Don't Worry, George Has Your Back

The alleged President of the United States appeared on television tonight, again, playing the part of someone who is in charge. He spoke on the critical circumstances of the U.S. economy.
Not once did he accept any responsibility for the situation. Not once did he acknowledge that the deregulation of anything that resembles a business that has been Republican gospel for the 20 of the last 28 years that they have occupied the White House has directly lead to this moment. Not once did he lay the blame on any of his cabinet or staff, nor did he announce the resignations or firings of any members of his administration.
Instead of acting like an adult, he talked about this situation building for 10 years...when Bill Clinton was President! George blamed him for 9-11, why not this, too?
Instead of even pretending to be a leader, he still refuses to stipulate in the bailout that our money shall not be used to pay for any more golden parachutes for CEOs who made bad loans and paid themselves and their cronies so absurdly that they bankrupted their firms.
Instead of telling the truth and taking responsibility, the Decider passed the buck again. But at this point, no one in this country should be surprised at his course of inaction. This man has never been at fault in anything at any point in his entire life. Not when the businesses that his father had the Saudis pay for went belly up. Not when he spent his first 20 adult years addled on alcohol and cocaine. Not when he toughened Texas state law to give life sentences without the possiblity of parole to people who did exactly the same things he had done earlier in his life. Not when he stole the Presidential elections of 2000 and 2004 in direct violation of the U.S. Constitution that, in the greatest lie of a life full of them, he twice swore to God to protect and uphold. Not when he became the first U.S. President in our history to openly and proudly start a war against a smaller country that had done absolutely nothing to us whatsoever, and then declare, upon the Russian invasion of Georgia, that in the 21st Century, larger countries no longer have the right to invade smaller countries. Not when he hides his responsibility for the deaths of over 4,000 Americans in his Iraq war by barring any photographing of the flag-draped coffins being brought home. Not when he was asked in one of his extraordinarily rare press conferences if he could name a mistake he had made in office. And he couldn't.
This man is beneath contempt. He has ruined our standing in the world. He has discarded the moral authority of our country, both in the starting of his wars and his refusal to adhere to American policy that dated to George Washington himself, that we do not torture. He has ruined our economy. He is bankrupting our government with his wars, his cronyism after natural disaster, and now his paying off of his Pioneers in the bailout of the banking system that he deregulated so that it could become entirely corrupt.
I wrote two years ago that George W. Bush was the most reprehensible public figure of my lifetime. Little did I realize that he was just warming up at that time.
He closed his speech tonight by saying, "May God bless you." My prayer is a bit different: God help us. Deliver us from this evil, evil man and all of his sycophants.

Oh, And About that Elitist Thing...

Just click the pic if you need a bigger look. Enjoy!

Tito Goes 4 for 5

As the Boston Red Sox' closer, Jonathan Papelbon, retired Victor Martinez on a pop to short to end tonight's game against the Cleveland Indians, Liza Minelli broke into the lovely strains of New York, New York, signalling the biggest NYA loss of the season: elimination from the playoff chase for the first time since 1994. (Sinatra's version follows an NYA victory; take a break Frank, they don't need you any more this year!)
At that moment, Terry Francona went 4 for 5. Tito led the Sox to their first World Series title in 86 years in his first season at the helm, 2004. In '05, the Sox were swept in the ALDS by eventual the eventual champions, Ozzie Guillen's White Sox. '06 was a disaster of injuries, and the only year so far that saw Francona out of the postseason. 2007 brought Tito's second title, and tonight his team clinched at least (most likely) the AL Wild Card.
At this moment, Terry Francona is, officially, the most successful manager in Red Sox history.
And that, almost necessarily, makes Theo Epstein the most successful General Manager in Red Sox history. Theo's contract is up at the end of the season. Word is that the Mets have extended Omar Minaya for four years. Given the Mets' performance, what does that make Theo worth? It's good to be Theo!
And Tito. He was basically run out of Philadelphia as a nice guy who was widely perceived as incompetent. Maybe he was. Maybe he wasn't. But name another young guy who went to school so well on a first managerial job in Major League Baseball.
As he sets out in pursuit of his third World Series championship, Francona has, undeniably, joined the ranks of the top handful of managers in baseball. That club basically includes Tony LaRussa, Bobby Cox, Joe Torre and Lou Piniella. And now, Tito Francona.
Att'n, Messers. Henry, Werner and Lucchino: redo Terry's deal, and redo it now.
And make his contract, and Theo's, very, very rich and very, very long!

The $700 Billion Bailout of Whom?

"Democrats demanded that the measure limit pay packages for executives of companies helped by the biggest financial rescue since the Great Depression. The administration was balking at that, and also at a proposal by Democrats to let judges rewrite mortgages to lower bankrupt homeowners’ monthly payments." Associated Press, 22 September, 2008

There is no clearer statement of the difference in the two American political parties than this: King George II and his cronies want one more opportunity to pay off the Pioneers before leaving office. This administration has no intention of helping the American people whose backs are against the wall. They only wish to further cushion the landings of the fatcats whose demand for deregulation, whose importuning to "trust us" created this fiasco in the first place.

His majesty wants one more blank check for the people who brought you trillions of dollars of irresponsible spending in Iraq, and billions spent after Katrina on people other than those who lost everything. This from the same "philosophy" that gave us the Savings and Loan debacle twenty years ago, one part of which was the discovery of the Senators who took bribes from one S&L operator named Charles Keating to cover up the deregulated corruption as it was happening. Let's see now, one of those Keating Senators had a familiar name...was it...McLane...McDane...Oh yeah, I got it: McCain!
I wonder what those reform conscious Republicans ever did with that bribe-taking, corruption-covering-up, Washington insider?

The Babe's House Closes Its Doors

They weren't even on the map before he arrived.
The New York Highlanders started with the American League in 1901 as the Baltimore Orioles before relocating in 1903. They derived their name from Hilltop Park, their home from 1903 through 1912. They weren't very good. Their futility reached its nadir in that 1912 season. They finished 50-102, a whopping 55 games behind the eventual World Series Champion Boston Red Sox. In fact, prior to the Babe's arrival in 1920, the Highlanders, officially renamed the Yankees as of 1913, finished fewer than 11 games out of first only three times.
After the Polo Grounds burned in 1911, the Highlanders allowed the Giants to finish their season in Hilltop Park. That generosity led the National League team to accept their AL cousins as tennants at the new, rebuilt Polo Grounds. Relations stayed warm until the Babe showed up. John McGraw, ever the ferocious competitor, became furious that the Yankees were outdrawing his Giants, and he threw them out. That eviction led to the decision to build Yankee Stadium. The House that Ruth Built was, actually, the House that McGraw Made Necessary.
Once Harry Frazee, owner of the Red Sox, sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees (and his soul to the devil), the ultimate nightmare of John McGraw came true: the Yankees set out upon the greatest period of success in the history of professional sports.
They have won 39 American League pennants and 26 World Series championships.
The Dodgers have won 21 National League pennants, good for second place in Major League Baseball. Second in World Series titles: the St. Louis Cardinals, who won their 10th in 2006.
In case you're struggling with the math, the Yankees have almost twice as many pennants as anyone else, and almost three times the World Series titles that anyone else owns. And to play with the numbers a little more, only in the dreadful 1980's did the Yankees win fewer than three pennants in any decade since the 1920's! Only in that same decade of the 1980's did the Yankees fail to win at least two World Series; they took 5 in the 1930's, 4 in the 1940's and 6 in the 1950's. That averages to every other year for 30 years!
The names of the others are universally known: Lou, the Clipper, Whitey, the Mick, Reggie, Munson, Gator, Catfish, Jeter, Billy and The Boss are just some of the baseball immortals who have seemed a bit bigger for playing on the biggest stage.
Theirs is an amazing legacy of achievement. The Babe's House deserves all of the accolades and attention attendant upon its closing this weekend. There will never be another like it.

The Cubs Win...Again

It hadn't happened in 100 years.
The Chicago Cubs successfully defended their National League Central Division championship, and, as a result, they will play in consecutive postseasons for the first time since the 1907 and 1908 seasons. And this time, it certainly appears that they will not have to face the Arizona Diamondbacks. In fact, it seems, with only a week left in the regular season, that the Cubs will secure the home field advantage (considerable at the Friendly Confines) by virtue of the league's best record, and will then host the Wild Card winner. In all likelihood, the Wild Card will be the National League East loser. Milwaukee has slipped so badly that it's almost impossible to see them resurrecting their season.
The Cubs, under Lou Piniella, are lovable losers no longer. They are a big market team whose front office now acts like it. They have built a considerable team. They should represent the National League in the World Series, because they have been the league's best team all summer. Of course, baseball doesn't always work out the way it should. Pardon the cliche, but that's why they play the games.
The ability to play the games behind Carlos Zambrano, Ryan Dempster, Ted Lilly and Rich Harden is the reason the Cubs are where they are. Kerry Wood seems to have a meltdown about once a week as their closer, but in the playoffs, once a week may not even roll around. Theirs is a balanced attack, with veterans like Derrek Lee and Mark DeRosa providing leadership, Aramis Ramirez providing Gold Glove defense and joining with Alphonso Soriano to deliver a basket of homers and rbis, and the enthusiasm of youth with Geo Soto, odds on favorite to be named NL Rookie of the Year, as a catcher no less!
I don't envy the Mets, Dodgers and Phillies (as it appears today) having to deal with these Cubs.

The True Conservative Position

It's all about the money.
Ultimately, it's never about anything else for the conservatives. I will never forget the speech that George I gave at his second nominating convention. Polite applause for all of the talking points: abortion, homosexuality, school vouchers and so on. But the eruption came with the main point: Read my lips, no new taxes. I remember it so clearly, because it was the last of their conventions I watched. Keeps my blood pressure down, don't you know.
By the way, all of the "social conservative" points are all about money. I'm not talking about the decent, well intentioned people out there in the red states. I'm talking about the ones you see on TV and hear on the radio. For them, it's all about the money. They don't give a damn about aborted babies. They just don't want to pay taxes that might go to the bills of poor women.
This is precisely why government is bad, according the the right-wing whacko mantra: it takes my money.
Interesting, then, isn't it, that the first word out of the mouths of all the big, unregulated banks and investment houses when things went belly-up for them over the last few weeks: GOVERNMENT!
I don't disagree with the government assisting them, by the way. That's what the government should be doing: helping those who need help.
I just wish there were some reason to believe that this month has been an epiphany for George II and the rest of them. I would love to believe that they now understand that they need to be helping those who are hard up against it. Like the unemployed, and not just those afraid of becoming unemployed. Like the poor, not just those afraid of becoming poor after another bad week for the Dow.
For decades, conservatives have labeled the government bad any time that a finger was lifted to improve the lot of people having problems.
Perhaps now, they will see the light.
And monkeys will fly out of my butt.
Vote Obama.

A Much Better Night

Red Sox 4, Blue Jays 3. -1.5 for the Eastern Division; +7.5 for the Wild Card.
That's good news. The Sox ventured north of the border on the heels of that terrible visit to Tampa, knowing that A.J. Burnett and Roy Halladay were waiting to welcome them today and tomorrow. Also, Mike Lowell is out of the lineup while on the plastic grass, trying to spare his damaged right hip. So, somewhere south of their best (J.D. Drew's back still has him parked, and he may be done for the year), the Bostons went out behind a just-good-enough Paul Byrd, and beat the birds, kept pace with the Rays, gained another game on the Twins in the Wild Card standings, and generally accomplished all that they could tonight.
Now we look to the second round of the Jon Lester-Doc Halladay show at High Noon (at least by Central Daylight Time). Lester better be at his best. But then again, these days, when is he not?

Time to Vent: Keep Thy Saliva to Thyself!

I am a patient man. I navigated teenaged years with two daughters. I have served eight churches, and over 3,000 elderly people in the retirement homes. I have served under eight District Superintendents and four Bishops. As I said, I am a patient man.
This condition is about to change.
It must be clearly understood: I have never, ever, not once in my life, spat upon money that I was about to hand to someone else. Never. Ever.
However, I have repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly been expected to extend my hand and accept money that has been coated in saliva by various clerks in multitudes of stores.
Apparently there is an epidemic afflicting those in the retail industry that causes one's fingers to be ineffective in picking up cash, and an accompanying notion that the only resolution to the problem is licking one's fingers. I'm sorry for your plight. I will donate to research on the problem. I will pray for you if you tell me it is a physical, psychological, emotional or even spiritual problem.
But I will no longer, ever, not once more, accept money from anyone who slobbers all over their hand before handing me said cash.
I will call your manager. I will, as calmly as possible, explain the problem. I will ask for different money from someone who has not just tasted herself or himself. I will propose that your manager send you to the restroom to wash your hands. I will explain that I will never, ever again shop in your store. And should I ever come in again, and be treated in this same disgusting manor, I will do everything in my power to see you fired.
Stop the spit! It is gross. It is disgusting. It is not in the interest of public health. And, first and foremost, I didn't spit on the money before I gave it to you. You shall not spit on the money before handing it to me!
Now then; I feel better.
Until the next time I have to go and buy something. And I will be watching! And dry!!!

A Very Discouraging Night

The Sox had the opportunity to leave Tampa tied for the AL East lead. It seems that they left their carpe diem at the hotel. I have trouble faulting Wake. Knuckleball pitchers can be great, mediocre, or horrible on any given night, and Wake has been great far more than he's been anything else this year. The team, apart from Papi, just didn't seem ready to play tonight, and that's really disappointing.
While they depart Tampa/St. Pete only two games behind, and three in the loss column, I have a real sense that they should now look to the Wild Card and prepare for the postseason. They will face A.J. Burnett and Roy Halladay in the series at Toronto. Happily, the Twins don't seem to have any energy for getting back into the WC race.
Congratulations to Joe Maddon and the Tampa front office. It seems that the right people are now in place to make that franchise legitimate after 10 years of awful ownership, poor drafting, signing of broken down free agents, and general stupidity. The more good organizations in the game, the better the game.
I'm not particularly concerned about the route taken into the postseason, and the rest of Red Sox Nation shouldn't be, either. We won in 2007 as the Division Champion, and in 2004 as the Wild Card winner, so Tito and the boys have done it following both paths. The obvious difference is that little matter of the Fenway home field, but the Angels still have to show that they can find a way to beat the Sox after October 1.
Get the pitchers in order. Rest Lowell's hip as much as possible. Figure out if Drew will be available, and if available, helpful. Play Kotsay until he finds his stroke. Get Tek a little rest.
Then bring on October! Something, by the way, they won't be saying in the Bronx.

More Evidence for the Ballot Box

The Republican mantra from the time of the 1980 Reagan campaign: "Government isn't the solution to our problems. Government is the problem!" Always spoken to great cheering.
Nobody is cheering now.
Enron. Bear Stearns. Lehman Brothers. Merrill Lynch. More airlines than you can count. Fannie Mae. Freddie Mac.
Deregulate Everything, along with Don't Tax the Rich, are now thoroughly discredited as the sum total of Republican economic policy. To everyone, that is, except Sen. McCain. Today he was making the rounds to try another explanation for his "the fundamentals of our economy are strong" pronouncement. Today's attempt: "I mean that the productivity of the American worker is fundamentally strong." Get real!
The American worker isn't working. The jobs are all in Singapore. Or Malaysia. Or China. Being performed by prisoners. Or children. Or women, locked into sweatshops and dreaming of being treated as well as slaves.
The big companies, unmonitored, became too big, too greedy, too stupid. So they have, over and over again, killed the Golden Goose. And we foot the bill for all of it.
Republicans believe that you trust corporations to do the right thing, and regulate people, because they won't act right.
Democrats know that you can trust the people, but you trust these corporations only as far as you can throw Wall Street, and even then, to your own peril. Our regulating should be limited to those who steal the retirements of elderly Americans, who finance the movement of our entire manufacturing sector to foreign countries, who cynically count on the government that they do not trust to save their asses when they screw up. That would be the corporations.
How can anyone really want to keep these same people, with their same idiotic policies and ideas, in charge?

To Quote Charlie Brown, "Argh!"

Rays 2, Red Sox 1

In Which the Defending World Champions Finally Catch the Upstarts

Since shortly after the All Star Game, the Devil Rays (I know, I just don't care-and they picked it ten years ago) surged to the top of the American League East standings.
Top of the first, Kazmir pitching: Crisp, walk; Pedroia, walk; Ortiz, home run; Youkilis, fly out; Lowell, home run; Bay, strike out; Lowrie, fly out; Boston 4, Devil Rays, 0.
Ever since, the Sox have been trying to catch up.
Bottom of the first through bottom of the third, uneventful. Boston 4, Devil Rays 1.
After the Devil Rays took 2 out of 3 in Boston last week, many people said that the race was over.
Top of the fourth, Kazmir still pitching: Bay, home run; Lowrie, walk; Varitek, home run; Ellsbury, single; Crisp, double; Kazmir replaced by Talbot; Pedroia, single; Ortiz, force out; Youkilis, home run; Lowell, ground out; Bay, strike out; Boston 11, Devil Rays, 1.
Sox fans were despairing as only Sox fans can.
Bottom of the fourth: uneventful. Boston 11, Devil Rays, 1.
Then, with a good weekend for the Sox at home against the Blue Jays...
Top of the fifth: Lowrie, walk; Varitek, gidp; Ellsbury, home run; Crisp, walk; Pedroia, fly out; Boston 12, Devil Rays, 1.
...while the Devil Rays had a bad weekend in the Bronx with our new best friends.
Bottom of the fifth: uneventful. Boston 12, Devil Rays, 1.
That left us one game behind heading into Tampa for three games this week.
Top of the sixth: Ortiz, double; Youkilis, double; Lowell, HBP; Bay, gidp; Lowrie, walk; Varitek, strike out; Boston 13, Devil Rays, 1.
With Dice K on the hill, hopes were running high.
Remainder of the game: uneventful; final score: Boston 13, Devil Rays 5.
And the Beantown Bombers have caught up. And will go for the outright lead tomorrow night behind a little fellow named Beckett.
I do hope the Devil Rays have enjoyed their little fantasy!

Big Z!

He is a big man with a big arm who swings a big bat while trying to contain a big ego, a bigger temper, and some humongous emotions. He is the ace of a very fine Chicago Cubs' starting rotation who hadn't pitched since September 2 due to rotator cuff tendinitis. He is a Venezuelan made good in the United States. It was an Astros home game, against the Cubs, being played in Milwaukee. All of which made it the perfect night!
Carlos Zambrano has pitched a no-hit, no-run game.
Big Z is as entertaining as any character in the game. He is living theater. He seems to always walk along the razor's edge. And tonight it all fell his way. Ron Santo sounded like he wouldn't make it until the end. Pat Hughes was, as always, spectacular in recounting the action. Even Lou Pinella got caught up in the excitement, allowing a returning from injury, front of the rotation pitcher to go 110 pitches deep into a game that meant very little to the Cubs. At least it meant very little until that linescore was posted: Cubs, 5-7-0; Astros, 0-0-1.
Cubs fans look for any sign, absolutely any sign. Here's another in a year full of them: first Cubs' no-hitter since Milt Pappas in 1972!
I've gotten to see the Red Sox' 86 year drought ended. I've seen the White Sox' 88 year wait rewarded. Now we're down to cases: the Cubs have waited for a century. Maybe Z's great game marks the path. Can Next Year really be This Year?

Fifth Anniversary: Warren Zevon and Johnny Cash

Warren Zevon looked like he knew something you wouldn't want to know. There were reasons for that. Warren may not have been the original sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll boy, but if he didn't write the book, he surely edited it for a new edition.
In the course of living the life, he produced the work to back it up. Sure, I knew Werewolves, but I learned Warren just like most of America (outside Southern California) after David Letterman introduced us. Warren filled in for Paul Shaffer on the High Holy Days, and any other time he was needed. And he played his music, his wonderful, wonderful music. Another godawful crime committed in the community? Awww, he's just an Excitable Boy according to the neighbors. Think boxing is all art? Listen to Boom Boom Mancini. Tired of hearing all that crap about potential? Try Genius. And talk about real life love songs? Get Mutineer, Reconsider Me, Searching for a Heart or Keep Me in Your Heart. Want the even darker side of Hotel California? Go into a room by yourself and play Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me; just make sure it isn't the abominable Ronstadt mutilation.
Warren was just plain noble following his terminal diagnosis (he had mesothelioma-the asbestos cancer; even his illness was bizarre). His appearance on Letterman's program in October, 2002, was designed as a public farewell of sorts. He lasted almost another year, and produced a final album that is as powerful and poignant as anything you'll ever listen to. Dave tells a story about that night in the current edition of Rolling Stone. After Warren had shared his now epic advice to "Enjoy every sandwich" and thanked Letterman for being the "best friend my music's ever had" the long-time friends visited after the show. As they talked, Warren stowed his guitar in its case. As he closed the snaps, he handed the case to Dave, and told him to take good care of it. The legendary wiseass was reduced to sobs.
So was I when Warren died on September 7, 2003. So am I each year when I lift a glass in his memory.

Johnny Cash looked like he knew something he wished he didn't know. There were reasons for that, too. Cash made as many runs up to the abyss as anyone who ever lived, and he lived to tell the tale every time until September 12, 2003, five days after Zevon left us. Johnny didn't sing as much as he rumbled. He had this BIG baritone voice that seemed to come from somewhere down around the earth's core. He was the voice of apocalypse, the voice of doom, the voice of a prophet.

He started in the Cradle of the Immortals, Sam Phillips' Memphis Recording Service, soon to be known as Sun Records. Elvis, Jerry Lee, Carl Perkins, Charlie Rich, Howlin' Wolf, and Cash, among many others; not bad company for schooling. Fresh out of Arkansas, Mr. Sam got him, as only Sam could, and made him a star.

Johnny Cash knew from early on that life sucks and then you die. He knew it from childhood (inflicted on him) and adulthood (self-inflicted). But he also had hope of redemption, as learned through the eternal grace of love that came into his life through June Carter. Johnny kicked against the goads all his life. He kicked out of anger before June; he acted out of expectation once she entered his life. He sang and fought for the downtrodden, whether prisoner, minority or radical. The authorities at San Quentin told him he couldn't perform Folsom Prison Blues due to the line about having "shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die." Don't want to rile the inmates, don't you know. Maybe that's why he seems to almost scream those words on the recording of the concert. Debuting his short-lived Johnny Cash Show on ABC, he wanted Bob Dylan on the premiere. The network shrieked that he would lose his audience if he had one of those anti-war anarchists on the show. Dylan performed. That was Cash.

Eventually Cash, like Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard (championed from his prison time by Cash), couldn't find a recording contract in Nashville. Country Music without Cash, Nelson and Haggard is pretty much the best definition (next to Dubyer) of "All Hat and No Cattle." So in typical Cash fashion, he went to work with Hip Hop Entrepreneur Extraordinaire Rick Rubin, and produced some of the most powerful, most American music (no pun intended) of his career. Hunt up those last albums. They are gold, and I don't measure by units sold. Most everyone knows the gut-wrenching take on Trent Reznor's Hurt that became a sort of valedictory for Johnny's career. The sound recording was devastating. The video (which, all by itself, made the medium acceptable), featuring June but released only after her death, as Johnny moved through the closed House of Cash museum, intercut with images from younger, and much happier days, proclaimed, again, the apocalypse: "I got old and you will, too" the old prophet boomed out. "I should have done better" said the voice of experience. "Don't throw your time away!"

Johnny Cash was America. That's why I got my first taste of a Cash concert. He was chosen to headline the show on July 4, 1976, beneath the Washington Monument on the Mall in our nation's capitol. Then Vice President Nelson Rockefeller ran on at length about something or other, and then this figure took the stage, almost invisible in his black mourning coat, black shirt, black pants and black shoes and thundered "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash!" Before, I had known who he was. That night, I learned what he meant.

He still means that much to me. And to everyone else that knows about life's shit. And believes in the possibility of redemption. Well done, good and faithful servant! I'm certain that you've entered into the joy of your master. But, brother, would I be grateful to have heard you sing about where our country is now, and how much better we should be doing!

The Problem of a Free Society

We just passed the day that posed arguably the greatest challenge to a free society. September 11, 2001, forced us to evaluate just how precious our freedoms are to us and how committed we are to them. To date, we have failed that test miserably.
Today, we find the test posed again.
As Hurricane Ike raged toward Galveston and Houston, the United States Government, in the presence of the National Weather Service, called on citizens of the Texas coast and inland areas in Ike's path to evacuate, or "face certain death." Let that sink in for a moment.
In other parts of the world, parts I don't even want to visit, much less live in, the government would simply send in the troops and remove people from their homes, perhaps even relocating them permanently. We don't work that way. And so, there are still more people than can be counted trying to ride out the storm in their homes.
What do we do about that?
Is there any rationale for asking those valiant young men and women who serve in the various helping agencies to go into an area that has been declared to "face certain death" to rescue hardheaded people who were warned in advance (this time)? Certainly, they are trained to deal with deadly situations, but where is the line?
At what point does personal responsibility for decisions made really become personal? When does society's responsibility to help end?
As a Christian, it is a mandate to say that we must help no matter what. But there is a big difference in handing a hamburger to the man with the sign at the intersection and risking an entire helicopter crew (with spouses, children and parents depending on them) to save Jim Bob whose case of Budweiser told him he was tougher than any goldarned storm.
As an American, I find one more place where we still will not respect the decisions that other free people make. We will, before this is over, hear tragic stories of the loss of brave people trying to save others, who made bad decisions, from themselves.
And I have no idea how to grade this one.

...And A Word In Support of Community Organizers

Please don't be surprised at the attempts to disparage Barack Obama's work as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago after he finished law school. Rudolph Giuliani, or 9/11 Man as he wishes to be remembered, laughed at the thought of a Harvard law grad wasting time helping people thrown out of work by Republican corporate overlord-types seeking greater profits by moving their factories to foreign countries at the expense of working Americans. Barbie also dismissed Obama's work, likening it to a small town mayor's job, only "mayors have real responsibilities." In my little neck of the woods, towns of about 8,000 people don't even have full-time mayors. But I digress.
Of course, Republicans will never understand why a brilliant young man would spend several years of his life helping the unemployed, the underemployed, the desperate and the despairing. Republicans like Giuliani sit back and laugh when the people who do the real work in this country, paving the streets, staffing the assembly lines, waiting the tables and cleaning the mayor's $5,000 suits, find their jobs disappearing because of the policies of George II. Suburban blight like Sarah Palin run as far away from the real problems and suffering in this world as they can possibly get, and then pretend that they are being persecuted when one of their kids acts like a kid. Look, madame governor, it's your boys, the Bill O'Reillys and Rush Limbaughs of this world, who have built careers screaming about the irresponsibility of parents who let their little girls get pregnant out of the traditional family order of things. Community organizers have the courage and the passion for people that takes them into the very neighborhoods that people like the good governor try to avoid, to look the problems in the eye, and pursue solutions. And it is precisely us awful Liberals who have developed and implemented all of the programs to help young women in the position your daughter is in, and children coming into the world as your grandchild is. Prenatal healthcare, Headstart, school breakfasts and lunches, day care and afterschool care, public education; that's all courtesy of your friends, the Liberals. And mostly through the initiative and efforts of those awful community organizers you think so little of. They are the people who deliver the change that you Republicans strive so hard to avoid or squash.
You're welcome. You lying jerks. Why don't you go quote some more of that scripture that you love to toss around so much, but understand not one bit, for instance, how we treat "the least of these" is how we really feel about God!

Old and Tired

Senator McCain's speech is made. It was, indeed, old and tired.
I do not aim those words at the Senator. Just his rhetoric.
The Senator decried Washington, the Washington that he has been part of for 26 years. He decried the financial irresponsibility of Washington, the Washington that his party has run for the last eight years. When Bill Clinton left office, this country had a record surplus in the bank. George W. Bush and the Republican Congress that ruled for the first six years of the Bush administration have squandered that surplus and run up the greatest debt in the history of our nation. Not "Tax and Spend Democrats." Republicans, the "financial conservatives", have done this. The only sacrifice that Bush called for was for the wealthiest Americans to wrench their arms reaching for their wallets so that, for the first time in our history, he could dump another tax cut into their pockets. Senator McCain knew, at the time, that was a bad idea. Candidate McCain wants to extend those same tax cuts. And, apparently, incur the even greater deficits that will come with them.
There desperately needs to be a change. But change cannot come by leaving the reins in the same hands that have held them for the last eight years, hands that have failed miserably.
Morally bankrupt from a war that should never have been fought, financially bankrupt from the waste in Iraq, out of ideas after showing the Neocon "vision" for what it is (bullshit), McCain has no option but to deny any responsibility for the Bush years.
And, by the way Senator McCain, Barack Obama has never, ever, claimed to be put in place by God to be President, not once, not ever. But one person did, indeed, make that claim about himself: George W. Bush. And, clearly, if King George II is accurate in that assessment, God has a lot to learn about American politics.

Do You Know This Woman?

Sen. John McCain has selected Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, 44, to be his running mate. Gov. Palin was elected to her current office in 2006 and took office early in 2007. Prior to winning the governorship, she served three terms as the mayor of Wasilla City, AK, a town the size of Humboldt, TN.
Apparently Sen. McCain has decided that Senator Barack Obama's youth and experience will no longer be raised as an issue by the Republicans.

Is That So Wrong? (In Jon Lovitz' best Harvey Fierstein voice)

Word tonight that the goopers are considering delaying their convention due to Hurrican Gustav's anticipated arrival.
Given the publicly announced prayers of one James Dobson, asking God to pour down rain on Mile High Stadium tonight, is it so wrong to enjoy biblical injunctions against self-satisfied praying?
For just a moment there, I envied the late Rev. Falwell, Rev. Robertson and Dr. Dobson their theological position that bad things that happen are necessarily punishments from God.

The Next President of The United States of America

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all [people] are created equal

Tonight, for the first time in our history, these sacred words are true. Senator Barack Obama is the nominee of the Democratic Party for President of The United States. No less a conservative than Patrick J. Buchanan pronounced Obama's presentation as perhaps the greatest convention speech in American history.

Given the differences between the candidate nominated this week and the one to be nominated next week, there is only one question to be determined: Have We, the People grown beyond our racist, redneck identity enough to elect a man who is defined by our society as black? Do we believe the premise on which our nation is founded, or not? Are we a complete and total fraud, or do all Americans have a part in this nation, do we all belong?

Barack Obama is America. He is black and white. He is Christian with a Moslem father. He is Patton's 3rd Army from World War II, and an immigrant. He is Harvard educated, and South Side of Chicago employed. He is the child of a single mom, and the father in a traditional family. He is a devoted husband of a wife as educated, professional and able as he is--and she's the primary parent for two little girls, too (ie: Ginger Rogers did all Astaire did, only backwards and in high heels!).

John McCain is a good man, but his beer baron wife, his 7 houses (and don't tell me he couldn't remember--he was just embarassed to admit it), and his "$5,000,000 annual salary equals middle class" comment just doesn't look or sound like the America most of us know anything about.

This young man, with his big dreams and big visions, is the antidote needed after eight years of Darth Cheney and Goober. If only we can get to what another dreamer, 45 years ago today, said should be the deciding factor: the content of one's character, rather than the color of one's skin.

Lies and the Lying Liar Christians Who Tell Them (with apologies to Al Franken)

Throughout the primary and now convention season, I have received two or three emails per week, forwarded by parishoners, purporting to tell "the truth" about Barack Obama. Those that include citations of their sources invariably come from Fox News, James Dobson or Rush Limbaugh. More of them are simply anonymous. The messages recount how Sen. Obama makes fun of the Bible (Dobson). How he holds Kenyan citizenship (Limbaugh). How he attended a Moslem school as a boy (Fox News). The anonymous ones are, of course, even more enthusiastic and absurd. Obama trained as a terrorist. He's a member of a Moslem cult. My favorites are the ones that within one message make the Moslem accusation, and criticize him for his membership in Trinity Church (supporting that preacher, of course). Can't beat that! And, of course, there are the "Michelle hates America" ones, and the "Obama won't wear a flag pin or put his hand over his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance or national anthem" business. (I wish that last one was true, as it seems to me just about time that someone in this faith pointed out that when the Ten Commandments that are so cherished by the right wingers say that there are to be no other allegiances but to God, and no graven images to be worshipped, that means the ones we like as well as those we don't; ours, as well as other peoples'. Perhaps, intead of simply seeking to post them in courtrooms, classrooms and in public squares, they should try reading the Commandments?)
On my better days, it breaks my heart that good people will accept, unquestioningly, the pronouncements of people who set themselves up as oracles.
On more days, I marvel that some people never seem to have a thought until Dobson or Limbaugh fart. Yes, that is, indeed, a "head up their ass" reference.
My deepest anger over this nonsense is that it is coming from groups that present themselves to the world as Christian. No one else would make the Moslem accusations.
The last time I checked, there is nothing illegal about being a Moslem in America. I know several. They have been guests in my home, and in my churches. After 9-11, I participated in several community meetings with leaders of Moslem congregations near where I was serving at the time. But those who pass on this garbage know their audience. And as though it's not enough for that crowd that Obama is seen as a black man (odd, as he is just as white as he is black, but that's America--any drop of "black blood" and you're "marked"), they seek to define him as Moslem.
Here's the thing: he is a brother in Christ.
Regardless of November's vote totals, "Christian" people in this country are denying a member of the family. They are cutting him out of the body of Christ. They are rejecting his baptism and his profession of faith in Jesus Christ. They are dismissing his discipleship, his marriage before the altar of God, and his commitment to raise his children in the Christian faith.
In short, they are putting their own souls at risk.
And they are selling their souls for nothing more lasting or valuable than political advantage.
Obama is not Jesus Christ, but these persecutors are Pontius Pilate. They know full well that Obama is a Christian, and they condemn him anyway. Wash your hands as much as you want, it doesn't change what you are doing, or what you are.
Remember, brothers and sisters, that you stand before God. You will have to answer for your actions. And attempting to injure a member of the family, in Jesus' own words, leads to such unpleasant consequences that millstones around the neck in deep water would be preferable.
Debate the issues. Vote for who you want. But deny a fellow Christian? The truth is not in you!

Lies and the Lying Christians Who Tell Them

With apologies to Al Franken,

Hillary Makes the Case

I voted for Hillary Clinton in our state primary.
This isn't a lecture from outside the fold.
It is a lecture to say, much as Senator Clinton did tonight, that if you voted for her in the primaries, you cannot vote for John McCain in November. What did Hillary run on? The same things that she has worked for her entire adult life! Opportunity for all. Healthcare for all. Education for all. You know, as in "...and liberty and justice for all!"
That is the Democratic platform. That is Barack Obama's purpose in life, too.
The Republican party is about keeping what they've got and acting like they accomplished something, when all they've done is keep their boot on the neck of the poor, shovel out money to the rich like coal into a steam locomotive, start wars that are basically fought by the children of families who can't find jobs, serve their shareholders by refusing to raise the minimum wage, provide adequate healthcare or keep college affordable for working families dreaming of moving up. All this and much more as bad if not worse.
If you voted for Hillary Clinton and now intend to vote for John McCain, what were you doing in the primary? The Senator asked the question herself tonight: were you in it just for her, or for the people and causes that she has fought for all her life?
Sober up! Straighten up! Get back to work, and stop this Republican madness while we still have a country at all!

Teddy Stole the Show

After a beautiful, heartfelt tribute from his niece, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, and a majestic filmed tribute, Senator Edward M. Kennedy was introduced to the Democratic National Convention tonight. Unless you've been off the planet the last six months, you know that Sen. Kennedy is fighting a brain tumor that typically takes the life of those who are stricken with it within a year. There was a lot of speculation about the Senator's attendance at the convention, and if he were able to appear, whether he would be able to speak. He answered both questions powerfully.
At 76 years of age, with a miserably bad back that causes him to stoop and keeps him from raising his arms above his shoulders, and just a short time removed from brain cancer surgery, Teddy was awesome. He again lent the Kennedy imprimatur to Barack Obama. The Old Lion of the Senate and the party roared out the great theme of his legislative life: healthcare for every American. He invoked his brother's inaugural speech in calling for the passing of the torch to yet another generation of American leader. He was strong. He was clear. He was Ted.
I will readily confess that I cried throughout Caroline's speech, the film, Teddy's speech and his farewell as his children, nieces and nephews and all of their children crowded the stage around him. Any realistic reading of his prognosis suggests that this will be the last time that Ted Kennedy will rally the Democratic faithful in convention. We can hope and pray for better, and, after all, I didn't think he would make this one. But the Kennedy name has been The Name in Democratic politics longer than I have been alive. Ted Kennedy has been in the United States Senate since the year after I was born. He couldn't go earlier, when President Kennedy left the seat upon his election to the Presidency, because he wasn't old enough yet. I cannot imagine our country, and certainly not my party, without him.
He has done more for the unemployed, the working poor, the old, the young, those without healthcare, the immigrant, the disabled, minorities, women, and any other downtrodden person you would care to name, than any other person in this country, period. He has taken seriously his obligation as a privileged man to work for the good of others. He is reckoned by many as the greatest Senator in the history of our country.
Ted Kennedy is anathema to the right wing. They raise great amounts of money off of his name to this day. But they raise that money from people who do not want others to succeed, or find assistance. Ted is the boogeyman to everyone who wants to keep the minimum wage below a living wage; who wants to abuse their employees by witholding healthcare; who wants to be able to discriminate in hiring and firing; who wants to keep poor children poor by denying them an equal start; who wants to throw the elderly to the wolves; who thinks that disabled people don't deserve to have lives. He wears that great label, "Liberal," as the badge of honor that it is. Ted has room for all people, and believes that government should always, always, always act in the interest of those having trouble making their way.
He is not perfect. Everyone knows that. But Ted Kennedy has served this country well. He has fought for those who couldn't fight for themselves. And he will be one of my heroes as long as I live.

It's Joe!

Senator Barack Obama has passed his "first decision test" with flying colors: on Saturday morning he will name veteran Delaware Sen. Joe Biden to be his running mate. Biden brings tenure. He brings gravitas. And, most importantly, he brings long experience on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as both Chair and Ranking Member. He has also chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee. Biden's Senate credentials trump those of John McCain. He will be an articulate and energetic partner for Sen. Obama, and is, quite simply, an excellent choice.
Biden has stood at the top of the Democratic party for twenty years. He has a compelling personal story of loss and triumph. Shortly after his election to the Senate in 1972, Biden received the telephone call that every person dreads. His wife, Neilia, and baby girl, Naomi, had been killed in an automobile accident that also critically injured his young sons, Beau and Hunter. Democratic leaders pleaded with Biden not to resign his seat. He finally agreed, beginning his continuing practice of commuting to the Senate everyday from his home, so that he could care for, and then raise his sons. Biden married Jill Jacobs in 1977, and they celebrated the addition of a daughter, Ashley. His family then cared for him when he suffered two brain aneurysms in 1988, and was away from the Senate for more than two months. Beau is now the Attorney General of Delaware, and also a member of the Judge Advocate General's corps. He is due to be deployed to Iraq this fall.
A powerful orator, and highly credentialed legal and foreign policy expert, and loving and committed father, a husband and devout Roman Catholic, Biden is a marvelous choice to serve alongside Barack Obama in the White House. He will be an exceptional campaigner for the ticket until November's election.
Senator Obama has done very, very well!

Baseball Is Life on the Road Again: Baltimore

Through the good offices of The Most Generous Friends Ever, your humble blogger has spent enough time in Charm City to look forward to going back for a full-blown vacation trip at some point.
Baltimore holds more significance, professionally, than I realized before arriving. I knew that I would find there the home of The United Methodist Church. John Wesley concluded late in his life that his Methodist Movement would need to become a church in the new United States of America. To that end, he did something (just what Father Wesley did with Francis Asbury has been debated to this very day) to enable the establishment of a church through the 1984 Christmas Conference that met at Baltimore's Lovely Lane Methodist Church. The good people of Lovely Lane, still a worshipping congregation, had organized in 1771. I knew that the site of the current church housed a museum of Methodism, and that it is not at the original 1771 site. What I did not know was that the Old Otterbein Church, the mother church of the United Brethren in Christ, one of the lines that led to the 1968 merger that produced The United Methodist Church, was also in Baltimore. Philip William Otterbein became pastor in 1774 and stayed 39 years, the rest of his life. Otterbein was close to Francis Asbury, as was his church. Testimony to relations between the two: Lovely Lane Methodist Church organized and met at Old Otterbein in its infancy; it was the original site of the congregation that would birth the Methodist Church! Little wonder that Otterbein so frequently had Asbury fill his pulpit. Remarkable that the seeds in this relationship led, almost 200 years later, to a joined church.
It was a joy to experience this part of my history first hand.
It was also not at all unpleasant to have the opportunity to study another piece of Baltimorean architecture, just a couple of blocks from Old Otterbein. A beautiful patch of green over the hallowed grounds of the George Ruth Saloon. Oriole Park at Camden Yards is as absolutely and completely beautiful as it has appeard on television for the last 17 years. It is not at all difficult to sit in the stands and envision the 2,131 banner that hung on the old B&O Warehouse along Eutaw Street when Cal Ripken, Jr., saved Baseball in 1995. It is a blast to shake hands, take a picture and get an autograph from John "Boog" Powell, former Orioles' first baseman and 1970 American League Most Valuable Player, as he presides over Boog's Barbeque, also on Eutaw. Think John Goodman, only with a believable swing. The Booger is having fun, and likes for everyone else to do the same.
While there does not appear to be a bad seat in the place, I can attest that the section behind home plate, about 18 rows up, is specatcular beyond belief. How Mr. Most Generous Friend Ever managed to get those tickets is beyond me! Combine that with a Red Sox offensive onslaught and a now-typical performance by my hero, Jon Lester, and Monday night was, to use the Bay State vernacular, wicked awesome!
Tuesday was more of the same, hits and runs galore, with only the indigestion of an also now-typical performance by Daisuke Matsuzaka, and seemingly 75-80% of the park occupied by Red Sox Nation. It was a two evening riot.
Along with the daytime educational exercises, this was one terrific road trip!
My thanks, again, to Mrs. Most Generous Friend Ever for allowing the loan of her husband for a couple of days, along with the chance to sit in a seat she might have had without me along. And to the Mr. for giving up a Monday night that he might have spent at home with their totally awesome two year old son. And everybody should see the family portrait that my friend carries with him--oddly, in the very front of the photo album--where the boy is gazing adoringly at his dad. Great, great stuff!
And now, (yawn) back to real life, work and home. And even gone only for two days, and really nice days, life, work and home are pretty darned good.

A Memphian Mourns on August 16

Today is one of those truly historic days. A day when an historic life ended, a life that changed the world, overwhelmingly for the better. A life that will be remembered forever, honored, researched, celebrated and imitated. It was a life of genuine accomplishment, achieving feats no one else could duplicate, even years after the death that ended this remarkable person's journey. Only that assessment doesn't cover things, because, if anything, the individual's face, story and records are better known today than during his lifetime.
Babe Ruth died on August 16, 1948.
Babe Ruth was the Home Run King. His long ball escapades are not generally appreciated accurately. Last year, when the artificially enhanced Barry Bonds was surpassing the thoroughly honorable Hank Aaron, it was continually reported that Aaron had broken Ruth's 39 year old record, and Bonds was taking down Aaron's 33 year reign. Only problem: Ruth didn't become the home run champ upon his retirement in 1935; he set the career home run record in 1921, with number 139. Roger Connor, a first baseman pricipally for the New York Giants in the 1880's, had held the record since his 1897 retirement. Ruth lifted the record from 138 to 714, and held the record for 53 years. (Take just a moment to consider the extensions: Aaron went from 714 to 755; Bonds from 755 to *762; Ruth went from 138 to 714. That is an increase of 417%!)
It took Ruth only 8 years, and just three of those as an every day player, to make the record his own. You see, there is one simple basic reason that Ruth will always stand as the unquestioned best player in baseball history: before he was the greatest slugger in the game, he had been the best left-handed pitcher in the game.
As much as we enjoy Rick Ankiel's exploits this year, Ruth was the best lefty in the majors from 1915 through 1918, and the greatest hitter from 1918 until 1935. There is no comparison, and give the age at which kids are forced to specialize today, there never will be.
To this day, fantastic exploits are "Ruthian." Players who look younger than their years are still "Babe." Top guys must still be given nicknames, and we're not talking about that Chris Berman junk, either. The Sultan of Swat. The Maharishi of Mash. The Bambino. The Big Bam. That's why we have The Hammer, both Iron Horses, The Say Hey Kid, both Pudges, Mr. October and The Goose. They are all following in the footsteps, the larger than life footsteps, of George Herman "Babe" Ruth, who died sixty years ago today.
Thanks, Babe! We'll never forget you.
Or that other King who died today. You know, the rock'n'roll guy.
(It is interesting to me that Aug. 16 has seen a number of notable deaths: The two noted, Babe Ruth in 1948 and Elvis Presley in 1977, but also Bela Lugosi-1956, Admiral Bull Halsey-1959, Margaret Mitchell-1949, Gunsmoke's Miss Kitty, Amanda Blake-1989, Stewart Granger-1993, Newsman and Timex shill, John Cameron Swayze-1995, Idi Amin-2003, and, after the Babe and the King, dearest to my heart, legendary Bluesman Robert Johnson-1938)

Swiftboaters, Round 2

To call Jerome Corsi a lying bastard is an insult to lying bastards everywhere. He was the author of 2004's campaign screed that created a character named John Kerry out of whole cloth, a character who bore no resemblance whatsoever to the very fine public servant who was the Democratic Party's nominee for President. Now he's back for more, with a new character named Barack Obama. This new character bears no more resemblance to the current Democratic nominee than Corsi's Kerry did to the real man.
What does it say about this pathetic man's confidence in his obviously weak candidates-George II in 2004 and John McCain today-that he attacks his opponents so viciously and inaccurately? He clearly knows that, just like Bush the last two times, McCain can't win on the truth. So he rehashes all of the gooper crap that has been circulated in emails, whispered in the back rows of "Christian" churches and passed from the lips of such exemplars of virtue as Limbaugh, Hannity and O'Reilly. At least they have peddled this trash when they haven't been busy defending themselves against drug charges (Limbaugh), sexual harassment suits (O'Reilly) and being just plain stupid (Hannity).
Obama is a Moslem! Only he's not. He attended a Moslem school! Only he didn't. He's a tool of the terrorists! Yeah, the Senate is full of them. His (white) mother married an African, and then a whatever-it-is-that-comes-from-Indonesia, wherever that is! Yeah, so?
The only reason the Corsis of the world haven't put Obama in the pilot's seat of one of the hijacked planes on 9-11 is that he's still alive. And they'll probably find a way to do that even yet.
Lying about your opponent is a long-standing, time-honored tradition in American politics. But this has gotten ridiculous.
And it shows just how scared the right-wing is!
Ooh! The big, scawy bwack man giving the itty-bitty wepubwican boys nightmawes?
Hey, you jackasses! Remember those Ten Commandments you're so fond of? Thou shalt not bear false witness. It made the Top Ten list, so check into it!

Revival Preaching

So a colleague had one of his members call a month ago with the request/order that I had to preach their church's revival. At the time it was a while off. I said I'd be glad to do it.
Then time passed, and Sunday night will bring the beginning service. And I'm not so glad I'll be doing it.
I mean no disrespect to my colleague, his revival chairperson, or their congregation. I just puzzle over the revival's place in our world.
I don't even know how these worship series came to be named such a thing. Words have to matter to someone in my line of work, or at least, they should matter greatly. And one does not require much familiarity with language to understand that "revival" refers to a rekindling or renewing of life.
In many communities, or lack of communities, people would come from great distances, gather for days or weeks at a time, eat, dance, worship and whatever else all together. Those pioneering souls could go some time without a member of the clergy passing by, or a neighbor, or any face that was outside the family. So the camp meetings/revivals were special times spiritually, but also socially.
And they became times when conversions were expected to happen. New life was to be sought, often by hard-headed children of the families involved, but also by community drunks and other sorts of reprobates.
But these days, the only people who show up for revival services are the same ones who show up for Sunday evening worship: the ones who could be leading the thing themselves. OK, there is the "we all need..." dogma to acknowledge, but the folks I will be facing Sunday night through Wednesday night will be the finest, most devoted participants in their church.
What in the world am I going to "Re-" with them? And why would I aim for evangelism with this group that is already so firmly entrenched in the faith?
You who know me well know that I don't do well in the realm of "Since this is what's always expected and done, we'll just ignore reality and keep the fantasy in place." Not my best thing! And I won't do it in the coming week, either.
So, we will lay aside the fantasy of wailers from the Mourners' Bench wending their way to the altar, convicted by the overwhelmingly powerful preaching brought to bear by the visiting Evangelist. We will, indeed, shoot for revival. I continue to struggle with aspects of my own faith, and will, as always, work out of that. It seems to resonate.
I believe that I have been more changed by the revivals that I have preached than anyone who was parked in the pews. That's no insult to those faithful people. It's probably a confession about where I've stood on my journey, compared to where others have been positioned on theirs. But it is one of those odd Southern phenomena, to be paid something to show up at someone else's church, fill someone else's pulpit and work on my own faith.
I do hope that someone else will get a little work done next week, too.

Skip Caray, 1939-2008

This dreadful season for the Atlanta Braves has, finally, hit rock bottom. Now it just can't get any worse: Skip Caray, the long-time voice of the Braves, collapsed and died this afternoon while filling a bird feeder in his backyard. (Initial reports were that Skip had died while napping. His wife, Paula, corrected that information in the afternoon on Aug. 4)
Skip Caray and Pete Van Wieren were hired in 1976 by Ted Turner to join Ernie Johnson in the Braves' booth. Turner had bought a baseball team-an absolutely dreadful baseball team-to be a part of the backbone of his tv station's programming, and he needed broadcasters who could keep the fans' interest, because God knew, the team wasn't going to keep them tuned in. So, to Johnson, perhaps the nicest human being in the world, Turner added Van Wieren, perhaps the smartest human being in the world, and Skip Caray, certainly the most passionate and sarcastically funny human being in the world.
He came by his passion for baseball honestly. The son of Harry Caray grew up on the game, and gave his life to it, too. But where Harry openly and lovingly accepted most everything that happened in front of him, Skip brought the more skeptical sensibilities of a person who was a young adult through the 1960's. Many nights in the late 70's, Skip would grant late-inning permission to viewers who had watched the Braves take another drubbing to "go ahead and walk the dog, as long as you promise to patronize our sponsors." In the days of the 2 am Braves replays on TBS, Skip would speculate on the mental health of anyone who would "watch this junk in the middle of the night." Or, "If you're watching the replay, we welcome all dozen of you to the broadcast." Or, on a brutally hot August night at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, "I'd like to personally thank all of you folks who came out tonight, and it wouldn't take very long to do that." Skip was a wiseass, and that made him a cult hero to fraternity boys all over America, who would put on the Braves as we came in for the night, to listen to Skip let somebody have it. That spirit continued to the very end, as the Georgia Department of Transportation had become the main target of the last couple of seasons, due to their endless "improvements" to I-75/I-85.
Skip was sick last fall, sick enough for the doctors to call his family in. He made it through, and we got to have another half season with him on the radio, at least for home games.
Braves baseball will still be uncommonly well covered. Pete Van Wieren is still on the radio, sharing his encyclopedic knowledge of the game. Chip Caray has carried the family business very ably into the third generation. Joe Simpson and Jon "Boog" Sciambi are an excellent team. But Braves broadcasts will never again be as much fun as they have always been since 1976. Skip, just like Harry before him, always, always, always made the game fun. And after all, it is still a game.
God bless you, Skip. And your wife, Paula; your sons Chip and Josh; your grandchildren; stepmom, Duchy; and millions upon millions of Braves fans who loved listening to you explain the infield fly rule to some dope on the call-in segment, pontificate on the wave whenever the non-fans broke it out, share the home town of the last fan to catch a foul ball, attack the club-level fan who dropped a foul ball, and capture the drama of the game in your call of Sid Bream's slide, Smoltz blowing away another batter, Chipper cranking another homer, or Marquis Grissom securing the fly that gave the Braves their World Championship.
Well done, sir! We'll miss you.

The Privilege of His Company

I should be asleep (preparation for a good Sunday, don't you know) but I just got home from AutoZone Park, home tonight of the Dave Matthews Band and their opening act.
I will confess: I'm not the biggest DMB fan, or, at least, wasn't until tonight. I like their weird instrumentation and the unusual rhythmic structure of many of their songs, I've enjoyed the songs that have made the radio, and I share their politics; they just haven't been must-have when the new albums have been released. I may have to rethink that.
After all, anyone who can incorporate the Talking Heads (Burning Down the House) and Peter Gabriel (Sledgehammer) into their set is OK by me. And there is also the number they did with the aforementioned opener, a guy who put DMB's Gravedigger on his last album: Willie Nelson.
I will confess again: I got to the park wondering how Willie could be the opening act for Dave Matthews. I don't think that Willie Nelson ought to be opening for anybody, unless he and Dylan undertake another joint tour (no pun intended).
Willie is America. Now, he wasn't born just yet when the revolution was undertaken, but, apologies to Pogo, he is us. He's been on top, he's been on the bottom, and he's hit every rung in between. How could one man have written all those songs? And how could he have forgotten to pay his taxes on all the money those songs brought him? And how did that cowboy gain such a powerful, poetic sense of the language? And why does Grandpa still get caught smoking a little pot? OK, a lot of pot?
Well, that, and so much more, is all Willie.
And when he comes to town, he walks out on stage and plays his music. Barely stopping to breathe in between songs, he plays. He throws in one for Waylon. Sometimes one for Cash. Something of Kristofferson's. A Haggard song. He introduces his sister, on piano; his drummer's intro leads, always, into Me and Paul. Paul's the drummer.
Willie was the only guitar player in his band tonight. First time I'd seen him without someone playing alongside. And my great Willie Nelson suspicion was confirmed: he's one terrific guitarist.
He's been into all kinds of other things, too. He's been an actor. I thought he was hysterical in Electric Horseman. Kind of scary in Barbarosa. He has spent years helping people. He started Farm Aid in the mid-80's farming crisis, to do something for the American family farmer. Those benefit concerts have drawn the biggest names in music, and continue to this day. He is big into the production of bio-diesel to replace fossil fuels, and big against the slaughter of wild horses which are seen as nuisances by big western landowners. In short, if you have a cause, Willie will be on the right side of it, and raise a lot of money for it.
But it always comes back to the music. I love Dylan dearly, and his Neverending Tour gets a lot of press. But Willie's ten years older (75 last April), and he hasn't sat down in the last fifty years, either. I hope neither one of them every does. They make real, powerful, American music, and we are all richer for their efforts.

The Future of the Church (A Riff for Friends Suffering Far Away Places)

We know the painful truths. The church is declining. All mainline churches are losing. The ones with the highly-educated clergy. The ones organized for grand tasks on an international level. The ones that send good people great distances at great expense to grand workshops where they don't find the answers. Because the people leading them often don't even know the questions.
We're losing ground almost everywhere.
Meanwhile, this highly-educated, grandly-trained clergyman had lunch with Bob today.
Bob is 85. He is the proud owner of two new hips, installed over the last year. I buried his wife of 50+ years while I was his pastor at one of my previous stops. His son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren moved in with him a few years ago, so that when he needs a little more help, they'll be there.
He's also never been to seminary, isn't ordained, and hasn't attended any important workshops (and I dearly hope you understand that "important" is typed as sarcastically as my little fingers can manage).
What Bob knows is Jesus Christ.
That's why he declined to call the police a few years ago when, already into his 80's, as he was tending the little bit of yard that his church has, a couple of hispanic children who had moved into the neighborhood stole his lawnmover off the back of his pickup while he was using the weedeater. Oh, he made a very strong response; he just wouldn't put those kids in jail and give them a criminal record for the rest of their lives. Bob pushed, instead, to invite all of the hispanic children in the apartment complex next to the church to that summer's Vacation Bible School. And when a couple of those kids began to attend our church regularly, and later, serve as acolytes, he befriended them, asking after their families and schoolwork every Sunday. He may have been the only person in that church (outside of my household) that knew which name went with which boy.
See, Bob has never studied Current Something, Effective Whatever and that scourge of the faith and the faithful, Church Growth. He just happened somewhere on his journey through life to bump into a carpenter's son from Galilee, and his life changed. He loves as he has been loved. And it is just that simple, no matter how damned hard we sometimes try to make it.
The good news is that while Important People are figuring out Important Things to shower upon the rest of us dopes, simple everyday people like Bob are out there living the faith.
And some days, my better ones, I am pretty sure that the Bobs know more about the faith, the church and discipleship than any given barrel full of us well-trained, well-educated leaders will ever know.

Time for Manny to be Manny Somewhere Else

I love Manny Ramirez. I will be grateful to him and for him for the rest of my baseball-infatuated life. But enough is enough.
In the winter of 2000-2001, Manny parlayed his wildly successful years with the Cleveland Indians into an eight year, $160 million contract with the Boston Red Sox. The contract, negotiated by former agent Jeff Moorad-now the President of the Arizona Diamondbacks-included two additional seasons (2009 and 2010) at club options for $20 million each season. What that means is that at the end of the contract (this offseason), the Red Sox would have the ability to pick up the option for next year at an already agreed upon price, or decline it and make Manny a free agent again. And if that option were exercised for 2009, team and player would then go through that process again prior to the 2010 season.
Manny has always been eccentric. Listen to him, look at him, watch his visits to the Green Monster during pitching changes; the guy is put together differently from most people, and that's ok. The problem isn't those eccentricities. It's the other stuff. Like playing when it suits him. Like screaming for a trade every summer for the last six years. Like careless play in left field. Like turning doubles into singles by assuming they would be home runs. Like not even making it half-way to first on infield grounders, several of which have been kicked by the infielders over the years.
Oddly, for their $20 million per season, the Sox expected Manny to play hard. Had they reacted more aggressively early on when he didn't, things might not have reached this point. But they didn't, and they have.
Manny knocked down the Sox' Social Security-eligible traveling secretary when the man couldn't provide all of the complimentary tickets that Manny wanted for friends and family on this summer's road trip to Houston. That's free tickets, for this multi-multi millionaire's family and friends.
Manny made his annual pitch to be traded.
Manny called the Sox ownership underhanded and deceitful.
Manny took himself out of the lineup against the Mariners in the last game of a long road trip, complaining of a sore knee. Understandable for a 36 year old player.
Manny stayed out of the lineup in the first game of a home series against the New York Yankees. Unforgivable for a Red Sox player.
Manny was sent by the club for MRIs on both knees, and after they came back negative for any damage, was told that he would play the rest of the Yankee series or face suspension. Only then did he decide he was fit to play.
Manny shot off his mouth to ESPN about his desire for a trade.
Manny then complained that the Red Sox didn't "deserve a player like me." He likened himself to Nomar Garciaparra and Pedro Martinez, other past stars, Manny alleged, who had been mistreated by the Sox when they were on the way out of town. Reality check: Nomar had an unpleasant departure in 2004 because he also developed an inability to play when it didn't suit him. Pedro's departure was amicable; no one in Red Sox nation had anything bad to say about Petey.
What has Manny in such a snit is the fabulous work of the agent who replace Jeff Moorad: Scott Boras. Boras has one basic problem with Manny's situation: Boras ain't getting paid. The agent's fee for the current contract still goes to Moorad's former agency. If the Sox picked up one or both years of options they hold on Manny, Boras still doesn't get paid. So Scotty just doesn't care how much money was available to Manny from the Red Sox.
Boras has engineered a situation that is certainly going to cost Manny Ramirez millions of dollars. No sober GM or owner, not even Hank Steinbrenner, is going to give more than $20 million dollars per year to a temperamental, seemingly unreliable and maybe even unstable, declining 36 year old former superstar. If he gets more than $10 to $12 million he will be very fortunate. But then again, Boras will get paid. And that's what all of this is about.
Boras has, again, badly served a client. He cost Alex Rodriguez a small fortune last winter with the stunt he (Boras) pulled, opting out of the previous contract ARod had signed. Alex only came out of it as well as he did because he took a break from visiting Madonna's apartment, went hat in hand to Hal Steinbrenner, and apologized for following Boras' advice. Oh, yeah, he fired Boras in the process, too. Prince Hal then took Rodriguez back, at a lower salary and fewer benefits than the opted-out-of contract had contained.
It is a shame that Manny is so immature and/or foolish that he can't seen what is about to happen to him. And he's done it all to himself. At Boras' encouragement.
Sadly, it's time for Manny to go.

Elite is Bad?

To say that our little political process sometimes boggles the mind is an obvious exercise in understatement. Barack Obama is being labeled an elitist. Sneeringly, critically, insultingly declared an elitist!
Stupid me, I thought elite was good.
My home town sure thinks so. Compare the attendance figures between the woebegone Grizzlies and the National Runnerup Tigers. Michael Heisley's highly paid professionals can only dream of the passion and support routinely heaped upon John Calipari's college boys. Think about the problems that the Redbirds have had drawing flies for the last few, losing, years. And why more of us are finding our way to the beautiful park at Third and Union this year. Amazing what a pennant race does for putting butts in seats.
Consider my little area of expertise. The strongest years that churches tend to have are those when a building is being constructed and right after...in short, the growing, successful years. What moves people to move? Not enough kids here for my children to have a program. Not enough people in the choir for me to sing with. More competent (ie more highly paid) preacher at the new church.
We like success. We like to associate with the best.
Not sure? Who do you want doing your bypass surgery? Dr. Top-of-the-Profession, or one repeatedly sued for malpractice? Yeah, me too!
But then comes politics.
There is no surer demonstration of the political genius/innate evil of Karl Rove than the fact that he managed to make just enough people in this country believe that it would be better to have everybody's dopey, lovable cousin as President than two of the most able, highly intelligent, accomplished people ever to run for the office: Al Gore and John Kerry. Just enough, that is, that any attempt to have the true results of the 2000 and 2004 elections was doomed to look like whining or sour grapes.
We are in that same position again.
John McCain has lived an honorable life. He has demonstrated his personal bravery in ways that few Americans (me obviously included) can even begin to understand. But for John McCain to turn to the politics of Karl Rove to find his path into the White House would be laughable if it were not so disgusting.
McCain's campaign is labeling Obama an elitist?
Obama grew up a biracial child in America. McCain grew up the son and grandson of admirals in the US Navy.
Obama was raised by a single mother. McCain's significance was understood even by the North Vietnamese captors who held him all those years.
Obama skipped a ridiculously high paying job in a corporate law firm to go work in the slums of Chicago's South Side as a young man. McCain married the beer heiress.
And Obama is elitist?
Let's not dicker over definitions.
In this election, Barack Obama is clearly the elite candidate. That means he is clearly the better candidate.
I respect McCain. But he is a Republican. He is of the party that has wrecked our economy fighting an unjust war in Iraq. He is of the party that has allowed the oil interests to rip off the whole nation. He is of the party that has extended tax breaks to those who just don't need them, while shifting the National Debt onto the shoulders of those already carrying more than their share.
And he wants to further Bush's policies.
And, while I dearly love my parents, McCain is older than either of them. And I don't want Mom or Dad running the country.
Obama is about the future. He has a vision about where we need to go as a country. At this point, I'm ready to try something new. What we've been up to ain't been that great.
And I want an elite President. For a change.

Vacation Matters

Meant one way, we had a great time. We didn't leave town but for one shopping excursion at the Mall formerly known as Opryland. As we are at the door of enjoying her son, my daughter and my future son-in-law in education beyond high school and a new grandchild just a few months away, we couldn't afford it. So we enjoyed our fair city. The Memphis Redbirds are better than they've been in years, even with that pesky team up the river taking our best players off and on all summer. The city music scene--no, not that Beale Street crap; the REAL Memphis music--is thriving and readily available. My supervisor's scrapbooking and my MLB Extra Innings package provided us with glad diversions from what we normally do, where we normally go, and what we normally think about. And that's the point.
The other meaning of vacation matters is that a vacation really does matter. I never took more than a one week break until about six years ago. That was the time when a valued friend (you know who you are) shoved an article into my crowded hands that explained in blunt medical and psychological terms just why it is that we can't do the same thing all the time. I needed that. Now, I take three weeks. That period allows disengaging, rest and renewal. It takes time to change gears, reorient and just plain think on different things.
I am in a profession that attracts insecure people and cultivates insecurities in the strongest people. We are afraid that our parishoners will find out they can get by without us, or that they will like a fill-in's preaching better than ours. I have actually been told by colleagues that they invite the worst pulpit people they can find, so that they'll look good when they get home. Wow! Does it even require saying that we can't be at our best with all that garbage running around in our heads and hearts? And we can't be at our best when we are torched and running on fumes, either.
It was time for me. I was to the point of dreading planning that next service, that next sermon. I was in need of re-creation, refreshment, reenergizing. And this break has provided all of that. I'm looking forward to getting back in the morning. I'm ready to celebrate Holy Communion next Sunday. I'm eager to sit with the children, and preach to those who don't go to children's church. But none of that would have been the case without the vacation time well spent.
I would encourage my sisters and brothers in the clergy to take your break. We are protected at this point: the Conference guidelines call for legitimate vacation time. Take advantage of them. If need be, have your Superintendent explain it to your Pastor-Parish Committee. It is simple. They will get a better you all year by being without you for a few weeks. I testify out of my own experience. Amen!

Vacation Matters

Meant one way, we had a great time. We didn't leave town but for one shopping excursion

Sunday Night at Huey's

If you know Memphis, and I have no idea how you found my little dog and pony show here if you don't, you know about Huey's. For 873 consecutive years now, Huey's has been voted Best Burger in the Flyer's Best of Memphis annual polling. (Sadly, we lost the founder and owner of Huey's, Thomas Boggs, this year. Tom was one of our best corporate citizens, the kind every businessperson should be.)
On various Sunday nights, mostly at Huey's Downtown (Third at Union), but occasionally at Huey's Midtown (Madison at Tucker), DiAnne Price and Her Boyfriends hold court. Yes, I've written about DiAnne and her band before. You need to hear it again. Trust me.
(Disclaimer: DiAnne has been my friend for 17 years. We worked together for seven of those years. That friendship influences my opinion of her performing not one iota. This is Music, people! Friendship with Your Humble Blogger gets you nothing!)
DiAnne Price (vocals and piano), Tim Goodwin (electric and upright bass), Tom Lonardo (drums and percussion) and Jim Spake (soprano and tenor saxophone) are, plain and simple, the most accomplished musicians in Memphis. Don't trust me? How about some credentials: Goodwin and Lonardo are both professors in the University of Memphis music department; Spake's discography is utterly mindboggling-check it out at jimspake.com; and DiAnne won Memphis Magazine's Best Female Vocalist award in their music poll for so many consecutive years that they retired the category! They are the best.
And they are the best at everything. Blues, Jazz, Standards, they've got it. Covers and originals. Live and on any of their five cds. The only problem with the recordings: no cd can capture what they deliver live.
One of the mysteries of Life in River City: why are people like these playing in a hamburger restaurant? For the same reason, I guess, that Rufus Thomas was sort of a joke here in town, but has a civic park named in his honor in a city in Italy. For the same reason that B.B. King always plays at his local club to a number of empty seats.
I don't know what that reason is, by the way. I've heard several reflections on the matter. Memphians have so great a musical heritage that we've become jaded. Too many terrific active musicians. Downtown's dangerous. Too far to drive. And downhill from there.
I tend to think that it's a problem with priorities. Music's intrinsic value to life cannot be overstated. Meanwhile, we've done everything possible to devalue music: removed it from school curricula, stopped learning to play instruments since everyone can operate a cd player, even making a mess of recording now with all levels being pinned to the maximum possible volume.
Most people at this point have never heard the gentle fade into night of Mahler's Ninth Symphony, most of the fun that the Beatles and George Martin had with the endings of any numbers of their songs, the plaintive sigh of Robert Johnson in Hellhound on My Trail, the glorious work of John Pizzarelli's hands on a guitar. But I digress.
Unless you are such a vegan that you cannot be in a place where meat is being served (and my niece is one, and still loved the show!), then you really should make time to check the Huey's website (hueyburger.com, follow the Live Music link), find when DiAnne is scheduled, and show up. I unreservedly guarantee that you will be glad you did!

Your Winner: Josh Hamilton!

Seems I've been a bit short on baseball lately. And since that was the premise for the whole deal, let's try to correct things, shall we?
The (sponsor's name not reported on principle) Home Run Derby was earlier this evening. Justin Morneau, the outstanding young first baseman of the Minnesota Twins won, qualifying for the final round and hitting more out at that moment. But the real thrill of the evening, in more ways than one, was provided by Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers.
Hamilton had the single greatest round in the history of the Derby. He hit 28 out in round one. He hit so many that he didn't have to hit in the second round. He took a few swings to keep loose, but he didn't have to numerically. His pitcher was a 71 year old man, Clay Counsil, from back home in North Carolina. Mr. Counsil has the baseball sickness. He has volunteered to help generations of kids learn the game all his life. Hamilton rewarded the gentleman's decency and kindness by taking him along to The House that Ruth Built for only the second time. Mr Counsil's first visit was the day that Don Larsen pitched a perfect game against the Dodgers in the 1956 World Series. Magic attends Mr. Counsil's visits to The Stadium.
They were a magic team. Josh Hamilton's opening round was awe inspiring. But tonight's blasts aren't even close to the best story about young Mr. Hamilton. Not even close.
Josh Hamilton was the first pick in the country in the 1999 draft. The then-Devil Rays took him. And he took his $4 million signing bonus and lost his mind. Some reports say that it took as many as 8 trips to rehab to help him find his way. And then he found God. Or, more properly put, he realized God was with him.
After three years of nothing related to baseball whatsoever, Hamilton started back. In this Roy Hobbs-comes-to-life story, the kid flew to the Majors. Tampa may regret it now, but can anyone blame them for being relieved when the Reds took him off their hands in the Rule 5 draft a couple of years ago? Then it was a decent year in Cincy, and a trade to Texas for Edinson Volquez. It really is cool when trades help both teams.
Now, Volquez is in the discussion for the National League's Cy Young Award, and Hamilton probably heads the list at this moment for the American League's Most Valuable Player Award.
Rick Reilly made sure, on the Worldwide Leader's broadcast of the Home Run Derby, that everyone knew that Josh's problem was with heroin. If he mentioned it once, he named it ten times. As usual, the greater insight was delivered by the inimitable Peter Gammons. He said that the great thing about Josh Hamilton's story is that we don't live in Nancy Reagan's world. (You know, "Just Say No!" A load of crap in the '80's; just the same today) We live in a world where a lot of kids are in trouble. And Josh Hamilton's is the kind of story that can inspire other young people who've lost their way to get back on track. Josh works for that every day out of gratitude to those who have helped him. Gammons always hits the nail on the head.
You're the winner, Josh! I don't really care how many homers you hit, or how many any of the other great players hit tonight. You're winning the battle every single day. You're smart enough to travel every step with a helper to be there when you feel those old pulls. You're dedicated enough to not put those who care about you in those old positions any more.
Reilly whined incessantly about your tattoos tonight, how they embarass you now, how it's just too physically painful to have them removed. Don't worry about them. Let them be markers for where you were, and where you are, and where you will never be again. Let them testify to the possibilities. Wear them as badges of honor and accomplishment.
And keep winning the game! You know, the Big One. Life.
One day at a time.

Why the Home Town Feeds the Soul!

After sweltering at AutoZone Park for the first five innings tonight, the roommate and I decided to forego the remainder of the game-and the Redbirds' late inning heroics that delivered a 3-1 win-to move on to the next portion of vacation entertainment: a Burnside at Ground Zero!
Tonight it was Cedric, a gifted drummer and singer, with his partner, Lightnin' Malcolm, a serious guitarist. Cedric Burnside is a grandson of the late legendary north Mississippi hill country bluesman, R.L. Burnside. R.L. and his musical soulmate, Junior Kimbrough, did plenty for us just leaving their collection of late-life trance boogie blues. But musicians of their power and vision don't die; they fertilize the souls of the young musicians that come after them. The best known purveyors of hill country stomp are the North Mississippi All Stars. The sons of James Luther Dickinson were blessed to grow up in the company of great musicians of every stripe, those their father played with, recorded with, and produced. They literally sat at the feet of Burnside and Kimbrough, and the ordination of these acolytes took. But alongside the All Stars are various children and grandchildren, especially among the Burnsides. Duwayne Burnside was the fourth NMA for several years, in the pattern of all those who claimed to be the fifth Beatle. Only Duwayne contributed.
Cedric and Malcolm are a two man band. They don't need any help. Malcolm's slide gets it done, and his finger picking provides a powerful bass line. Cedric takes care of the rest behind his kit. No vocal harmonies here, they double the lead vocal All Night Long. Seamlessly.
The Burnsides, and those who play with them, have IT in their bones. Jim Dickinson calls it World Boogie, and preaches that It Is Coming!
Taking out after John Lee Hooker's stomp and relentlessly driving beat, Burnside and Kimbrough refined it, made it hypnotic (connecting all the way back to the Moroccan trance/dance music at its core) and plugged it in.
The kids go even farther.
An evening spent listening to Cedric and Malcolm can give you hope that there is still a chance for humanity. Wars and economies and bad policies and worse politicians are all swept
away before the tidal wave of The Boogie. Hypocritical religion and vanity of every sort are wiped away. The joy in Staying is savored. The power in Surviving Josef Conrad's Horror is celebrated. The victory of Living In Spite of It All is proclaimed and relished.
Do your soul a favor, and get thee to a Burnside's side as fast as you can get there. It just might save your life, as it does mine everytime!

Conflicted

I like being American. Oh, I cannot bear the George Bush/Dick Cheney vision of America, but they really aren't what we're about. Theirs is a perversion of who we are and what we aspire to. I want my children to be safe. I want my grandchildren to grow up like I did.
But how far does that desire go?
Budweiser is currently running a spot that portrays a group of soldiers going to, or coming home from, the wars. Spontaneously, all of the others passing through the airport, or working there, erupt into applause for these heroes. There is a closeup of a little red headed girl, maybe 3 or 4 years old. I wonder if anyone will tell her the truth?
The truth is that those young Americans, or at least the real ones the people in the ad depict, are in foreign lands to kill people in that little red headed girl's name. And mine. And yours. They are also very likely to be killed or maimed physically, and are surely to be wounded emotionally and psychologically and spiritually, in the process. Certainly they'll be left with images that will disturb their sleep for the rest of their lives.
And we know, beyond a shadow of a doubt or Bill O'Reilly rant, that because human beings are not perfect, some of those young Americans have made mistakes and killed groups of Iraqis holding wedding parties, racing to hospitals to have babies, acting strangely because they were scared, and on and on. And because weapons systems don't always work as advertised, there is often "collateral damage" in their wake. That's government for "we blew up people and stuff we didn't mean to hit."
I am a person whose sacred text says that in my faith there is no difference between "Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female." That's ancient Mediterranean for "American and Iraqi, American and Afghan, American and anything else." No difference.
And that same sacred text says that my God is no respector of persons, and "we are all sinners who have fallen short of the glory of God."
I have no particular righteousness for winning the lottery and being born in this place at this time. The only reason I believe that the Taliban, bin Laden, Hamas and the rest are wrong is because I see the world through eyes trained in the view from the western world. Had I been born in the West Bank, the slums of Jerusalem, Saudi Arabia or if an errant missile had killed my children in the name of democratizing my country, I'd see things exactly as those in that part of the world do.
History is written by the winners. The only reason that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, et al, are considered heroes is that England tired of fighting the war, Revolution to us, rebellion to them. Had George III had the desire to push the point, the great patriots would all be remembered as terrorists, executed for disturbing the peace.
By my faith, and by the reality of human history, I can't applaud any more. I can only ask that no one else kill in my name. Please, stop it!
I have family, friends, and parishoners that are all in the military services. I love and respect them all. Now, I only want them to come home safely to their families, and stop making me more important that all those other people who are children of God, made in God's own image, just like me. It's wrong. It needs to stop now.