When it comes to moderates, GOP Ex-Specter-ates!

You may know that I love puns. I particularly love it when the entire media tries to use the same pun. So thanks to Marc Ambinder for compiling today's headlines regarding Sen. Arlen Specter's switching parties.

Finals week

I know I've been pretty quiet here for a while. I'm working hard, trying to wrap up the semester. Hard to believe that I am 2/3 of the way finished with seminary.

This semester I had the mixed blessing of studying the gospel of Mark under a professor who has written a two-volume commentary on Mark. I found it very difficult to put together a term paper that I felt okay turning in, knowing that he has published over 1200 pages about Mark (not counting all the articles he's written).

But, I did turn something in. Rather than telling you about my paper, I decided to give you a visual digest using Wordle:

I was not aware of that.

You really only need to watch the first 40 seconds of this to get a sense of what the whole speech is like. Shout out to Portland for Blumenauer's rebuttal at the end of the clip.

The foolish man bought an imported car...

I think it's fair to say that most of us, after Hurricane Katrina, would've been uncomfortable with someone using Jesus' words from Matthew 7:24-27 to chastise people for choosing to live in a flood-prone area. After all, the "rock" that Jesus describes is obedience to his teachings in the Sermon on the Mount; "sand" is disobedience. While it may be common sense to build your house in a safe location, doing so is not an injunction from Christ.

So what are we to think when the President compares our derivative-based economy to a house built upon sand, and calls on us to "build our house upon a rock" by saving more, consuming less, and exporting more? It may be a metaphor that makes sense to people, but it reminds me that making a metaphor out of Jesus' metaphor usually results in associating Jesus' authority with something he didn't say.

Methodist Manna

I was surprised to discover today that for some reason, Cokesbury is selling off volumes of the Bicentennial Edition of The Works of John Wesley for $15 apiece (they usually cost $50). These are the authoritative scholarly versions of Wesley's sermons (4 vols.), letters (2 vols.), journals & diaries (6 vols.), and other works. For more on the Wesley Works Project, see here.

Can you decipher this?

You can't.

"We mocked, but took"

FINE POINT

by John Updike

December 22, 2008

Why go to Sunday school, though surlily,

and not believe a bit of what was taught?

The desert shepherds in their scratchy robes

undoubtedly existed, and Israel's defeats--

the Temple in its sacredness destroyed

by Babylon and Rome. Yet Jews kept faith

and passed the prayers, the crabbed rites,

from table to table as Christians mocked.

We mocked, but took. The timbrel creed of praise

gives spirit to the daily; blood tinges lips.

The tongue reposes in papyrus pleas,

saying, Surely--magnificent, that "surely"--

goodness and mercy shall follow me all

the days of my life, my life, forever.

(Published in The New Yorker, 3/16/09)

To the class of 2010...

I don't remember volunteering, but somehow I have been invited to serve on the University's advisory committee that will help select the commencement speaker for graduation in 2010. We have a meeting next week, when we will discuss criteria for selecting a speaker, and throw around some names. So ... anybody have any advice or suggestions? Bear in mind that this person will be addressing ALL the graduates: undergrad, law, medicine, divinity, business, environment, engineering, et cetera. If you have any tips for me, feel free to let me know in the comments, or by email if you have it.

This Hard Land

Generally, I don't think Springsteen gives very good interviews. He's kind of a weird guy, although that only occasionally comes across on stage. It's when he starts talking that you realize he's a little shifty, he maintains a soul patch even when not on tour, and in conversation he kind of talks like .... well, like a Bruce Springsteen song.

So I was really pleased by his interview on The Daily Show last week, which was funny, engaging, and not really awkward at all. I especially loved this: 

“We’ve had an enormous moral, spiritual, and economic collapse. People come to storytellers when times are like that. Our band was built from the beginning for hard times.”

Watch the whole interview here:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Bruce Springsteen - Interview
comedycentral.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Important Things w/ Demetri Martin Political Humor

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.