The Deuce

A Video Ode to one of the most under-rated players in college football history: the great David Palmer. This guy was Houdini with a football in his hands.

The highlight starting at 1:08 is never ceases to drop my jaw...

T. Boone Pickens and Alternative Energy

Maybe you've seen this commercial...



Or one of the news stories...



Well, here's his plan...



I'm glad to see a smart-thinking capitalist embrace alternative energy. When these kinds of folks get serious, stuff gets done. Although, he doesn't really provide a comprehensive solution. As he confesses, this plan only stems the tide, not to mention probably lining his own pocket (not that there's anything wrong with that...).

Hopefully there will be other smart-thinking capitalists, and maybe even some engineers with ingenuity & other noble-minded do-gooders, who will work to do even more to improve all of our lives & secure our "temporal" future in terms of diversifying our energy sources.

Which One Is More Embarrassing?

Mikey from Swingers calling Nikki? Or Dimitri here calling Ulga?...


Creeptastic Phone Message
I've gotta say that I wonder whether or not Dimitri feels any shame or embarrassment at all. So, probably Mikey.

Confession time: I remember the time in high school when I was young, and ignorant, and did something like this. So shameful. Horrible memories I wish I could purge...

Elitism and Censorship

I just can't get away from Elrod-gate. There are a couple of reasons for that.

For one, I just don't like to see my Alma Mater's name dragged through the mud. It has done a lot for me and a lot of other people, and I am offended to see people bite the hand that fed them.

Along with that, I detect a disingenuous spirit afoot in the conversations about this issue across the blogosphere. It smacks of the incongruity most Americans have in that they hate Congress, but they also love their Congressman. Everyone seems to cherish their own Harding experience, but they also love to critique and pick at some of the integral elements that make Harding what it is.

Take this entry, for example. I currently have one comment posted in this blog entry. But when I took an even more critical posture, my voice wasn't allowed to be heard & my opinions weren't given an audience. I'll admit: I was tough. I'm not sure whether or not I'd let a tough comment like the one I made remain on my own blog if I had the choice. But I'm not the one arguing against censorship, either.

Here is the comment that didn't make the cut:

I just don’t know how to say this without being blunt. I’m not sure if it will pass the “blog administrator approval” test, but here goes...

I detect a high level of elitism from you in this forum. Pretending to understand issues better than the people actually involved in them; a manipulative writing style that underhandedly seeks to win the reader over with false arguments (ironically, about “false arguments”); and dictating to each of your dissenters exactly how they should understand & receive the words you wrote and the spirit in which you wrote them.

The great thing about elitism is that it affords you the luxury of being dismissive of dissent: a passive-aggressive tactic for silencing opposing voices. Quite ironic given the subject matter.

So, you see, I find it difficult to take your ideas seriously at all. I think you have an ethos problem.

What Ever Happened to Palatable Freedom?

I’m sad about this. Thanks, Lloyd, for your thoughtful choice in tasty snacks. The point wasn’t to make everyone eat only your chips; the point was to help everyone enjoy more different kinds of tasty chips, and to open people's eyes. You did. That’s not always appreciated.

Sad day. Just a sad, dank, depressing day.

A Red Sox Fan's Worst Nightmare

It is a sad reality that winning sports franchises attract bandwagon fans. Perhaps nowhere has this despicable phenomenon been realized more this decade than with the over-indulgent lust for the now-media-darling Boston Red Sox.

Whenever I hear people complain about the ridiculous amount of Sox love in the media, at the theaters, or in the All-Star voting (come to think of it... actually, Jordan, I think its just you...), I don't have much sympathy. Because, you see, we Red Sox fans climbed an extreme incline to get to where we are today. We paid a steep price. You see, for those of us who didn't just hop on the bandwagon within the last four years -- before the momentous comeback for the ages against the Yankees & the fulfilling sweep against the Cardinals in the Series -- people forget what we were.

We were Red Sox fans.

It was ugly, even though it had its redeeming charm. It was shameful, even though there was some perverted element of honor. It was utterly heartbreaking to be teased, tormented, and trampled upon in the horrific fashion that seemingly only the Red Sox could script. I'm not sure I can offer enough hyperbole to make this point ring true. It was brutal. It was masochistic. It was like passionately rooting to take a sucker punch to the gut.

And that is why my worst nightmare for this coming October would be to see the Red Sox make it to the World Series to face the Chicago Cubs.

Here's the deal. Our franchises had at one point been linked as both being star-crossed. But the meta-narrative wasn't really the same. The Red Sox would come tantalizingly close to glory, only they would quite magnificently snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The Cubs, on the other hand, just lost all the time & never gave their fans any hope at all.

So is it better to have loved & lost than to have never loved at all???

Not according to an old college chum of mine named Eric, who (being a life-long Cubs fan) stated definitively that the Cubs' 2003 NLCS Bartman-induced epic collapse was much worse & much more heart-breaking than having never really come close to glory before.

And it got even worse for Cubs fans after that '03 debacle. They watched the Red Sox leave their class of "lovable losers" after the '04 World Series victory -- their first in 86 years. Not only that, but they watched their crosstown rival Chicago White Sox exorcise their own demons by winning the 2005 World Series -- their first in 88 years. And that wasn't the end of it. In 2006, they watched their hated division-rival St. Louis Cardinals come out of nowhere to win their franchise's 10th World Championship. Sadly the bleeding didn't even stop there, because in 2007 the former fraternal Boston Red Sox took a step toward dynasty-hood by winning their 2nd World Series in 4 years.

Honestly, the worst kind of torture is watching everyone else around you be blessed when you're not. Right? Always the bridesmaid; never the bride... that kind of deal. David writes about it in Psalms 22:2-6 -- "Come on, God... You're enthroned as 'The Praise of Israel' ... I've heard about these other Godly people who obeyed you and were blessed! Why not me? Why do I have to run for my life from Saul when I'm trying to do the right thing here?!" That's the gist of David's complaint anyway. And its one of the saddest that there is.

So that is why when I read some so-called "Sox fan" (no doubt a bandwagon-jumping dullard) write on a message board that their dream World Series this year was Sox/Cubs, I almost came unglued. I was so offended that I felt the need to write this diatribe about it. ("Stuff White People Like" entry STILL funny!) Either that person is a sadist, or (more likely) he doesn't understand the grief a Red Sox-induced World Series loss for the Cubs would feel like for long suffering Chicago fans.

Obviously, it would not be pleasant for Red Sox fans if Boston lost a World Series. There is little redeeming value in losing that way. But it would be almost equally joyless to defeat the Cubs to win it all. Because true Red Sox fans know that such a victory would make the transformation complete. We would then BE the New York Yankees: a franchise & fanbase that delighted in trampling less worthy franchises underfoot for the sake of some kind of baseball manifest destiny.

The hype is already there. It is 2008 -- precisely 100 years since the last Cubs World Championship. The Cubs are in first place in their division, and they just traded for an ace pitcher who could take them to the promised land. Poor Cubs fans are already getting set up for the heartbreak to end all heartbreaks.

Please God don't let this happen. Don't let the Cubs & the Red Sox both make the World Series this year. I can't take the pain...

A Rush to Outrage

The Church of Christ blogosphere has been "abuzz" (that's putting it lightly... some were practically frothing at the mouth!) in the last 36 hours over the news that Harding Professor Mark Elrod's blog is going private. Mike Cope wondered out loud whether Harding University has any sense of academic integrity. My buddy Bob mourned the loss of an internet locale where open dialogue was allowed to flourish. Harding Professor Frank McCown noted that this is an example of how speaking on controversial topics inevitably brings out the yahoo's. And this guy I don't know blasted the Harding administration, but then retracted his scathing rebuke.

So, clearly, I add my commentary on this issue at the risk of saturating the web with more conversation about the seemingly insignificant development of a blogger deciding to be more selective about who reads his writing. Nevertheless, I have some things to say.

I'm troubled that we live in an era of sensationalized news. It disturbs me that we allow larger voices (whether famous bloggers, talk radio hosts, or even news organizations) dictate to us what we should get upset about. We wring our hands over Senator Obama not wearing a flag pin on his lapel or John McCain deciding not to work on weekends. And sometimes this rush to outrage affects lives, as it did with Duke Lacrosse Rape Case.

I'm as guilty of this as anyone. I let myself get lathered into a rage and can write critically & harshly about a subject as if the world is coming to an end. Go look up the blog label "My Diatribes" and there are plenty of examples of this.

I wonder what fuels this rage, in me and in others. I wonder if this misplaced anger is just angst over our discontent with the present -- with moral depravity & the long wait for the fulfillment of God's Kingdom. At least one blog humorously pondered that it may be sociological. At "Stuff White People Like," someone posited that Being Offended is a unique characteristic among Caucasians. An excerpt:

[...] many people develop a thick skin and try to only be offended in the most egregious and awful situations. In many circumstances, they can allow smaller offenses to slip by as fighting them is a waste of time and energy. But white people, blessed with both time and energy, are not these kind of people. In fact there are few things white people love more than being offended.

O, satire... how unveiling you can be!

I'm not saying we should never get upset. Ecclesiastes 3 teaches us that there is a time for all things. Righteous indignation has its place. But I find it supremely important that we be sober in our wrath. We would be wise to heed James' suggestion that we "Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry." Some of the comments in Mike Cope's blog were fiercely critical of Harding University. Though Preacher Mike is often tempered in the words he uses about the more conservative element of our fellowship, it appears that the comments section of his blog is a haven for a more caustic brand of hypercritical talk. And even though Dr. Elrod issued a statement on his blog explaining that he chose to do this & was not forced to do so by his academic employer, Harding remains slandered.

I often think about those Duke Lacrosse players & the stigma they will live with for the rest of their lives. Their employers will always wonder if the men they hired really were rapists. And how about their wives? Won't there always be some lingering, remnant doubt that maybe, just maybe, the men they sleep with really did rape those girls?

Outrage-induced stigmas don't just go away...

Obama doesn't wear a flag pin on his lapel! Despicable! (Translation: Obama is not patriotic. And that stigma won't go away no matter how often the Senator wears a flag pin between now and the end of his life)

McCain doesn't work on weekends! Doesn't he realize what's at stake?! (Translation: McCain is old and has lost his work ethic. And that stigma will remain in the back of people's minds between now and the election)

And Mark Elrod is making his blog private! Harding should be ashamed! (Translation: Harding is like Big Brother & doesn't really care about institutional integrity. And that stigma will continue to stick with people when they remember this event months from now)

Thus are the casualties of a rush to outrage. The words people write, the opinions people form -- you can't un-ring that bell.

And these "offenses" ... are they really that egregious? Are they THAT despicable? One of the early creeds of our creed-less Restoration Movement was that we wanted to "speak where the Bible speaks, and be silent where the Bible is silent." I've used that as a guide in my own theological dabbling by thinking that "I want to make a big deal out of issues that the Bible makes a big deal about, and I don't want to make a big deal out of issues that the Bible doesn't make a big deal about." In a news culture that sensationalizes small issues and rushes render judgment, I think we would all do well to take a step back, examine ourselves, and carefully consider what is really steering our passions on a given subject.

Otherwise, we all become drops in an ocean of mob mentality. And we become pawns for the personal ambitions of immorally manipulative people -- useful idiots for their selfish purposes. Pray that we wouldn't resign ourselves to that sort of existence.