Whatever

I loathe the 700 Club.  I’ve watched a few times and…well, you can probably guess a few reasons I don’t like it.  But tonight they had Steve McGranahan, the “World’s Strongest Redneck,” on.  He’s basically a big guy who bends stuff.  But instead of bending to be bending or to show off, he does object lessons.  It was actually a pretty good bit.  He makes some clever connections, and cracks some groaner redneck jokes (”Why don’t rednecks make good terrorists? We hate to waste a good roll of duct tape.”), and it works.

At first I thought it was embarrassing to evangelicals, playing into stereotypes - and it may be.  But he said something during his performance that made me stop thinking about it:

One day we’re gonna be standing before the Lord, and he’s gonna ask you, “What’d you do with your gifts?”

He may not be a genius, and he may not have any sleeves, but he’s using what he has to glorify Jesus.  What more can we ask? This is sort of an interesting contrast with yesterday’s post about Conteporary Christian Music.  Is this the second side of the coin?

I was just bumming around online today and I came across this article , “Is Christian Music Dying?”, in Collide magazine.  I looked at the first couple of paragraphs in print last month, but never got around to reading the whole thing.

The article is a discussion of CCM - Contemporary Christian Music - and whether or not it has a viable future. There are some great lines, a couple of which I’ll look at here, but you should take some time and read it through. McClellan does a good and fair job, in my opinion, of looking critically at Christian music and the Christian music industry.

I’ve never really been a fan of CCM.  I’ve tried it a few times, but I always felt like I was expected to like it just because it was Christian…without worrying about whether or not it was good.  I think there are a couple of fundamental things wrong with the industry that are, in the very near future, going to drain what life is left. (continue reading…)

I posted this a couple of years ago somewhere else, but I came across it today and decided to post it again, because I don’t know that I’ll ever be beyond the need for this reminder:

Everyone has their weird little pleasures. Some enjoy breezes, some watching others trip, I enjoy grammar. There’s something about a perfectly structured sentence that just makes me smile. As a result, it really bothers me when people say things that don’t make sense, as if they do. Like when somebody is trying to display indifference to something, and they say, “I could care less.” Well, if you can care less, that means you care some. What you mean to say is, “I couldn’t care less.” Usually I’m able to keep this to myself, thankfully.

My wife and I were leaving the bank the other day, and a Robinson Glass commercial came on the radio. The announcer tells us all about Robinson, and also about the competitors. At the end he asks something like, “Why would you take your car–which carries, your family, friends, and loved ones–to a place that’s added ‘and glass’ to it’s name?”

And I said, “What kind of phrase is that–friends, family, and loved ones? Aren’t your friends and family your only loved ones? Who do you love that isn’t a friend or a family member.”

“Your enemy,” she said.

Yeah.

Barack Obama isn’t black.  It’s time to drop the charade.

I thought we had moved beyond the “one-drop rule“.  But it seems that a man with one African parent, and one white American parent is still considered black in white America, and embraced by black America as a favored son.  The problem is, he isn’t black.

I’m not saying this to exclude him from anything, I don’t care if he targets black Americans in his campaign or if he rides the wave all the way to shore.  I’m not really included in black America, anyway, so it’s of no consequence to me.  But what does bother me is that by calling him black, half his family is considered basically incidental.

Calling my son “black” means my wife and her ancestry are not a part of him.  It means his family tree is split down the center. Haven’t we moved past this?

So, Barack Obama is not the first black candidate from a major party in the general.  He may be the first non-white, the first mulatto, or the first…well, I ran out…but he is as much white, as he is black.  That is all.

Melissa Barton said she is considering legal action after her son’s kindergarten teacher led his classmates to vote him out of class.

After each classmate was allowed to say what they didn’t like about Barton’s 5-year-old son, Alex, his Morningside Elementary teacher Wendy Portillo said they were going to take a vote, Barton said.

By a 14 to 2 margin, the students voted Alex — who is in the process of being diagnosed with autism — out of the class.

This is also another example of why my children will never attend public school in the US. I know that most public schools are not like this, but it’s a risk you run with the bureaucracy and the union power in public education. You don’t have this risk at a private school because not only are the standards typically higher, but the school has to answer to the parents. If something like this were to happen at a private school, and the teacher wasn’t immediately fired (especially after admitting that the account is true), enrollment would drop, and the school would feel the pressure.

And who does something like this, anyway? (continue reading…)

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