Obama "rolls" joke down metaphorical "lane", "knocks down" no "pins"

Obama's been taking a lot of (well-deserved) criticism today for his comment on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno Thursday night. While discussing his infamously poor bowling performance during the campaign, he said, "It was like the Special Olympics or something." Sarah Palin had every reason to lay into him, and she did issue a strong statement, but it doesn't seem opportunistic or self-aggrandizing. In fact, I think this sentence is rather fitting: "This was a degrading remark about our world’s most precious and unique people, coming from the most powerful position in the world." So far, the reaction from Gov. David Patterson, who is probably the highest-ranking elected official with a physical disability in America, has been minimal, though that is his right, too.

In addition to the genuine outrage and disappointment, this episode has also given us the opportunity to note that Obama would probably finish in the middle of the pack at Special Olympics bowling (and this guy is ready to prove it). Perhaps most gratifying have been the numerous bowling puns that have found their way into the headlines today. And without any apparent irony, this small British entertainment magazine decided to entitle their article, "Prez scores low with lame remark on Leno". Lame, indeed.

Lost in translation

Here's a trivial publishing oddity. (If opening sentences like that don't get me more blog readers, I don't know what will!) In our introductory ethics course, we are reading a text by our professor, Sam Wells. The book's title is Improvisation: The Drama of Christian Ethics. Yet somehow, there are two different versions in print, and one version (which we have in our bookstore) omits the word "of" from the cover design:

Mistake? Hip design choice? Transatlantic confusion?

East Coast snob.

So with March Madness about to begin, I figured I'd just divulge to you my Final Four picks: Kansas, Connecticut, Villanova, UNC, with Connecticut topping Villanova in an all-Big East final. Along the way, Pitt will lose to Tennessee and Louisville will lose to Wake Forest.

I also decided to follow the lead of my friend Matt, who once made an entry into his family's NCAA pool on behalf of the family dog. The idea was simple: anytime a team with a canine mascot plays a non-dog team, the dog team wins. In the event of a dog-eat-dog matchup, the higher seed wins. The underlying project is to pick a bracket based on an arbitrary principle and see if it works better or worse than your "educated" picks.

I decided to make my "control" bracket by choosing whichever school is farther East in every instance. This seemed like a good idea since the ACC and Big East are so strong, but it doesn't look good: only one #2 seed (Memphis) makes it out of the first round, and the Sweet Sixteen only features four teams seeded 3 or higher in their region (Pitt, Villanova, UNC, Connecticut). What really ruins it is that Temple beats Villanova by only twelve miles in a close Final Four matchup. 

So, congratulations to Boston College: you are the 2009 national champion of Easternness. Better luck next year, Portland State.

Post-Spring Break Post

We were on Spring Break last week. As of the Thursday before break, Heather and I still had not made any plans. However, we had been hoping for a long time to make a trip up to New England to see some great folks, and surprised ourselves (or, at least, me) by hatching a quick and ambitious plan. We drove to the Boston area and back, with stops in Manassas (to see Heather's family, including the small one), New Jersey (where my parents were both rather sick but my seven-months-pregnant sister & brother-in-law are doing very well), New Haven (to see my college roommate), and a drive-thru of Rhode Island so that Heather could cross that state off her list.

Our final destination was Beverly, Mass. For an interesting portrait of the city, see this page on the municipal website. We got to spend quality time with college friends of Heather's (she attended college in the adjacent town) and with this farmer I know up there. We also went beachcombing, heard a weird sermon, wrote papers for school, and coveted the lives of the rich and old. All in all, the trip took ten days, covered over 1500 miles, and brought us through nine states (plus one District), but we had a great time seeing so many different people.

Add to dictionary

I just discovered that Microsoft Word wants to autocorrect the word "pastoring" to "pasturing". A helpful correction for most people, perhaps. Plus, they're in the right etymological ballpark, which helps soften the impact of the mistake. But this is a spot where the Office dictionary can steer a seminarian wrong: it might be bewildering for a reader to learn of my plans for feeding a congregation on the wild grass of an open meadow.

(Cue chintzy Christian pastoral leadership book release: Pastoring or Pasturing? Leading Your Herd into New Fields of Plenty. Or some crap like that.)

To: The recipient. From: The sender.

This doesn't have to do with theology, or politics, or political theology, or Springsteen. It has to do with direct marketing, and the short time I spent doing online fundraising for a nonprofit.

I do not remember ever purchasing anything through abebooks.com, though I guess I must have done so at some point, and used my Duke email address. I had never received an email from them in my life until this month, when I have gotten three promotional messages. What I can't fathom is, why did they bother to send me an email as useless as this one? (Note the places where they were supposed to customize the message based on my prior purchases, whatever they were.)

A Methodist Quiz!

This weekend at our Wesley Fellowship retreat, we discussed the Sermon on the Mount. My responsibility was to lead the group through the Beatitudes in conversation with the United Methodist Church's Social Principles. In order to introduce everyone to the Social Principles (a rather obscure document found in our Book of Discipline), I wrote up a little quiz. Sorry if the formatting is weird, but here it is (answers at bottom). 

SECTION ONE: In each question, there are four options. Choose the one that is NOT specifically opposed in the Social Principles of the United Methodist Church.

1. Human cloning; The use of chemicals in growing food; The weaponization of outer space; The commercialization of Christian holidays.
2. The separation of church and state; The practice of homosexuality; Bottled water; Weakening standards for organic food. 

SECTION TWO: In each question, there are four options. Choose the one that is NOT specifically affirmed in the Social Principles.

1. Affirmative Action; Public libraries; Abstinence from tobacco; U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights
   
2. U.S. Bill of Rights; Preservation of old-growth forests; Taxpayer-funded gov't healthcare; Children are not their parents' property
3. The integrity of unmarried people; Universal access to internet & phone service; Safety testing for processed food; Composting household food waste

SECTION THREE: This isn’t a question; I just thought you should know.

United Methodists “support and encourage social policies that are directed toward rational and restrained transformation of parts of the nonhuman world into energy for human usage” (¶160.B)

SECTION FOUR: Additional Questions:

1. Only two sections of the Social Principles include direct scriptural references. Choose which two of the following topics make mention of a specific Bible verse or passage:  Military service; Family farms; Animal life; Abortion; Suicide; Death Penalty; Immigrants; Right to health care.
2. What happens to a United Methodist who violates one of the Social Principles?

1. Nothing.
2. You are subject to a church trial; if found guilty, you may be removed from membership.
3. Your pastor is to oversee the church’s effort to be reconciled to you in accordance with Matthew 18:15-20 (First, point out the sin to the person in private; then confront him/her with one or two others from the church; et cetera).
4. You are expected to write a letter to your congregation explaining your actions before you will be welcomed at the communion table.

Answers

1.1: Commercialization

1.2: Separation of church & state

2.1: Public libraries

2.2: U.S. Bill of Rights

2.3: Composting

4.1: Suicide (Rom. 8:38-39) and Health Care (John 10:10b, Ezek. 34:4a)

4.2: Nothing, though if the principle has to do with homosexuality it has also been written into the enforceable church law someplace.

Closest thing we have to "foodies" on campus.

As part of its ongoing, invaluable service to the University, our daily newspaper ran an opinion column today that included the following assertion about campus dining: "The problem with West Campus, however, is that there is no internal logic to the dining options. This is another instance of our culture fundamentally misunderstanding the nature of human freedom." Translation: I just learned about the Enlightenment in my Philosophy class, and now I know how to run a university!

The real startling thing about human freedom is that at fifty thousand dollars a year, he felt free to spend his time publishing an observation like that.

E Street vs. Main Street?

A bit of a dust-up going on over in Jungleland: Columbia Records produced a Bruce Springsteen & the E-Street Band "Greatest Hits" album that is being sold exclusively at Wal-Mart. Naturally, some fans have questioned the move, given the apparent differences of opinion between Bruce and Wal-Mart on issues such as manufacturing and labor. In fact, it seems like Wal-Mart fits the bill for the anonymous evil force in a lot of Bruce's songs, especially on an album like Darkness on the Edge of Town. Come to think of it, where does Wal-Mart usually build? Not in the center of town, but...

I looked at the track listing, and frankly it looks like they let Wal-Mart pick the songs, too. Rosalita, Born to Run, Thunder Road, Badlands, Born in the USA - those are probably essential. The Rising and Lonesome Day are pretty good, too, though it's questionable whether they both belong on a twelve-track Greatest Hits collection. I was pleasantly surprised to see Darkness on the Edge of Town (the song), because it is one of my favorites and was left off the 1995 Greatest Hits album. But Glory Days and Dancing in the Dark aren't even in the top five on the album they were released on (Born in the U.S.A.), and I like to pretend that Hungry Heart never existed.

They might as well have put Secret Garden on there, just to top it off. It's kind of a lowest common-denominator approach, which I guess is how mass-marketing works, and that's the business Wal-Mart and Columbia are in. To an extent, so is Springsteen; who are we kidding? I can be okay with that. For what it's worth, Springsteen called the deal a 'mistake' in a recent interview.

If it were up to me, and I had to choose a 12-song album, here it is (and I hope you can appreciate how difficult this is, and how long it took me):

1. Spirit in the Night
2. Racing in the Street
3. Darkness on the Edge of Town
4. Backstreets
5. Thunder Road
6. The River
7. Atlantic City
8. Highway Patrolman
9. I'm on Fire
10. This Hard Land
11. Youngstown
12. The Rising

I left off two biggies: Born to Run, and Badlands. They're really two of my favorite songs. I guess this list is more of an effort to pick the greatest songs, without picking all the songs that have been on his other compilations, and without feeling obligated to put something that he released between 1985 and 1995. We all have slumps. It's important to be able to acknowledge them, and move on.

Pigeonholing

-Excerpt from UMC's Inventory of Religious Activities and Interests form for ministry candidates

I found myself wishing for an 'other' category, a free-response box, anything other than a mandatory, choose-one pulldown menu. Which got me to thinking, what would I actually write if given the opportunity? I'm not sure I have a canned "theological position". Maybe I would just write the Shema or something.

In case you're wondering, I put "conservative," because I think the Bible is binding, Church authority and hierarchy is valid, and the Creed is true. I might've put radical, but the pulldown menu made it look like radical just means "super-liberal".

Oy.