sexually harassed women a few years ago. About these allegations, I suspend judgement. No, what bothers me about Cain is his extreme arrogance with the press, ordering them in fact to only address topics that he wants to discuss. The way he argues in such a nasty, mean manner with reporters even scares me a bit. Do you want someone like that leading our country?

The only candidate I see showing any hint of presidential stature is Mitt Romney. Not that I intend to support him should the Republican Party finally wise up and nominate the one candidate in the field with a real chance to beat Obama. It is just that the others in the field (well-meaning-but-incompetent-campaigner Jon Huntsman excepted) seem to be climbing over each other to spread messages of intolerance, if not bigotry, while collectively bending over backwards to promote a class warfare situation benefiting the very rich over the rest of us.

Video Games Unworthy of My Fanaticism...Yet

2011-11-08T00:02:00.000-05:00

I have to admit it: I never could get into the video game phenomenon. Although there are individual exceptions, I think that becoming a video game fanatic (or not) is largely a generational matter. And I may have just missed the "cut". I know that my children sure were (and still are) big video game players. I keep telling them, in reference to my relative lack of interest in the "activity", that I am waiting for virtual reality technology to take hold. But in spite of the fact that Walt Disney World's Carousel of Progress show's vision for the near future features Grandma sitting in the living room engaged in playing a virtual reality space battle game, nothing of the sort has yet "materialized" in the "real" world of the marketplace. Instead, we just keep getting more realistic looking flatscreen games.

Maybe we need a Steve Jobs in the gaming industry to come out with a vision that pushes the technology and software designers into the virtual world that I myself would clamor for. But then again, maybe that's the point: virtual reality could possibly be made so alluring that its participants might just decide to spend their waking hours completely within its fantasy lands, and that wouldn't exactly be a good thing for society in general, would it? Come to think of it, that's just what happened in a Star Trek: the Next Generation episode: one of the crew went overboard with his holodeck (virtual reality room) sessions to the exclusion of his duties, even losing touch with reality itself (which was actually complete fiction, but in the context of the show it was reality).

After all, it is clear to me that this is already happening to an extent with flatscreen games. There is even a company called GameFlight that allows video game fans to be able to afford to spend just about every waking moment of their lives completely immersed in them. I've seen the commercials: the "satisfied customers" kind of creep me out with their fanaticism, I have to say. Have you seen any of these ads?

Maybe the current generation(s) of video gamers will eventually reach the point where the two-dimensional game image becomes a bore and they collectively begin to demand high-quality and readily available virtual reality. If that happens and the industry responds with some good reality-emulating products (and not those cheap, inadequate 3-D simulations), expect yours truly to join the ranks of creepy video game fanatics...

Chekov and the Nuclear Wessels

2011-11-07T21:40:00.004-05:00

This may represent the height (or depth) of triviality, but something's been gnawing at me for years (perhaps illustrating the triviality of my mindset). During the movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, the original Enterprise crew has gone back in time to late twentieth-century America in search of some humpback whales. The plan is to transport them back to their own 23rd century just in "time" to save the Earth from a destructive extraterrestrial probe. Yes, this is obviously some heavy fiction: who really thinks we'll even MAKE it to the 23rd century? But still, I'm in on the fantasy elements of Star Trek and I like their stories and characters. And Star Trek IV may well have been their best feature-length movie, at least until the latest Star Trek flick came out and pushed the time travel paradox beyond the breaking point (but with a great story and compelling acting). One thing bothered me about one of the characters, though: Pavel Chekov.

Admittedly the character Chekov, a bridge officer on the Enterprise, although Russian in his upbringing, is played by a non-Russian actor named Walter Koenig. According to William Shatner, Koenig was originally picked for the TV series because he looked a lot like the Monkees' Davy Jones and they wanted some teeny-bopper bounce in the ratings (it apparently didn't work, though). Still, Koenig was able to make Chekov into a distinct, popular character on the series and in the movies. One thing he did that brought many smiles to the faces of viewers (including mine) was his thick Russian accent and difficulty pronouncing certain English words. And now we come to what is gnawing at me...

During a scene in Star Trek IV, Chekov and Uhura are walking the streets of San Francisco in "our" time. Knowing that it is a navy harbor, they are looking for a ship with a nuclear reactor. Chekov walks up to a cop doing his beat and point-blank asks him where the nuclear "wessels" are. The cop looks at him puzzled. Chekov repeats himself, carefully enunciating the words: nu-cle-ar wes-sels. Finally, after some moments of this confusion they do get some information (I believe from someone else). Trust me, everything eventually turns out all right. But "wessels"?

Chekov's difficulty in pronouncing the "v" sound implies that it is nonexistent in Russian. But that isn't so: it is actually very common. Ironically, it is the "w" sound that Chekov keeps saying in its place that is relatively rare in Russian. But still, if you didn't know anything about Russian you wouldn't have any reason to suspect this. Walter Koenig pulled a fast one on us, I think, and got away with it.

But then again, maybe I'm missing something here. If so, will someone qualified with a Russian background explain a native speaker's tendency to substitute a sound rare in his own language for one that is common?

More Sports Stuff, Spectator and Personal

2011-11-06T16:38:00.004-05:00

A lot of sports stuff has been going on lately, both personal and in the spectator "zone". So please forgive my continual focus on this area. But facts are facts: some pretty cool things have been happening (depending on whom you're rooting for, I suppose)...

Spectator-wise, the main thing is that my Miami Dolphins finally pulled off their first victory this year, thoroughly blowing away Kansas City on the road today 31-3. Phew, I thought for a while that they were just going to write off the rest of the season. Now they're worth following again...

Also, LSU defeated Alabama yesterday in college football, just as I had wanted. Not that I care one bit for the victors: I just enjoyed seeing Alabama get their comeuppance.

And oh yes, baseball's World Series is finally over and we have a champion for 2011. Now if I can just remember who was playing...

On a personal level, I have decided, after successful runs of 8.5, 10, 7.18, and 7.18 miles this past week, to enter this coming Saturday's Tom Walker Memorial Half-Marathon here in Gainesville. Yes, it's been a while since I ran 13.1 miles. But in each of the aforementioned runs, I felt strong toward the end and am confident that, while running the few extra miles needed to complete a half-marathon may be a challenge, it is still very attainable. Anyway, I've done it before many, many times...

LSU My Preference Over 'Bama in Today's Big Game

2011-11-05T01:21:00.009-04:00

At the risk of this starting to look like just a sports blog, here comes another article about...sports! Namely, the sport of football. More specifically, the season-defining college football game between the two top-ranked schools in the country: LSU and Alabama, to take place later today in Tuscaloosa.

At first glance, it might not seem to be important to me as to which team I want to root for in this game: after all, both of them are rivals of my hometown Florida Gators and beat up on them pretty badly last month. So I don't particularly like either team. But against each other? Well, I didn't have to give it much thought: I want LSU to beat Alabama, no doubt about it. And there's one dominant reason for this: Alabama's head coach is Nick Saban.

You see, although I follow college football and want the University of Florida to win, there is one team that I have fervently pulled for since childhood: pro football's Miami Dolphins. In 2005, Nick Saban, after coaching LSU to a national championship, went to try to rebuild a struggling Miami team. I thought he was a great coach and, like so many other Dolphins fans, was willing to give him several seasons to turn the team around. He was a hard worker who insisted on a great amount of control over the team. But at the close of the 2006 season, after angrily denying that he would leave Miami to coach for Alabama, Saban suddenly changed his mind and left anyway, leaving my team in shambles, to go 1-15 the next year.

Now LSU fans don't like Saban because he took on a job as the coach of their big divisional rival. But there are three points to consider here with Saban's treatment of LSU: One, he didn't leave directly to coach at Alabama; he initially left LSU to coach in the NFL. Two, unlike the case with Miami, Saban didn't leave LSU until he had rebuilt their program, even leading them to a national championship. And three, after he left, LSU had a strong enough program to win another national championship with his successor. But Saban left the Dolphins in worse shape than when he found them. Sure, I suppose that, had Nick Saban left Miami to coach for a divisional rival like the Bills or Jets instead of the University of Alabama, it would have irked me more. But the dude, after talking so much about how important character and commitments are, decided that talking is one thing and "walking" is another.

So I doubt that I will ever again support any team with which Nick Saban is affiliated. Not that he cares at all about what I think (or apparently what anyone else thinks, either)...

Muschamp Downplays Rivalries Too Much

2011-11-04T07:30:00.000-04:00

As a follow-up to yesterday's article about the Florida-Georgia college football rivalry, I feel the need to discuss the Gators' current head coach Will Muschamp and his puzzling posture concerning school rivalries.

Muschamp has continually and vigorously downplayed the rivals that Florida has faced this year, be they Tennessee, Alabama, LSU, or Georgia. He says that his players train the same way each week and that he simply wants them to carry out their assignments well. If that happens, according to the UF coach, then he will be satisfied and the game will take care of itself, rivalry or not. Muschamp seems to picture himself as somehow above college football rivalries, as if it were something too dirty to involve himself with.

I wonder, though, whether Will Muschamp displays this attitude because he played for Georgia in college and was once an assistant under current Alabama coach Nick Saban when he was LSU. On the other hand, Urban Meyer, Muschamp's immediate predecessor, coming out of Utah in the far west and with his coaching roots far away from the Southeastern Conference, fervently stoked rivalries. I think Meyer was on the right track: there is a lot more to winning football games than simple mechanics. Players need to feel a sense of urgency about an upcoming game against an opponent, and emphasizing that they are playing a rival enhances that feeling. Psychology is essential to good performance on the field. Urban Meyer was also a stickler for mechanical competence with his players, but he understood the need to get them emotionally involved in collectively working to defeat their rival. Will Muschamp needs to get over his professional history and his smugness about the absolute supremacy of mechanics and assimilate this lesson from Meyer, who won two national championships in six years as Florida's head coach.

Florida-Georgia Rivalry, Politics

2011-11-03T11:54:00.004-04:00

In the realm of college football, rivalries abound. Some of them get pretty intense, with fighting often breaking out around the stadium among fans of opposing schools. With the Florida-Georgia rivalry, this is partially explained by the fact that they play their games each year at a neutral site: Jacksonville, with each side getting an allotted number of tickets, essentially resulting in neither team having a home-field advantage from year to year. So the unfortunate spin-off of this is that there are more incidents of scuffles between immature and usually drunken fans, supporting opposing teams and acting easily offended at the others' taunts. But there is a larger picture to see regarding this unique arrangement between two proud, perpetually dueling football institutions.

First of all, in college football, having a home game gives a team an enormous advantage over the visitor. Often this results in a weaker team defeating a stronger one, sometimes ruining the better team's title hopes for that year. With Florida-Georgia, though, the stronger team, be it Georgia or Florida, usually wins the game since it doesn't play under the handicap of being an "away" game. So this system favors both schools in the long run as the record has shown: both Florida and Georgia have enjoyed their share of conference and national championships while almost miraculously avoiding stepping on each other, rivals that they are. This year was an example of this: had weak Florida played stronger Georgia at home in Gainesville, they might well have beaten them, damaging the Bulldogs' chances at winning the conference division race.

In a larger context, politicians from the two major parties could learn a lesson from this arrangement. Democrats and Republicans are obviously major rivals, but there are times when they need to sit down at the table and agree to their own arrangements, which are necessary to an effective system of government. Right now, though, compromise and reason seem to be dirty words to those "principled" ideologically-driven politicians who are currently wrecking our political process and damaging our national interests. Too many of them are only concerned about the next scheduled election and what the mass media talking heads are saying about them instead of tending to the people's business.

My Ten Mile Run Today

2011-11-02T13:15:00.003-04:00

Anticipating my possible entry in a local half-marathon (13.1 miles) race ten days from now, I decided to step up my running distance today. Well, not initially...my calf muscles felt a little sore from the 8.5 mile treadmill run Monday and I thought that just covering 7 miles would be a good result. But as my run today progressed, I did not feel as if 7 would be enough! So, I kept running until I reached 10 miles and then called it a day. My running time was 1 hr 31 m 46 s, typical of my usual pace.

The weather was crucial in allowing me to finally get back up to 10 miles after several months. Temperatures ranged from 64 degrees at the start to 72 at the end. Likewise, the humidity went from 64% to 57%. As long as it stays like this, I won't have any need to use the treadmill.

As I am writing and publishing this, I have just finished my run a little less than an hour ago. Ultimately, I will judge the success of this run not only by how I did during it, but also how my recovery went. So it will be interesting to see how it goes for the next few hours. Tomorrow I plan to run, but for a mile or so...

High Humidity Still a Factor in My Running

2011-11-01T09:52:00.002-04:00

Yesterday morning it was raining throughout the Gainesville area, very hard at times. I decided to wait until the weather cleared up in the early afternoon before I went on my planned long run. Unfortunately, although the temperature remained a wonderful 71 degrees, the humidity still lingered at a high 76% level. So instead I drove to my local YMCA and ran 8.5 miles on one of the treadmills in their air-conditioned workout room.

I have long held that humidity is usually a more important factor in running than is temperature. And yet the great majority of running races (at least here in Florida) take place just after sunrise, while the temperatures are relatively low but the humidity is excessively high (usually 85-90%). They don't have to go overboard in the opposite direction and hold races in the heat of the afternoon (when the humidity is lowest): I would just appreciate it if the races took place later in the morning after giving the air a chance to dry up to a bearable level.

Too high of a humidity interferes with the body's natural process of cooling itself by releasing sweat. I suppose if it is very cold then the body stands less chance of overheating, be the humidity high or low. But I have to scratch my head in bewilderment when the morning temperatures here in northern Florida are well into the 70's, the air is still thick with moisture, and the roads and sidewalks are full of joggers "escaping" the heat by running early.

There is a reasonably decent chance that I will be running in Gainesville's Tom Walker Memorial Half-Marathon on November 12. The race's starting time is 8 AM, just when the humidity is usually at its worst. Last year when I ran it, though, the temperature at the start was a cold 39. I don't think I can automatically count on the same degree of luck this time around, though...

NFL Teams Give Up, Soiling Game's Integrity

2011-10-31T15:08:00.007-04:00

We're approaching the halfway point in the National Football League regular season, and already some teams seem to have thrown in the towel and given up after disappointing starts. The Indianapolis Colts, with their franchise quarterback Peyton Manning out of action recovering from neck surgery for possibly the entire season, and the Miami Dolphins, full of excuses for their typically substandard play, are the last two winless teams left in the league. The prize for being the absolutely worst team at season's end? Only possibly the best quarterback to come out of college since Manning, namely Stanford's Andrew Luck. So instead of trying to recover some dignity for themselves and doing what they can to salvage a few wins in the season's second half, I see these two franchises essentially giving up and looking for next year to change. And to me as a fan, I consider that to be a monumental rip-off, as well as a challenge to the integrity of the game. In each game, the two sides should ALWAYS play to win to their utmost ability. But this isn't the only scenario where the game's integrity has been soiled...

A couple of years ago, the Indianapolis Colts seemed destined for NFL history as the first team since the 1972 Miami Dolphins to run through the whole season undefeated. They were within reach of an unblemished regular season when they played the New York Jets in one of the last games. The game was close in the first half, but the Colts' coach decided to bench Manning to "save" him for the playoffs. This gave the Jets the opportunity to come back and win the game. If you're a Colts fan, you're angry at the lost opportunity for a perfect season. If you're a Jets fan, you're angry because their victory was cheapened with Manning's absence. And if you're a fan in general, you're angry because that year the Jets backed into the playoffs over other teams, simply by dint of that "gift" victory.

Sometimes, if a team feels it is still in the running for the playoffs and they need a player at a certain position, they make trades to strengthen themselves. Thus the Oakland Raiders recently picked up quarterback Carson Palmer from Cincinnati to fill in a void created by an injury. But teams like Indianapolis and Miami, after a few losses put them behind in the standings, have apparently decided to sit on their hands for the remainder of the season and do very little to improve themselves. As a Dolphins fan, I feel cheated and offended. Why should I follow them at all??!!

Unit 2 Arabic Vocabulary

2011-10-30T11:03:00.000-04:00

This list consists of words introduced in Unit 2 of Teach Yourself Arabic by Jack Smart and Frances Altorfer (Hooder and Stoughton Ltd., 2003). Page numbers are indicated by the numbers appearing on the right of some terms.

سحنا...Hasanan.....well, right, O.K., 41
من...min.....from
في...fii.....in
اﻻسكندرية...al-iskandariyyah.....Alexandria
مصر...miSr.....Egypt, 42
جميلة...jamiilah.....very
جدا...jiddan.....very
القاهرة...al-qaahirah.....Cairo
مدينة...madiinah.....city
كبيرة...kabiirah.....big
و...wa.....and
قديمة...qadiimah....old (of things only) [fem.]
متحف...matHaf.....museum
ميدان...maydaan....square
قريب من...qariib min.....near
فندق...funduq.....hotel
هناك...hunaaka.....there is/are
مطعم...maT:am.....restaurant
ممتاز...mumtaaz.....excellent
طبعا...Tab:an.....naturally, of course
ما اسمك؟...maa ismak/ismik (masc/fem).....What is your name?, 43
اسمي...ism-i.....My name is...
أمريكا...amriika.....America, 44
اليابان...al-yaabaan.....Japan
روسيا...ruusiya.....Russia
واحد...waaHid.....one, 45
اثنين...ithnain.....two
ثلاثة...thalaathah.....three
أربعة...arba:ah.....four
خمسة...khamsah.....five
ستة...sittah.....six
سبعة...sab:ah.....seven
ثمانية...thamaanyah.....eight
تسعة...tis:ah.....nine
اعشرة...:ashrah.....ten
صفر...Sifr.....zero
أنا...ana.....I, 47
أنت...anta.....you (masc)
أنت...anti.....you (fem)
هو...huwa.....he
هي...hiya.....she
نحن...naHnu.....we
أنتم...antum.....you (masc pl)
أنتن...antunna.....you (fem pl)
هم...hum.....they (masc pl)
هن...hunna.....they (fem pl)
مشغول...mashghuul.....busy, 48
هل...hal.....question word
أ...'a.....question word
يبرد...yabrud.....to be, to become cold (verb), 50
بارد...baarid.....cold (adj, not used for people)
عادل...:aadil.....just, upright
لازم...laazim.....necessary
ناشف...naashif.....dry
كامل...kaamil.....complete, perfect
نافع...naafi:.....useful
صالح...SaaliH.....doing right
سالم...saalim.....safe, sound
يتكلم...yatakallam.....he speaks, 51
عربي...:arabi.....Arab, Arabic
هنا...huna.....here

My Health "Crisis" Downgraded to "Condition"

2011-10-29T23:27:00.003-04:00

Feeling that I was hurtling head-on into a major personal health crisis, complete with the prospects for major surgery, a slow recovery, and extreme limitations on my lifestyle thereafter, I left my consultation with the University of Florida Shands Hospital specialist/physician/surgeon in "my" area this past Tuesday in a completely different state of mind: my affliction was most likely a natural, life-long product of a condition that I was born with. And with my current age (55), it was normal for signs to begin to surface during routine medical examinations. Well, the prognosis is that I am free to continue living just as I have been (just avoid lifting very heavy objects, not something I wanted to do anyway), albeit with the newly established mandate to monitor my "condition" with prescribed testing every few months. This explicitly means that I am completely free to resume my distance running; so Wednesday, the day after seeing that doctor, I did just that, going out for a leisurely, pleasant 6.26 mile run around my neighborhood. The following day I followed it up with a 5 mile run, and have been running daily since. All with the good doctor's blessings. I am also once again considering running in some upcoming half-marathon races, although my intention is to run at my own pace and simply enjoy the "parade"...

As I get older, I'm sure that as I undergo other routine medical exams, other items will come up and I'll have to integrate whatever treatment is recommended into my life. There is the possibility with my current state of affairs that surgery will still be needed in a few years, but that isn't certain. But even if I do need to undergo an operation, I still face good prospects for a quick recovery and a resumption of my lifestyle (including running, if I'm still interested). As of now, though, the treatment for my condition is...nothing: no medicines, no lifestyle changes. I think I can live with that, thank you...

Gators Try to Bounce Back Against Georgia

2011-10-27T10:11:00.005-04:00

There are a lot of doubters about the strength of this year's University of Florida football team going into this Saturday's big rivalry match-up with Georgia. After all, following a big buildup when they easily won their first four games, the Gators have stumbled with three straight losses. Admittedly, they were expected to lose to Alabama and then LSU, the top two ranked teams in the country. But then Florida played Auburn, known for their extremely porous defense, and could only score six points against them. It appeared to me that after being stomped by 'Bama and LSU, many Gator players had lost their confidence, playing more tentatively then with the boldness that epitomized their earlier efforts.

That having been said, first-string quarterback John Brantley, out since the first half of the Alabama game on October 1, will be back, as will explosive speedster running back Jeff Demps. Hopefully, with Demps back, Chris Rainey will go back to his high-yardage efforts. Although Florida isn't known for its wide receivers, I don't think that they are really all that necessary as Brantley is good with the short passes to his tight ends and running backs, who know how to turn short receptions into long gains.

The defense has taken some heat lately, but that is primarily due to the fact that they were outmatched during those two games against obviously more talented and larger teams. Although UF lost to Auburn, its defense actually did a pretty good job containing this team known for its explosive offense and high scoring. Their main problem, as I see it, is their pass defense and their tendency to pile up a lot of penalties.

Although the odds-makers have Florida as a three point underdog to Georgia, I believe that they have a very good chance to reestablish much of that earlier confidence and good feeling about themselves with a victory Saturday. Then again, Georgia hasn't been all that predictable so far this year either, making the game's outcome dependent, I suppose, on which team decides to show up (and play to win)...

Old Office Clerk Job

2011-10-26T10:03:00.003-04:00

When I was in my late teens from 1973 to 1975, I worked part-time with my father at a traffic management firm in Miami Shores, just north of Miami. Our jobs were purely clerical in nature, involving sorting papers, revising binders and updating the tariff library. The tariffs were books that indicated permissible shipping rates, as dictated by the Interstate Commerce Commission. The rules governing the rates that various shippers could charge clients to transport their goods from one point to another were all-encompassing and very specific as to the type of commodity being shipped, the starting and end points, and the means of transportation. In this very cumbersome process, it was inevitable that shippers would inadvertently overcharge companies for their services. Some of these companies were clients of the company we worked for. It employed many auditors who would comb over bundles of freight bills in search of any overcharges. If any were found, the auditor would receive a percentage commission for the discovery. This job involved having a great deal of knowledge concerning the very complicated (and continually changing) system of regulated shipping rates, necessitating a complete and updated tariff library. So our little clerical jobs were very important. Then.

Fast forward to now and I wonder, with the instant, vast amount of information available on computers and their ability to manipulate that information according to complex algorithms and mathematical formulas, whether there is even any kind of demand for the type of traffic management company I worked for, much less for my menial clerical paper-pushing job or even those freight auditors. My memories of working there seem now to belong to a completely different era. In contrast, had my part-time job back then been working at a fast-food restaurant or as a stock-worker at a grocery or department store (or as a construction or farm worker), there would have been a continuity of these lines of employment to the present.

It seems that the great push for technological improvement nowadays is to cut expenses by eliminating the need to employ people at a living wage. Ultimately, I see the development of two possible trends, or perhaps a combination of them: one, a society composed of an elite class of the independently wealthy, served by another which performs the menial, low-paying work that supports and serves them. The other possibility is a more socialist society that uses labor-saving innovation for the good of all and ensures that masses of people are not cut off from a decent living just for the sake of the ones with a socioeconomic advantage. It is this conflict between these two very different scenarios that I believe is currently unfolding in our society. I also believe that the people out there need to decide which course represents their own best interests. And then act accordingly, especially at the ballot box, without succumbing to the demagoguery and relatively trivial side issues that permeate and lower political campaigns.

Deer Here

2011-10-25T23:42:00.006-04:00

After they had finished their play rehearsal for the evening, I was driving my daughter and her classmate home from their school. He lives in the subdivision of Northwood Oaks, adjacent to my Northwood Pines. For all practical purposes, though, it's all the same suburban neighborhood, here in far northern Gainesville. I also have gotten to know the streets here quite well, as I have ran many, many miles up and down them over the last couple of years. But I wasn't prepared for what I saw as I turned down a street in "Oaks".

It was about 10:30 pm and the fog was beginning to settle down on everything. I drove down a street that crossed over a long drainage ditch. Suddenly, three large deer crossed the street in front of me from the west and disappeared into the mist along the ditch. I had never imagined that deer would be living here right in the middle of my city neighborhood! I don't live out in the country: this is suburban sprawl if anything. Then I wondered where they could have come from, because I had thought that the western border of Northwood Oaks had been completely fenced off. Hmmm, maybe they just leaped over the fences...

This sort of experience makes me want to run more at night. But the humidity is almost always too high then, I'm not too sure of the surface ahead of me, and I'm not at all sure that I am visible enough for the motorized traffic I encounter. I do run around my block sometimes late at night just to get a run in for the day, but that's quite different from charting a lengthy course.

One of the Better TV Channels on History

2011-10-24T21:09:00.002-04:00

For the last few days, I have become something of a couch potato history buff, enjoying some good TV shows about various topics. My chief source has been The Military Channel, which has recently become one of my favorite channels. Yesterday they featured shows about famous tank battles. I was especially interested in the Battle of Kursk in July, 1943 during World War II. Taking place on the plains of south-central Russia and pitting Nazi Germany against the Soviets under Stalin, this was easily the largest tank battle in history, hopefully something that will never be surpassed. And today they had a show detailing the extraordinary Doolittle Raid on Japan by the U.S. in April, 1942.

I wish I could rely on The History Channel and History Channel International (recently renamed "H2") for history programming, but they have long lost their primary vision, resorting now to more "present reality" based shows or programming about spurious topics like ancient astronauts. Still, from time to time they'll come up with something pertinent.

I hadn't expected anything historic on the Sci-Fi Channel, but the other day they showed a dramatized movie about the life for true historical figure Prince Vlad of Romania, who was the basis for Bram Stoker's Dracula character. These dramatized movies bother me, though, for I often have difficulty sorting out fact from fiction in them.

All in all, though, The Military Channel is, in my opinion, by far the best choice from programming about history. Hopefully, they will stay focused and not stray as did other channels, for their shows are quite informative and interesting. On the other hand, even this channel is showing some ominous signs of "decay": tonight they featured shows about UFO sightings, Area 51, and "Nazi UFO's"...

Tebowgame

2011-10-23T18:14:00.001-04:00

Yesterday afternoon I was driving down University Avenue in Gainesville, just east of the University of Florida. Passing by one of the locally-owned eateries, I noticed what was on the sign out front: Tebowgame Here. I hadn't heard it referred to like that, but I liked it. Tebowgame.

The Miami Dolphins owner and management had decided weeks ago to schedule a tribute to Florida's college national championship team of 2008. Former coach Urban Meyer was invited along with players and staff from that great season. The special ceremonies took place at halftime, and Meyer stood together with the team owner during the game. Of course, the Gator star quarterback from that year was Tim Tebow, who incidentally received his first starting assignment this year as Denver Broncos quarterback for their game today against the Dolphins. Hence the name "Tebowgame".

It was mentioned on the TV broadcast of the game that with the Dolphins organization honoring the Gators, bitter rivals of the home college team the University of Miami, this probably didn't sit too well with UM's most ardent fans, especially with the ceremonies taking place in their own home stadium. But my beef was different: I didn't particularly like the idea of Tebow being in there trying to beat the one sports team that I have consistently rooted for since my childhood in the 1960's.

Tebow, albeit showing some flashes of promise, was generally ineffective for almost the entire Denver-Miami game...and then it got to be late in the fourth quarter with Miami dominating 15-0. Suddenly, "Tebowgame" cranked up into high gear, with the local hero throwing two touchdown passes, scrambling for running yards, avoiding sacks, and then running in himself the two-point conversion that tied the game with 17 seconds to go and sent it into overtime. Then, after Denver recovered a Miami fumble, Tebow kept the ball on the ground with hand-offs that set up their winning field goal. Final score: Tebow's Denver Broncos 18, (sadly) my Miami Dolphins 15.

Denver's win kept them with some slim hopes for reaching the playoffs this year, while Miami dropped to 0-6. I'd like to say that this Dolphins loss was a heartbreaker, but after seeing the game myself I have to say that they pretty much handed the game over to Denver with their own mistakes and deserved the loss.

Maybe Denver can ride the momentum of this win for the coming weeks and end up with a decent season. Miami, on the other hand, is clearly a very sloppy and undisciplined team, quite the opposite of how I thought it would turn out when Bill Parcells was hired in 2008 to turn around the team's misfortunes after a disastrous 1-15 season (after Nick Saban had suddenly deserted the team in mid-contract to pursue his University of Alabama dream coaching job). Well, Parcells has been gone for a while and it looks as if they need another almost complete overhaul. I say "almost" because quarterback Matt Moore, who is standing in for injured starter Chad Henne, was actually quite good (although he was responsible for that game-turning fumble in overtime)...

Gadhafi's End, Libya's Future

2011-10-21T10:27:00.002-04:00

Moammar Gadhafi is dead, ignominiously suffering his demise at the hand of rebels in his own home town of Sirte, Libya, paraded wounded though the city and then shot to death in the head. Not exactly what I would call due process, although in a way I understand the statement of utter finality that the rebels were trying to make: this tyrant will never be returned to power.

And make no mistake about it: he would have tried to at least instigate trouble in this land that needs no more trouble than it already has. I believe also that Gadhafi authorized the Lockerbie jet bombing that killed several hundred over Scotland in 1988. Unfortunately, there was no way that "due process" was ever going to convict him of this, but 23 years later, at least we have one less mass murderer in the world to contend with. Let's hope though, that the brutal and barbaric manner of Gadhafi's end doesn't signify the renewal of a cycle of despotic cruelty that is sadly too common in this part of the world.

After all, we really have no idea whatsoever as to which direction Libya will now take now with its "revolution". Sometimes after this type of insurrection, it is difficult for the leaders of the revolt to collectively cool down and change their outlook into one oriented toward a peaceful, civil society. If these leaders begin to see each other as enemies instead of partners with whom to forge a new future for their country, then Libya is in for some dire times ahead. But it doesn't have to go down like that...

The "Who Cares" World Series

2011-10-20T09:33:00.014-04:00

I heard that there was an exciting baseball game going on last night. And it was this year's World Series opener, no less. The score was tied 2-2 going into the bottom of the 6th inning when the home team took a 3-2 lead and then held it with near-flawless relief pitching. Let's see, did I leave anything out? ....Oh yeah, the teams were the Texas Rangers and the St. Louis Cardinals. Incidentally, it was the latter who won the game, if anyone cares (I sure don't).

I couldn't think of a duller scenario for a World Series than these two teams. Especially when the regular season clearly demonstrated that the best teams were the Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Yankees. But what we got instead is of minuscule interest, unless of course you happen to either live in or be from the St. Louis or Dallas/Ft. Worth area. I do have one co-worker who is a Cardinals fan, so I guess I'm happy for him.

I predict lousy TV ratings for this series as well as a general descent of collective amnesia upon the public as to who the eventual winner is, as they look back on the 2011 season from the future. In years to come, this may only be memorable as the ultimate "who cares" World Series. Now please excuse me while I stew in my boredom...

Weather Cooling Down Again

2011-10-19T23:36:00.001-04:00

Well, once again the weather is shifting a little toward the cooler side: this time it may endure longer. It is currently mid-afternoon as I write this, and the temperatures are currently in the lower seventies, a vast improvement from the heat we've been experiencing over the last couple of weeks. It is also supposed to dip down in the night to the upper forties, much more to my liking.

Unfortunately, my current health concerns are overshadowing the little pleasantries of life that I usually revel in. Maybe the weather change will help me to feel better...

My Health Suffering Lately

2011-10-18T23:58:00.007-04:00

For the past couple of months, I have been experiencing some pretty annoying health problems, and one of them is a bit scary. I'm not going to list them here, but please just accept it when I say that it's been an enormous drag on my life for the last few weeks. And, unfortunately, I see no positive resolutions soon to some of the problems (including the scary one).

As for this blog, it has also been more difficult putting out a consistent daily article. For example, I spent most of this morning in bed feeling bad and sleeping, instead of my usual studying/reading/writing time. I'd like to continue with daily entries, but I'll just have to see where the future steers me on this.

So far, I am functioning through my travails, doing what I can to keep up my work and various other responsibilities. But it hasn't been fun, and today was a really lousy one with regard to how I physically felt. Maybe tomorrow will be better...

Much of ABC News is Fluff

2011-10-17T22:33:00.007-04:00

I have Sunday and Monday nights off, so the rest of the week I am at work during the 6:30 pm network news shows. Today I decided to watch the ABC News with Diane Sawyer, expecting a synopsis of the major news stories in the country and around the world for today. But instead, I got mostly a news magazine show.

The news began correctly as a news show, with the initial story being the sad news about the tragic death of an auto racer during a race yesterday in Nevada. But as the program wore on, I began to wonder just who was making the decisions as to which stories to run. After a segment about how phone companies are now to be more tightly regulated in order to avoid "shock billing" (a legitimate news story belonging on the evening news), the show deteriorated a little more than halfway through with light, human interest stories more appropriate to topically-based shows like 60 Minutes or 20/20. There was a segment about the Lakota Indian children of South Dakota and how they are struggling, in the midst of their poverty and their society's pervasive alcoholism, to carve out a future for themselves. Very compelling, I thought, but not exactly what I would call a major news story. Then Ms. Sawyer told us that the Earth was about to reach the milestone of seven billion people. She tried to put this into historical perspective, first pointing out that in 1960 the figure was estimated to be only three billion. She then went further back in time, even to the eras of Jesus and Cleopatra. During the days of Jesus, the world's population supposedly stood at around 220 million while even further back during Cleopatra's time it was only 15 million. Uh, wait a minute...wasn't Cleopatra a contemporary of Octavian, who was still the emperor of Rome when Jesus was born? So Cleopatra and Jesus were only a few decades apart, but the population went from 15 million to 220 million in the same time span? Really, Diane?

The final segment of the "news" was devoted to how some kids in some dying backwoods town set up a non-profit store that helped to supply some of the needs of its largely elderly residents. Another feel-good story, but does it really merit the evening news?

I think that I'll just stick to other sources for my news from now on.

Vampires and Zombies as Allegory

2011-10-16T22:06:00.003-04:00

No longer do I have to concentrate on TV channels devoted to horror and science fiction in order to find shows about vampires and zombies (not that I have any particular interest in doing so). They seem to be all over the place now, and they tend to target the adolescent viewing audience. There seems to be several shows involving this supernatural element of "humanity" on the minor networks, while MTV has its own popular comedy Death Valley police show parody of the phenomenon. And we have the enormous popularity of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series and its adaptation to film. So are there really vampires and zombies?

No, at least not in the literal sense, or at least not as they are portrayed on TV or the big screen. But the idea of being bitten by a vampire and becoming transformed into a completely different type of being is a clear allegory for "coming of age" with sexuality in adolescence. This accounts for much of the great interest for vampire shows among the young. But apart from this, I see some other connections between vampires, zombies, and "real" people like you and me.

Zombies are the "walking dead" that can infect people and "convert" them over by a single bite, much in the same way that vampires can recruit others into their ranks. The allegorical idea here is that carnal feelings trump rationality in determining people's personal philosophies and ideology. When someone gets "bitten" and becomes an ideologue continually spewing out another's talking points without showing any independent thinking, that person really does seem, in a sense, like a zombie, one of the walking "mentally dead". It matters not which ends of different political and religious spectrums we're talking about either. For such a character, it is no use to try to reason with them anymore: they have passed over to the "other side" and already regard me as an enemy of sorts (unless they can succeed in "biting" me over, that is). Vampires can also be used with this analogy.

Another type of analogy is that, as time seems to wear on these days in the 21st century, there also seems to be something wrong with people. There is a disconnect here as more and more become removed from their immediate environment, instead being tuned in to their cell phones and Internet connections. I have experienced several occasions over the past couple of years when I heard someone speaking as if they were addressing me. I would turn around, greeting them in return, only to find that they were hooked into their cell phone. And one of my more recent "creepy" experiences happened the last time I went to one of the University of Florida libraries. Instead of seeing students reading books, writing papers, and engaged in discussions, I saw table after table after table, full of students with their laptop computers, cut off from their surroundings and staring at the screens like... well, zombies!

The final analogy I'll make is that it seems gross and horrible for these creatures to be feasting on people. But, really, it is people who are feasting on other sentient beings when they eat meat. If you want to react with ecstatic horror to vampires and zombies while stuffing a bloody medium-rare steak into your mouth, then maybe you're just identifying with the subject matter you're watching...