Cultural flip flop

I was driving home from work a couple of days ago, listening to Fresh Air on NPR as Terry Gross interviewed Ken Gormley, the author of The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr.

I'll tell you right off the bat, I just know that Terry and I wouldn't get along all that well. I like her show - she's a good radio interviewer, but she leans way too far left for my comfort. That said, her interview with Gormley was interesting fare.

I don't have a lot of time for recreational reading but Gross' interview on Tuesday night was inspiring enough for me to almost buy Gormley's book. You can read about the interview here, if you're so inclined.

What I got out of the interview is that whatever evidence of misconduct Ken Starr and others dug up about the once-Governor of Arkansas and then-President of the United States Clinton, the most important outcome of the Starr investigations and subsequent impeachment hearings was the polarizing effect they had on American politics.

In other words, it was purely incidental that Bill Clinton continued to live an immoral and unarguably adulterous lifestyle while rising to and occupying the most powerful office in the world. The largest apparent travesty was the violent wedge that drove Republicans and Democrats farther apart - and how that continued chasm colors every effort to pass legislation today.

Although I, perhaps naively, believe that our President should be above the moral fray - notwithstanding Carter's admission to Playboy that he had committed adultery in his heart - most people I spoke with at the time considered Clinton's dalliances inappropriate but nothing to get worked up about. Sort of a boys will be boys attitude; consenting adults, and that sort of thing.

Fast forward to the present...

Tiger Woods has been vilified in the press for pretty much the same behavior for which we gave our 42nd President a pass. Whoa. What changed?

Were Tiger's objets de l'amour consenting adults? Check

Was Tiger in a powerful, public position? Perhaps a check - certainly Tiger's brand and image made him the most recognizable sportsman worldwide.

Was a wife in the dark as to her husband's behavior? Debatable - who knows what Hillary knew? But the public revelations of said behavior certainly warrant a check.

Tomorrow, Tiger is making his first public statement since revelations about his numerous dalliances surfaced. It will not be a press-conference, per se; more along the lines of round one of seeking forgiveness, regaining public approval, and Tiger positioning himself to move on.

To Tiger I say, "Be patient."

Bill Clinton is all over the place these days. Raking in public speaking fees, heading up worldwide charitable organizations, hanging out with decision makers at international conferences.

Water off a duck's back.

People want to love Tiger. Everyone loves a success story. But if there's one thing I've learned about the always-fickle American public, it's this: As much as we root for someone to succeed, we are equally quick to turn on them like a pack a snarling hyenas. An ugly truth to be sure, but the ugliness doesn't make it any less true.

What's my point? If we can forgive Mr. Clinton for lighting his cigar in the nation's living room, certainly we can forgive a mere golfer; someone who makes his living hitting a little white ball.

I don't know. Am I crazy? What do you think?

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Conmemoratio

A light has gone out in the literary universe. One might not put Dick Francis in the same conversation as Poe or Shakespeare or Dante or some other revered author, but for me, he
was a novelist - and a great one at that.

 

Dick Francis, courtesy of www.dickfrancis.com

Mr. Francis was a very successful National Hunt jockey in the UK. He won over 350 races and was champion jockey in 1953-1954. Upon retirement, he published The Sport of Queens, an autobiography, before going on to write forty-one bestselling novels. Among his numerous accolades, Francis won the prestigious Crime Writers’ Association’s Cartier Diamond Dagger and is the only three-time recipient of the Mystery Writer of America’s Edgar Award for Best Novel, winning for Forfeit in 1970, Whip Hand in 1981, and Come to Grief in 1996, the same year he was make a Grand Master (lifetime achievement).

In my early days of reading - we're talking junior high school here - Mr. Francis' works were ones that I devoured eagerly. My father's library had all sorts of highbrow fiction and non-fiction, but alongside Alistair McLean and Helen McInnes, Dick Francis novels like Nerve, Flying Finish, and Blood Sport were thrilling peeks into the world of (mostly) British horse racing - with a mysterious and often murderous twist.

Over the intervening years, I occasionally picked up a Francis novel, always knowing that it would be a rewarding and entertaining read. There are very few things in life that are a dead cert, but a Dick Francis novel is one of them.

Thank you, Mr. Francis, for all the hours of exciting reading you provided for myself and countless other fans.

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Book plug Friday...

Just a quick plug for a great book, Seabird by Sherry Thompson.



Buy it here...

I read Seabird several years ago and am looking very much forward to the next chapter of the Narentan Tumults in the form of Earthbow - due out any day now.

You can read  R. L. Copple's review here and in case you missed last year's Seabird blog tour, check it out for great reviews and links.

What are you still doing here? Go and read Seabird!!

You'll be glad you did.

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Top 3 SB XLIV Commercials

OK - there must be terabytes of print on the Internet about the Super Bowl today - if not more. Here is my contribution...

#3 - Focus on the Family: A lot of folks are tearing this one down, but I applaud Mrs. Tebow - she put her baby's life above her own. Isn't that what all mothers do?



#2 - Doritos Dog Collar - This didn't make most top 10 lists but I thought it was hilarious. I like dogs, I like Doritos and, well, I don't know - it was just funny to me.



#1 - Betty White Snickers: This is just hilarious. Betty White is so funny..."That's not what your girlfriend said."

Too much...




Honorable mentions: Puxatawnee Polomalu, Kia, Hyundai... What are your favorites? Which ones did you hate?

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Fair play isn't dead

For all the haters out there - you know who you are - that say soccer (football) is a sport filled with posers, hooligans et al, here's your sign!



Credit 101 Great Goals for finding this one and The Beautiful Game for highlighting it.

That's right, these are two teams from the professional league in Iran, as 101 puts it, 'one of the 'Axis of Evil'. Normally in football, if a player goes down, play is allowed to continue unless there appears to be a serious injury. In any case, it's usually the referee that blows the whistle to stop play (Rule highlight: That's why there is extra or 'injury' time at the end of each half).

In this case, the opposing keeper was down for the count and the loose ball fell to an opponent who had worked his way into space and was preparing to shoot into an open net. Instead, the striker kicked the ball into touch (out of bounds) and pointed to the injured keeper.

Fair play, indeed.

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Bad ideas seem to go together

Listening to NPR this morning, I noted that President Obama will be holding a town hall meeting in Nashua, New Hampshire to talk up his small business bail out. I suppose that compared to the Wall Street bailouts, $30 Billion can be considered small, but what will America ultimately get out of this latest effort to get the economy moving again?

I hate to be Johnny Raincloud here, but I'm guessing, 'Not much.'

I saw a quote on MSN Money the other day that said something like, 'If no one is lending, and no one is spending, the economy is in recession,' or something along those lines.

Think about that.

Let's say the President wins approval for his small business bailout and we inject $30 Billion into the coffers of community banks - the target of the money. What happens then?

You get a long line of businesses that aren't doing well lining up to borrow money so they can, ostensibly, expand and create new jobs. But if these small businesses are not doing well right now, what sense does it make to give them loans to hire more people?

Refer to the quote above - I don't care if we give $30 Billion and meet the party of the first part - i.e. someone is lending. Small businesses need people to buy their products. So no matter how much money we lend them, if no one has the money to buy their products, they will just go under later, rather than sooner.

At the risk of beating a dead horse, wouldn't it have been more stimulating to the economy to take the TARP money, this next $30 Billion and all the other bailouts and just divide it up among American families?

I'm no fan of the Government being everyone's rich uncle, but c'mon. According to this NY Times article from this time last year, the U.S. Government has spent a total of roughly $4 Trillion investing, lending, and insuring. that's 4 T*R*I*L*L*I*O*N dollars. And those are figures from a year ago. You do the math...

That's almost $13,000 per person in the United States according to the US Census Bureau population clock. If we take this a step further, there were almost 100 million tax returns filed in 2007 that were classed as taxable by the IRS (see stats). There were another 47 million returns classed as untaxable - I'm guessing people who had earned income but owed no taxes.

Under an individual bailout plan - as opposed to a corporate bailout - if we bailed out taxpayers who filed a return, you're now looking at about $28,000 to each taxpayer.

Which bailout do you think would have been more effective? Paying $28,000 to each taxpayer or bailing out the banks and other corporations? I don't care how much money we give GM and Chrysler, if taxpayers don't have money to buy cars, they don't make any money and a year or two from now, we're back in the same boat we were in before the bailouts.

By putting the bailout money in the taxpayer's pockets, they can get caught up on mortgages, buy new cars, etc. We remove a goodly number of toxic mortgages, the banks are healthier, people can afford to buy cars and other whole goods and companies don't have to lay so many people off - which in turn puts more tax dollars in the treasury.

I don't know, am I crazy? What do you think?

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The Marlboro Man is 65?

Nothing much in the entertainment world shocks me - mainly because I ignore it completely - but as I read the paper this morning I noted that Tom Selleck was 65 today. Wow.

 

Would you have a gunfight with this man?

Actually, I can't find anything that confirms Mr. Selleck was ever the Marlboro man. I think I remember him in old Stetson cologne ads and I did see an unconfirmed post that indicated he did do ads for Winston and Salem cigarettes, but sorry - he's not the Marlboro man.

Most of us probably remember him best as that cooler-than-cool private investigator, Magnum P.I.

 

I always wanted the car...

Man, I must be getting old.

On a side note, just a quick rant about celebrities in general. 

Do you remember when a star got his hands and/or feet imprinted in the concrete in front of Grauman's Chinese theater - along the so-called walk of fame?

Back in the day, you had bonafide stars like Bette Davis, Bob Hope, John Wayne, etc. setting their prints into concrete immortality and getting their star on the famous sidewalk.

Nowadays, who do we get?

 

Is this what passes for a star today?

No offense to Ms. Spears, but I just can't put her in the same class as, say, Lauren Bacall:

 

Yes, I'm getting old. But to me, class never goes out of style. 

I don't worship celebrities; don't even think about them that much. But when I do (think about them, that is), I prefer mine classic.

What do you think?

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Landon is on the board

Just a short post to mark the first English Premier league goal of Landon Donovan's tenure at Everton FC.


Sure Landon isn't the first American to score in the Premier League, but he's been carrying so much baggage from a long career of international expectations, it's a notable achievement. Young Mr. Donovan is only 27, so one hopes there are plenty more to come... X

Church isn't all it's cracked up to be

I attend church. I serve in church. I teach in church. So what am I doing writing a blog about church not being all that?

Church: -noun

1.	a building for public Christian worship.

2.	a body of Christians worshipping in a particular building or constituting one congregation: She is a member of this church.

I live in Santa Rosa County Florida - reportedly one of the areas in the United States where there is a very high per capita incidence of churches. I don't have handy access to demographics - folks charge for that sort of data now - but by all accounts, despite our large number of buildings to worship in, 4 out of 5 people in Santa Rosa county are considered unchurched. 

Why?

I started thinking about that today and here are my thoughts...

1. A lot of people used to go to church but someone in the building offended them.

2. Most kids around here grow up in the church but life is a lot funner elsewhere

3. Some number of people believe any church is more or less a cult and they want nothing to do with that sort of thing.

Recent Southern Baptist statistics reveal that membership in a large majority of Southern Baptist churches is plateaued or declining. The majority of membership changes are reflective not of new believers but of believers transferring their memberships from other churches.

If this is true, why did they move?

Number 1 above reveals my opinion. People get offended easily. They treat the church like some sort of social club that is designed to make them happy. If they're not happy - they leave. This also plays into number 2 above - we church folk are pesky; always telling kids about how bad music, movies, boyfriends/girlfriends, habits, etc. are. No teenager wants to be told that God doesn't like all that fun stuff. So they say, "I'm outta here!"

So what should the church be?

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.[Acts 2:42]

Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, [Acts 2:45-46]

 

There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need. [Acts 4:34-35]

 

Does that sound like our churches today?

The church is not the building - it's the people. If the people in the churches would but realize that their purpose in being there is not to gain personal happiness, but instead to share the love of Christ with those in need...well, I think you get the picture.

So, yeah, church isn't all it's cracked up to be. But it's not God's fault - it's ours. 

God gave us the model for church and as usual, we've taken that model and distorted it, trying to remake church into what we wanted it to be.

Is this church?

The Crystal Cathedral

According to the information available on the Internet, it cost roughly $17 million to build Southern California's Crystal Cathedral. Imagine how many needs could have been filled with that money. 

Some would argue that we musts have buildings where the faithful can gather for worship and discipleship and where we can invite people to hear the Word of God. I agree - but $17 million?

Build a $4 million building and use the rest to house the homeless; feed the hungry, clothe the needy...

Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter-- when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? [Isaiah 58:7]

No wonder people think we're a bunch of greedy hypocrits.

Don't just go to church - be the church!

What do you think?

X

Friday foraging...

Football is known as The Beautiful Game. Stream regulars know that when I say football, I mean soccer. The trailer below is from what looks like a worthy film about the worldwide impact of Football. Please take a few minutes and watch...


It doesn't matter what you call it, Football, Futbol, Futebol, Calcio, Fussball, or whatever,you will never see American football being played like this around the world. There is something about the Beautiful Game that is so simple, yet so profound.

I was driving in to work this morning in a very thick fog. So naturally, I thought of Mel Torme.


Although, perhaps a more appropriate song would be A Foggy Day in London-town...

In case you don't get the connection...Mel was known as the Velvet Fog due to his distinctive voice.

Although I love the Beautiful Game, there is another football game this weekend that will be interesting. That's right: The Vikings vs. the perennial basement-dwelling New Orleans Saints. I tried to come up with an exciting video that would capture the anticipation of this year's NFC championship, but all I could find was this:


I thought it went on a bit long...but - with all due respect to anyone who might be offended by Hitler humor - the concept and a few of the lines were funny.


Well, after that bit of dark humor, I think I need to close on a lighter note...



Bill Cosby is the man. I love a comedian who can tell jokes/stories without having to resort to crude language or rude themes.

Happy Friday...

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