Sit down, Billy. The Holy Father is about to educate your behind.

Seriously, let’s think about this, people. In one corner, you have a backwoods preacher from the American South. Quite a dandy in his early days, Billy donned the white bucks and powder blue sportcoats for Youth for Christ rallies as far back as the 1940s. Two whole generations of evangelical women cursed Ruth Bell under their breath for shattering their dreams and taking Billy off the market.

Even today, women admire him and men want to be him; pianists want to play for him, and even Michael W. Smith and dcTalk knew they had hit the big time when Billy Graham asked them to play for a “youth night” in a late ’90s California crusade.

All of this makes Graham a beloved figure, a bona-fide American religious folk hero.

It does not make for a worthy battle.

Because in the other corner, resplendent in papal garb, his robes billowing proudly behind him, his miter defiantly piercing the sky, is Pope Benedict XVI, born Joseph Alois Ratzinger.

He’s not a folk hero. He’s a junkyard dog.

He was known universally as the Vatican’s “doctrinal watchdog” prior to his selection as the 265th pope of the Catholic Church. And as if his international reputation were not enough, the Catholics that knew him best, the ones from his native Germany, referred to him as Der Panzer Kardinal — “the Tank Cardinal.” Why? Because he’s such a ruthless defender of the faith.

But you don’t have to take my word for it! Ask the late Father Jacques Dupuis (if you could), or Sri Lankan theologian Tissa Balasuriya. The former had the temerity to suggest that God was active in non-Christian religious traditions, the latter the unmitigated gall to refuse to sign a Vatican-approved statement of faith. Dupuis wound up trashed in a document Ratzinger wrote; Balasuriya was excommunicated, before the ever-gentlemanly Pope John Paul II restored him to the church.

You can mess with a guy named Billy. You cannot mess with a Ratzinger. You wind up trashed, excommunicated…or worse.

The man’s first papal encyclical was entitled Deus Caritas Est — “God is love.” Notably absent was any statement of Benedict’s own feelings. The obvious message: God is love, and Benedict ain’t.

The man is a flat-out papal bull.

The very notion that Pope Benedict could somehow best Billy Graham is so ludicrous I almost asked to be recused. No chance in heaven! Benny’s only advantage is that if he gouged Graham’s eyes or hit below the belt, he could absolve himself on the spot while the Rev. filed all that messy Grace paperwork.

But I still don’t see it. Graham didn’t win prominence by an ancient tradition of selection by peers; he received it by the eons-old tradition of selection by God. And Graham’s a natural fighter; whether Nixon or Parkinson’s, he handles his problems personally with sleeves rolled up and pride rolled down. So l’approvazione, papa, lo porta! Let’s go to the arena floor…

In this corner, at a holy 210 — the man who put “I can” in Vatican, the Stonin’ Roman…Germany’s own Joseph A. Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI!!!

And in this corner, weighing in at a lanky 205 — The Master Pastor, The Great Wheaton Beatin’…Charlotte’s own Rev. William F. Graham, Jr.!!!

*ding ding ding*

“Look at Graham charge from his corner! I haven’t seen anything like this since Joel Osteen fought the Dalai Lama in that New Delhi kick-boxing match last June! The Pope is on the ropes, medallions flying everywhere!!”

“Bob, this is tough to watch. I think Ratzinger forgot to drink his holy water, and he’s gonna need a miracle.”

“Graham continues his crusade! An uppercut to the the Father’s midsection and a roundhouse to the nose!!!”

“Bob, it appears the Rev. is nailing all 95 theses to Ratzinger’s chin tonight! I’ll bet the Pope wishes he were still a Cardinal so he could fly far, far away!”

“Good call, Gary. Ooh, a stiff right hook from Graham, and the Pope falls to his knees in exhaustion — or is it prayer to Joseph? Patron saint of lost causes?!”

“Pope Benedict XV felt that one!”

“Hold the chariot, Gary, the Pontiff is up and he’s going after Graham with fury in his eyes!!! The Catholics here are yelling ‘inquisition, inquisition,’ as Benedict rains blow after blow on Graham’s head and body.”

“Wow, Bob! Nothing apocryphal about that last punch! But it’s amazing how Graham’s hair stays right in place!”

“Is that LA Looks he’s got in there?”

“If I gambled, I’d go with Dep, Bob.”

“Golly Gee! Now the Protestants are up as Graham delivers punishing blows to the caretaker Pope!! Everyone’s a Calvinist tonight; this is pure destiny!! The Pope is down for the count!!!!”

*ding ding ding*

“And it’s over — Graham by knockout!”

Married life is the best kind of life there is. Trading freedom for security has always been the way we roll here in the U.S. of A! So many rough areas of a man’s life can be smoothed out by the delicate touch of a feminine hand.

Decision-making is a prime example. Making decisions is a lot of work. Where to live, what job to take, what to wear? Who has time to figure out the proper choice in all of these important areas? Most single men learn to make decisions quickly, weighing options and coming to decisions so fast that the process seems almost primitive in its simplicity.

The married man can still quickly reach a simple decision, but it is never the end result. Instead, it’s just one stop on the interminable amusement park ride central to any marriage: the discussion. By looping around and around the many possible choices, a man with a skilled spouse eventually comes to see the ignorance of his original choice, and the unparalleled superiority of the course his wife has already selected. Eventually these “discussions” can strip a man of his desire to make an initial choice, streamlining the entire process!

Marriage also lets a man grow beyond the boundaries he places on his social life. Many single men prefer the company of a particular group of friends, spending the majority of social time with them, coming to know them well. Once a man is married, these constraints are taken from him, and he can come to full social fruition. New friends he would not have chosen! New activities he does not enjoy! An entire new family with whom to spend holidays, reunions, excruciatingly boring conversations, and arguments!

And chores! Once a man has a wife, he has a partner with whom to split the domestic tasks central to any household. A single man has no assistance in performing these chores, and no helper to decide when they should be done. It’s true that marriage brings a man a tidier house, but with a spouse helping, the net decrease in work will be offset by the extra discussions that will fill the saved time, in lieu of radio, television, or blessed quiet.

It’s true that some freedom is lost. If I were married, I couldn’t keep the random and flexible work schedule I enjoy. I wouldn’t be able to spend my leisure time any way I like, I wouldn’t have as much time for quiet reading, I might not amuse myself so much with the Internet dot com. I certainly wouldn’t be able to drop everything and take a trip, change my plans at the last minute, or do any of the other things that make me the man I am.

No, I would become a different man, a better man, with a thousand chips of my very nature shaved away by the delicate chisel in my wife’s knowledgeable hand.

I only hope that man will think of the old me fondly from time to time, as he lives his life to the beat of his life’s new drummerette.

If he can find the time between discussions.

You know, when you’ve been married as long as I have (almost three weeks!), you almost forget what it was like on the other side…

Being single has its advantages. Gas mileage, for example. With only one person in the car, you’ll use less gas, you know, when you drive places… alone. And you’ll never have to worry about another person changing your radio stations. In fact, you never have to be exposed to any tastes other than your own! Gosh, that does sound pretty good… cruising down the highway of life — alone — listening to the same old songs on the radio…

And there are benefits outside your motor vehicle as well. Like at work! Now that I’m married, Karen calls me at work once or twice a day. But if I were single, think about how great it would be: eight uninterrupted hours without hearing a friendly voice on the other end of the telephone line. Even better — eight uninterrupted hours without hearing the person I care about more than any other say, “I love you.”

Yep, being single sure has advantages. I mean, at home you’ll never have to worry about someone messing up your stuff, the kitchen, unmaking the bed, or leaving the toilet seat in your least favorite position… because there’s never anyone there. In fact, when you’re single, you have the immense joy of doing all the cooking, cleaning, laundry, and chores yourself. All by yourself. Sure, you can daydream all you want that the next time you’re at the laundromat, there’ll be a pretty, single girl there who shares your joy of separating whites from darks for a bleach load, or your cultivated taste in fabric softener… but probably not.

And who does this ‘God’ fellow think He is? “It is not good for man to be alone.” What’s that all about? Certainly people weren’t designed with a helper in mind, a divinely inspired counterpart, like that “Bible” of yours says in Genesis 2:18.

When you’re single, you’ll experience neither the joy nor the pain that having a spouse brings. You don’t understand what Solomon means when he writes, “you have ravished my heart with one look of your eyes.” Just the numb comfort of loneliness and hope deferred.

Man, those were the days!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a loving wife to attend to. Cheers.

If the question is “Should we view China as an enemy?,” my answer is yes. Should we be marching in the streets burning Chinese flags, boycotting Chinese restaurants and dry cleaners? No. But make no mistake: the Chinese government views the US as its chief rival for military and economic dominance in Asia, and ultimately throughout the world, and that makes us enemies.

China is experiencing an economic boom that has pushed it into the top 6 in both GNP and GDP, and it’s using that windfall to increase military spending, even though it already possesses the largest standing army in the world and the 5th-largest military budget. It’s also using that money to upgrade its technical capabilities, acquiring sophisticated guidance systems and other improvements (legally or illegally), with a stated purpose of developing capabilities to interdict US expeditionary forces and US carrier battle groups in the Western Pacific.

China boasts 20% of the world’s population and aspires to be the dominant force in Asia, which contains 61% of the world’s population and 3 top economic powerhouses, including Japan and South Korea. Anyone remember why Japan bombed Pearl Harbor? America was flexing its economic and military muscles in Asia, and Japan felt they had one choice — expand or die. They gambled on confronting the dominant power in Asia rather than settling for playing second fiddle for the next few hundred years, and they lost. China has the sense to know they will face that same choice one day. It is no secret that they are preparing for it, and so are we.

But where is the danger zone? Aside from general tensions arising from our projection of power across the ocean to remain the dominant force in Asia, there are two major flashpoints:

North Korea — we fought the Chinese face to face in North Korea at the Chosin Reservoir, and by proxy all over Asia from the 1950s through the 1970’s. Has North Korea been in the news lately? Is Afghanistan part of Asia? Think they feel threatened by the only superpower fighting in their backyard and threatening to start another war in their side yard?

How about their front yard? Taiwan. They currently have 790 ballistic missiles aimed at Taiwan, and are not at all secretive about the fact that invading the island is the primary focus of their short-term military planning. We are pledged to defend Taiwan in case of invasion, and in fact have already intervened twice when China has amassed amphibious assault groups across the strait.

Don’t get me wrong; I do not mean to say that we as Christians are their enemy — but as I said before, they know that our country is ultimately their enemy, and our military planners know the same thing.

Knowing the feelings of many Bweinh!tributors on this issue, I am under no delusion that I will win this Clash. I also do not take issue with my opponent’s claim that China might see the USA as a potential military threat. However, I would like to point out that defining our enemies to include all nations that would consider taking up arms against us if their regional interests were threatened could characterize almost every nation in the world as a potential enemy.

Remember the stink that certain Europeans raised when the US intervened through a legitimate organization (NATO) in the Balkan region? Even our closest allies, those with whom we have a history of cooperation, were highly mistrustful of our intentions. Since our history with China has been considerably more spotty, it is quite likely that the present situation is simply the same phenomenon exacerbated by past interactions.

In other words, in the military arena China and the USA certainly have differences, but the differences aren’t large or deep-seated enough to net China a special “enemy” status.

In any case, friendliness among nations isn’t measured by alliances and military agreements as much as it used to be. Rather, it is measured in dollars, and in economic terms we have seen over and over again that in the era of globalization, ostracizing any one large nation hurts everyone involved far more than cooperation does.

An example: our dollar is currently in a free fall (thanks, Ben Bernanke!). Even though we’ve sunk past the pound, the Euro, and now even the Canadian dollar, the Chinese government and other “unfriendly” governments around the world continue to hold reserves in US dollars, which helps to stave off the inflation of our dollar — even though switching to a different reserve currency could provide far more stability and credibility to foreign investment than staying with a weakening currency.

Being friendly with China also provides more opportunities for trade, which could open one of the largest single markets in the world (aside from India, I suppose) and lead to further harmony between our two nations. True, the Kantian peace thesis of democracies not warring does not hold when one nation involved is not democratic. However, in China’s case, the other two legs of the Kantian Triangle (involvement in international institutions and involvement in trade) are increasing by the day.

China cannot afford to treat us as an enemy because its economy would slow to a crawl, and we cannot afford to treat China as an enemy, due to the vast potential of its economy to shape the way the world operates. We must continue to engage China with the wariness that we would afford to an engagement with any nation, but the end goal should be to bring China into a closer, friendlier relationship with the United States.

The true gridiron classic, the crossword puzzle simply outclasses its numerical counterpart.

The crossword puzzle (in its modern form) dates to its 1913 invention by Arthur Wynne, but word squares have been found even under the ruins of Pompeii, a testament to their timeless popularity. Shortly after Wynne’s initial “Word-Cross,” the crossword puzzle again took the world by storm, easily becoming its most popular word game. Crosswords require finesse, creativity, logic, a firm grasp on language, and a sense of humor.

Sudoku, on the other hand (if that’s how it’s spelled), is a newcomer to the puzzle world, invented in 1974 by Howard Garns. Unlike the crossword, which requires creativity, logic, and knowledge, Sideko is solved by logic (or luck) alone.

And speaking of alone, Saduka is usually solved alone, a testament to the poor social and hygiene skills of its practitioners. The crossword is truly a democratic puzzle — the game of the everyman. Think back to the last time you saw someone hunched over a newspaper, pen (or for cowards, pencil) in hand. A crossworder may look up, make eye contact, and speak directly to you. “Hello, friend,” they might ask, “What’s a four letter word for ‘killer whale’?” It’s more than solitaire, it’s an interpersonal event… it’s proper socialization! It’s community!

Replay that scene in your mind, but substitute the lesser puzzle of Suck-doku. Instead of eye contact, your feral co-worker will likely make indiscriminate marks on the page, muttering to himself, never quite acknowledging your presence or humanity. Years later, after failing to complete even one square, he is, frankly, quite likely to snap and firebomb your company warehouse.

Oh yeah, and size does matter, baby. From the standard 15×15 grids of your weekday puzzle all the way up to the Weekly World News’s 35×35 Bigfoot puzzles, crosswords trounce Sakodu’s petty 9×9 grids. Aesthetically pleasing, the crossword contains radial symmetry, contrasting white and black squares in interesting designs. Suducu’s only claim to fame is that every puzzle is as boringly plain as the last.

What’s it going to be? The logic, beauty, and cruciverbial wonder of the crossword, or the irritatingly confining multiplication table that is Sydyky?

P.S. If anyone could help me with 26-Across — “Wish to a traveler,” eight letters? Yeah, thanks.

Crosswords and Sudoku are very similar, really.

Both combine the excitement of painstakingly filling out small grids in a strictly regimented way with the fun of sitting quietly. Both are presumed by many reliable sources as activities that build the intellect. And both are best enjoyed responsibly.

However, if one of the two had to be sacrificed from our nation’s coffee shops, subway trains, and lecture halls, the choice would be simple:

We would have to ditch the crossword.

Sudoku is, by its very nature, inclusive. Speaking the universal language of numbers, a Sudoku puzzle spreads its grid wide enough to encompass people from any culture, any walk of life.

Crosswords trend toward the opposite extreme of exclusion, taking on themes so obscure as to alienate the vast majority of those initially drawn to their checkerboard good-looks and witty tete-a-clue-tete. Glamour without warmth is not what I look for in a woman, and absolutely not what I want in a pastime.

Sudoku’s simple, yet elegant rules can be learned in minutes. Place each digit, 1-9, one time in each row, in each column, and in each 3-by-3 square.

Compare that to the nuances of a typical crossword puzzle. If there’s an abbreviation in the clue, does that mean the answer is abbreviated as well? In what tense do they want this word?

And what’s with all the Latin?

I’ll admit — Sudoku is a relatively new addition to the flashy world of the comic-page. But even considering the Jumble, word-search, and the behemoth that is the New York Times crossword, Sudoku remains one enigmatic David who can take up nine smooth digits and get the amusement done.

Listen, I don’t hate texts, okay. And I’m not the parent in that cell phone ad that needs some smart aleck kid to show me how to send them. I actually enjoy receiving the occasional text, and rarely, when necessary or convenient, sending one. I’m willing to concede some usefulness. So calm those angry thumbs for a moment.

But here’s the thing: texts have become completely ubiquitous. They account for a ridiculous percentage of some people’s total communication. And they are not without their drawbacks.

First, there’s the cost. Many cell phone plans now offer an unlimited text option, which has at least helped to curtail the spiraling costs for those too oblivious to do so themselves. But this will still add a not insignificant fee to your monthly commitment. And for those not inclined to take this route, there will be a fee not only for texts they send, but also for those they receive, whether they want to hear from every clown in their address book or not.

I hear you. The cost is minimal. But the cost to the English language is catastrophic. Spelling, capitalization, and punctuation are all completely decimated. This so-called shorthand, first popularized in chat rooms and instant messages, is now pandemic, and an entire generation that spends so much time writing is — somehow — completely incapable of writing.

I get it. It’s hard to type on a phone, so shorthand is easier. I’m certainly no fan of pushing the same button up to three times to produce one letter: yet another reason I prefer to use my phone for talking. I like having actual conversations, raising the level of discourse somewhere above three letter quips and emoticons. I like actual human contact and real social interaction, yet I see people surrounded by readily ignored friends, heads down, thumbs blazing. No, thanks.

*click click click*

Oh, hi! I apologize — I was sending a text message to some of my friends, telling them the great news that Gov. Sarah Palin will be John McCain’s VP nominee! What a good example of the power of the text: rather than calling each of these people individually, possibly interrupting them, possibly being forced into making small talk we don’t have time for right now, instead I just typed out a little message (“Palin Palin Palin”), and viola! It was like my own little news broadcast!

What Lileks (I think; I can’t find the quote! I wish I’d texted myself) said is so true: text messaging is the closest thing we have to beaming thoughts directly into people’s heads. When my phone buzzes, I’m truly excited — there are all manner of interesting people in my contact list, and I can’t wait to see which one has fired a thought my way. Maybe an interesting observation, maybe a long-forgotten reference to a shared experience, maybe the continuation of a philosophical debate: whichever, whatever, I want to see it. I guess I’m sorry Josh’s friends are so boring.

Yet text messages are not intrusive (my phone never rings and I have an unlimited plan); if I’m busy, they wait. This is different from phone calls. Get a text and you can answer right away, wait, or let silence speak for you. Texts provide a combination of distance and familiarity that makes actual communication possible. There are no guarantees, no strings, no promises — just thoughts, beamed between minds.

I agree with Josh when it comes to “shorthand”; I hate it too. To me, the value of text messages doesn’t come just from their speed and utility (although my Qwerty keyboard is super-fast). No, I love how they combine the heft and clarity of the written word (like an email) with a natural limit, like a prose haiku! If you really want to communicate in a text, you have to seriously think about what you want to say and how best to say it. Something that helps us communicate better, faster, and more thoughtfully? Text me anytime!

I\’d hate to disparage another school at the expense of my own, so I think I\’ll let Point Loma Nazarene University\’s merits speak for themselves:

”¢ The ocean. No matter where you stand on campus, the long, limitless horizon beckons, reminding you how insignificant you truly are. There\’s no better way to wake up in the morning. And it never grows old ”” stroll through the campus during any given sunset and you\’re bound to find scores of students staring westward, admiring the freshly painted canvas that fills the sky.

”¢ The location. The campus\’s oceanfront property includes beach access; Ocean, Mission, and Pacific Beaches are all within five miles. Downtown San Diego is just as close. Point Loma itself is an affluent peninsula with a small-town feel, giving a feeling of secluded island living while maintaining a comfortable proximity to all that San Diego has to offer.

”¢ The opportunities. All the travel spiels you\’ve heard about San Diego are true. It includes so much ”” Balboa Park, the Embarcadero, the San Diego Opera, playhouses, professional sports teams, and more. As part of a metropolitan area, the school has worked hard to establish a relationship with the community, creating an excellent platform for internships and networking.

”¢ The academics. From the outstanding nursing program to the renowned science department, the school\’s academic departments have few equals in the private Christian university circuit. Class sizes are almost always well below 40. Professors are knowledgeable and accessible, and they approach education thoroughly and rigorously. When I was a prospective student touring the Literature, Journalism, and Modern Languages department, I was impressed with the department head\’s reasoning behind labeling my major as literature. “We don\’t just study literature written in English; we study world literature.” The faculty are on the whole not only experts within their fields, but deeply involved and mindful of their students\’ personal well-being.

”¢ The extracurriculars. The school\’s sports teams consistently rank in the top of their leagues. The intramurals are vibrant and varied, ranging from soccer and basketball to surfing and rugby. The debate team consistently sweeps tournaments. The newspaper provides comprehensive coverage of school and community events every week. The numerous campus ministries devote themselves to the spiritual development of students, the local community, and even further through mission-minded outreaches.

Ӣ The programs. The Fermanian Business Center has instituted myriad programs that use a Christian approach to economic concerns, aiming to help people while making inroads in the business world. The Center for Justice and Reconciliation focuses on poverty and inequality. The Study Abroad Center guides students through international programs in whatever countries they would like to visit.

Ӣ The events. The school continually draws prominent speakers. Last year alone, the campus hosted Philip Yancey, Francis Collins, Gay Talese, Anchee Min, Jon Foreman, Greg Mortensen, a colloquium of French poets, and the 2008 Kyoto Prize winners.

I think Point Loma\’s advantages speak volumes. However, I will add that the library is open from 7 am to midnight, Monday through Friday, a full hour earlier and later than another school that I know of.

Let us come together, but for a moment, my friends, and speak of heavy things.

Truth, most of you reading this possess a college education, and on top of that, most of you were educated at a Christian college. And you know the usual players, do you not? If not, allow me to roll the credits of our shared context. Wheaton, Westmont, Calvin, and Azusa Pacific. Biola, Grove City, Gordon, Nyack, and Messiah. Bethany, Point Loma, Liberty, Houghton.

A stellar list, no doubt, but one rife with differences — theologically, financially, ideologically, and geographically. But one of those differences is very telling, and it finds its traction at Houghton College — for Houghton is one of the rare (popular and esteemed) Christian colleges that is not nestled in or near a major metropolitan area.

Gordon has Boston, Wheaton has Chicago, and Houghton has… a cornfield.

My friend Kaitlin has made a very convincing argument indeed…for a resort. But I think she has forgotten the purpose of a college: education. While I am certain that Point Loma has professors, donors, and sports teams to give off the appearance of an institute of higher learning, the school is really more interested in its beachfront cachet.

Their literature and website are filled with (mostly) pictures of San Diego’s trappings, the breaking Pacific and the tanned, smiling faces of the collegiately damned. Rare is the promotional shot of a student pondering anything of educational weight, and rarer still is the shot of anything with four walls surrounding it. Again, Point Loma would make a great summer camp (which it is, all fall, winter and spring), but is it an earnest mecca for the education-hungry, worthy of their pilgrimage? I think not.

But ah, Houghton. Remote, yet easy to find (just one exit from the major highway, 14 miles distant), and located in one of the poorest counties east of the Mississippi, Houghton has no city appeal. There are no movie theaters or beaches to frequent. No hotspots, bars, historical sites, or even McDonald’s. Houghton, as a destination, is only worth visiting for its express purpose: educating the young Christians of the future.

I cannot sway you with the impossible amounts of fun I had there, but believe me it was had indeed. I cannot convince you of Houghton’s intrinsic and organic properties, although our thorough separation from the world brought them out all the more. I cannot persuade you of Houghton’s lasting impression on all of its students because many, it’s true, couldn’t take it. Many tested the river that is Houghton only to turn back, stomachs in knots, knees scraped against the boulders of trial, serving to warn others from attempting to ford its rapids.

But this only makes my time on the other bank that much more fulfilling. I could have attended any number of the Jacob tent-dwelling schools — but I cast my lot with Esau, preferring the brambles and winds of a wilderness in a time that should not make us soft and well-recreated, but rather, hardened and mentally-fit.

And all that said — our girls’ basketball team could beat Point Loma’s men’s soccer team.

Unions are not the answer to everything, this I readily concede. Often, the face of a union is its representative to the union members, and the encounters with such representatives go something like this:

Enter a discontent, overweight (and overpaid) union representative to Place of Work. She has come to announce a change in appeals policy to union members at said Place of Work.

Lights come up, fluorescent and harsh.

Union rep: Blah blah blah, blah blah, change change, blah blah blah.

Narrator: What she\’s basically saying is, “Work, you poor saps, because by paying your dues, you get security you can\’t get on your own.”

Yes, many would say that unions do little more than whine for better pay, better conditions, and (often in my area) for the political casting-out-to-where-there-will-be-weeping-and-gnashing-of-teeth of any and all Republicans.

I ask only that the reader would consider for the moment the things that unions still do. They offer an alternative to an expensive (and truthfully, often wasted) college education, instead providing marketable skills, the model of a good work ethic, and a group of people who not only lobby for their needs, but also form a community.

I have seen teachers\’ unions work to get better books for their students and keep their jobs (taking pay cuts to do it); I have seen electricians’ unions work to ensure higher safety standards on industrial and residential jobs (would you like to have someone electrocuted while they install the power lines for your future plasma TV?); I have seen pipefitters’ unions work against the flow of dying industry to keep jobs within an 800-mile radius of their homes, in an effort not to have to resort to taking jobs in California, Alaska, or Iraq.

This summer I attended a union picnic, where I was introduced to at least two dozen men and women I probably will not meet again nor remember very long. But what stuck with me was the overwhelming sense that these people were there for each other: on the worksite and in each other\’s lives. And if that means nothing, yes, I guess unions are out of date.

“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.” — Ecclesiastes 3:1

There was a time when this nation needed unions, when they served an important purpose, protecting the poor. Women, children and immigrants were all exploited by employers with no compassion and virtually no government oversight. Children as young as eight or nine slaved away in factories, 16 hours at a time, for poor pay in unsafe conditions. Immigrants were forced to live in ramshackle housing, with exorbitant charges deducted from their meager pay to cover the cost of their food and housing — rendering them little more than slaves.

Those days are gone, yet the unions remain.

It reminds me of the story of the Chinese emperor who invited Mongols into his country to help vanquish foes from the South — only to find that when the war ended, the Mongols chose to settle down and stay, exacting their own methods of exploitation to lighten the purses of the Chinese people. Sometimes the cure brings with it the seeds of the next disease.

I don\’t know many people who would argue the US government does not do enough to micromanage small and large business owners these days. There are 30 different agencies listed on the US Department of Labor website that monitor the various employment practices and environments of American businesses, using nearly 18,000 employees to accomplish this noble task. We are well-regulated.

So what purpose do unions serve now? They are parasites. Unions have become bloated, self-serving political organizations used to control the actions, assets, and politics of the poor schmucks unlucky enough to trapped by them. That\’s all. They hold wages at an artificially high level and stifle productivity, while often protecting workers who are unmotivated, yet militantly committed to protecting their own livelihood.

An honest, dispassionate evaluation of the Olympics, stripped of hype and emotionalism, will garner little more than distaste and disillusionment. “The Games have always brought people together in peace to respect universal moral principles,” declares the International Olympic Committee website. And yet the Olympic Games have been fraught with scandal, politicization, and shamefully extravagant spending. Those are, I suppose, universal principles, but perhaps not the ones the IOC means to evoke.

The 1952 Olympics, highly charged with Cold War hostilities, did little more than inflame already tense relations. “There were many more pressures on American athletes because of the Russians,” said U.S. decathlon winner Bob Mathias. “They were in a sense the real enemy. You just loved to beat ”˜em. You just had to beat ”˜em. . . . This feeling was strong down through the entire team.”

The 1976 Olympics resulted in financial ruin for host city Quebec. The debt they incurred took decades to pay off. The Nazis, during the 1936 Berlin Olympics, hoped to establish their country as a superpower by exhibiting their superiority. China\’s goals are much the same this year in Beijing.

Other inevitable consequences of the Olympics, both present and past: championing an ethos of winning at all costs, even if the costs include a foreshortened childhood or lifelong physical effects; xenophobia, especially if Americans win less and economically threatening countries win more; poor stewardship of both environmental and social resources.

Moreover, the Olympic Games throw into sharp relief the drastic differences in advantages of rich and poor countries. Between the commercial sponsors and the unavoidably constant testing of the human body to see how far it can go, the Olympics are practically just a giant, corporately backed, international science experiment.

To truly embody the spirit the IOC wishes to spread throughout the world, athletes should compete on a purely individual level, regardless of their nations of birth. By forgoing nationalistic divisions, the IOC might do much in the way of their cherished unity. Furthermore, the Games should be completely privatized. As Stephen Hugh-Jones wrote in More Intelligent Life, “If private sector companies choose to sponsor the Olympics, that\’s up to them. But why on earth hurl public funds at these tarnished saturnalia?”

I love the Olympic Games. In ’06, I watched as much as I could, filling up old videotapes with hours of skiing, skating, and the euphonious luge. I studied with the Games in the background, the hum of competition spurring me on to a more perfect knowledge of the UCC.

I freely admit that the Games suffer from corruption and waste, just like any organization of their massive size. I’m not wild about how the IOC rewarded a horribly repressive government with the honor of hosting them this year. And I understand that, as symbols go, the Games are incredibly expensive and frequently ineffective.

Yet I love them still. Here’s why.

As a universal, guileless language, sports are uniquely positioned to change the world. Take ping-pong diplomacy. Before Nixon could go to China, a hippie named Glenn Cowan had to board the wrong bus at the world championships in Japan; there he struck up an unlikely friendship with China’s best player. Mao saw pictures of the two exchanging gifts (in violation of Chinese policy), and suddenly the U.S. team was invited to China: the first non-Communist Americans to visit in 20 years. The tour was a grand success — tearing down stereotypes and clearing out Vietnam-era mistrust. 10 days after the team left, Nixon was formally invited to Beijing.

Governments only get away with things when people aren’t paying attention. Say what you will about the Games, but the world, billions strong, will be watching. And what will they see there? Each other. The Games are run by simpering bureaucrats, but Olympic athletes remain the most accurate representation of a nation’s people. Nations are ruled by a privileged few; the United Nations is full of diplomats, politicians, and (worst of all) lawyers. But Olympians are ordinary people — folks like you and me — with world-class talent. And inspiring stories: in 2000, Lopez Lomong, the American flag-bearer at the opening ceremonies, was a Sudanese boy in flight from genocide, catching his first glimpse of the Olympics on a black-and-white TV at a Kenyan refugee camp.

Eight years later, he carries our flag. He runs for us.

Human beings are made to play, made to compete. Just as capitalism harnesses our fallen nature for our economic benefit, sports allow us to divert our natural passion and aggression — even (gasp!) nationalism — into productive channels. Sports improve the body while they train the mind — to work together with others, to move gracefully through space, to demand more of ourselves than we ever dreamed possible. And in a world where truth seems all too elusive, where postmodernism rips at the foundations of belief, sports offer exactly what we crave: standards and objectivity, doled out by the hands of a clock and the numbers on a scoreboard.

Yes. The Games are expensive. But they are also useful, inspiring, fun — and part of what makes us uniquely human.

I’m writing the no-brainer side of this Clash — parking near. I have no idea why someone would choose to park far away ON PURPOSE, but defend my choice I must, so here we go:

Time: My time is at a premium and I must protect it at all cost. I simply cannot afford to park rows away when a spot is available closer. Plus, with the time I\’ve saved, I will be more prepared for my appointment. I will be seated sooner, remembering points or questions I plan to raise or cover. And I will not be sweaty, or worse: late, from walking long distances across foreign parking wastelands.

I might also spend my extra time planning something like, perhaps, dinner, thereby avoiding mistakes like serving pine nuts to someone with an allergy who may be eating with us that night. Haste causes many problems.

Efficiency: Having my vehicle nearby lets me keep my eye on it, in case of Tomfoolery. One never knows when one might be the subject of a prank, or worse yet, a felony! But being close by and ever diligent, I can either prevent the damage, or at least give a good description of the miscreant(s) involved.

Or, if I\’ve forgotten something in my vehicle, a few quick steps back to retrieve a photo or lab test won\’t hold up my friend/doctor. Oh, let\’s just face it, most of my doctors are my friends! And they all want to see pictures of Tom!

Attitude: When I find a spot near to where I need to be, I feel blessed (some others would say lucky, but I know better). This gives me a calm, happy, peaceful spirit as I enter my appointment or errand. This might lend itself to a more positive interaction later in my appointment. Never underestimate that.

I pray before I go somewhere, and (almost) always God provides a spot for me. In return, I try not to waste the wonderful time He has given me here. Someone asked if we should waste His time asking for parking spots, and I say if He gives them, how is it wasteful? He blesses our time when we give it to Him.

First of all, I\’m not going to suggest that I would surrender a close spot to look for one farther away from a store; instead, I argue only that hunting for spots close to a store is not a very good use of time or other resources. Of course, whether or not a person prefers to park close to their destination is generally dependent on their station in life and how they experience shopping and other errands. As a youngish man, I simply cannot see a reason to drive around the parking lot looking for a good space and wasting time when I could park at a moderate, or even far distance, and get there almost as quickly.

Additionally, there are a number of benefits to parking far. Exercise is probably the most obvious; while a small minority of people need to park close to ensure that they can transport their purchases back to their vehicle, it is undeniable that Americans as a whole could use more exercise, and that the vast majority could benefit from fitting small exercises into their day — taking the stairs, riding a bike, or parking a little farther from their destinations and carrying what they buy a little bit longer.

Fuel savings are another small benefit of parking farther away, due less to the small extra distance that one drives to the storefront than to the incessant circling that often results from trying to find that one good spot. Admittedly, this is a very small savings, but they do add up over time.

Parking far away, as long as there are still a few other cars near yours, is also a good way to avoid the hazards more often found at the front of the parking lot close to the store: most notably shopping carts, but also small children and other circling cars. As a result, it often allows you to leave more readily when you want to go.

Finally, someone else may need a closer spot far more than I do. Again, as a young man, it\’s not particularly important for me to get a close spot, but someone older or injured may need it. I’m sure it rarely works out this way, but certainly more often than it would if I actively sought out better spaces. For all of these reasons, going out of one’s way to park close to a storefront generally isn\’t worth the effort.

I will have my own policies
I will sleep with a clear conscience
I will sleep in peace
— Sinead O’Connor, Emperor’s New Clothes

Dressing up is a fact of American life. Social, religious and vocational pressures demand conformity and attention to dress in varying degrees. We have terms to assess the severity of these demands: black-tie, business casual, country formal, etc. This is unavoidable, unless you endeavor to be a pariah, in which case consciously dressing down is as much a conformity as consciously dressing up.

But the hardest crease for me to iron out of this societal doctrine is the thought that dressing up is an attempt to separate one’s self, one’s workplace or one’s church from its human surroundings: to suddenly appear as more than we actually are. In short, to be something we aren’t.

I am a Seabee in the Navy Reserves, and as you might imagine, I have several uniforms that I must wear at times. If you speak to members of the military about their uniforms, the consensus would be that we wear our uniforms with pride and the feeling of having earned them. Furthermore, most would agree that when we wear them together, we represent something far greater than ourselves as individuals.

The same can not be said of the uniform of modern fashion — a constant and ceaseless competition, an exercise in poor taste and inadequacy. Dressing up has become increasingly uncomfortable, inefficient, impractical and at times blatantly immoral — if not through the exposure or enhancement of flesh, then by the consuming, metastasized materialism that boils inside those dedicated to looking “good.”

If your job has a dress code, then of course you must abide. If you need a false confidence to get you through the day and curry the favor of those shallow enough to reward your efforts at color coordination, then of course you must abide. But if you can dress practically, cleanly and cheaply while losing no sleep . . . then you should abide that with equal fervence.

I like to look pretty. I wear skirts and high heels and makeup and jewelry. I spend a lot of time getting ready, even if all I\’m doing that day is working a ten-hour shift at the restaurant. My reasons have more to do with the way I feel about myself than they do with the way others treat me, but I have noticed a big difference when I look nice.

Yes, sometimes I get unwanted attention from men (see “The Proper Way to Treat Your Waitress” from last summer), but they are never crude or inappropriate. And yes, sometimes people are still rude or impatient with me. But when it comes down to it, when I dress up, I get more respect.

Why is that? Well, when we see a poorly-dressed person, certain stereotypes tend to pop into our heads: they don\’t care about themselves, so why should we care about them? Or perhaps they\’re lazy, they\’re bums, they don\’t take care of themselves.

But when we see well-dressed people, we think of wealth and prosperity. We assume they\’ve worked hard to get where they are, and that they care about themselves. These associations make us relate more positively to them, and so we give them more respect.

Let me give you an example straight from my opponent\’s mouth. When Job came to visit Steve, he was dressed in his Navy uniform. The attendant at the toll booth saw his outfit and gave Job a significant discount on his toll. Job has found that when he dresses up in his uniform, he not only gets more respect, he also gets a lot of freebies and discounts.

Whatever Job may say, even he has found that dressing up is beneficial.

While the phrase “rap music” may not necessarily be an oxymoron, the genre and the ethos of the culture it perpetuates directly contradicts many of the values dear to the consumers of mainstream media who would champion it.

Rap music, and most notably gangsta rap, is powered fundamentally by provocative content. Divorcing the form from its content divests the music of its force and intent. In 1997, Dr. Dre attempted to tone down his message. “I have kids and wanted to get away from the ”˜b—–s and ho\’s\’ and the violence,” he said. But the resulting album generated less than half of his usual revenue. “I had to come back to the real. Back to the gangsta,” he said.

This “gangsta” culture, however, is merely a poor and potentially detrimental caricature of urban life. Spike Lee, in the film “Bamboozled,” satirized the portrayal of African Americans in contemporary media, arguing that rap propagates the harmful stereotypes that most would want to see eradicated. Performers such as rap artists, he contended, play into mainstream prejudices, glorifying the ghetto lifestyle at the expense of the people they purport to represent.

Byron Hurt, who directed a film that identified the misogyny and skewed masculinity inherent to the genre, would agree. “We need to have artists second-guess creating lyrics that are anti-woman in the same way that they would second-guess writing something that is anti-Semitic,” Hurt said.

Rap music gives many consumers a false sense of familiarity, a fake compassion. Said Hank Shocklee, a prominent producer in the rap industry and half of rap ensemble Public Enemy: “If you\’re a suburban white kid and you want to find out what life is like for a black city teenager, you buy a record by N.W.A. It\’s like going to an amusement park and getting on a roller coaster ride ”” records are safe, they\’re controlled fear, and you always have the choice of turning it off. That\’s why nobody takes a train up to 125th Street and gets out and starts walking around. Because then you\’re not in control anymore: it\’s a whole other ball game.”

By creating the conception of such a blatant and unfounded racial divide, rap music denies consumers the opportunity to discover for themselves how few differences actually exist between seemingly disparate people. Journalist David Samuels sees in rap music “a voyeurism and tolerance of racism in which black and white are both complicit.” Somehow, he said, the deviant behavior characteristic of the culture seems appropriate or even acceptable. “The values it instills find their ultimate expression in the ease with which we watch young black men killing each other: in movies, on records, and on the streets of cities and towns across the country.”

Rap music essentially undermines the entire endeavor to recognize the equality of all, regardless of racial, gender, or socioeconomic differences. Unless the genre, and the culture associated with it, undergoes a thorough overhaul, it should be thoroughly avoided.

I luv rap music
Always have, and I always will
There’s no other kinda music in the world
makes me feel quite as chill

“I Luv Rap Music” — DC Talk

I love rap music too. First, because it says something. When I was growing up, rap was symbolic of all that was wrong with the world, all that had gone haywire. Dutifully, I avoided it through my adolescence. But then I discovered it — Public Enemy. Arrested Development. And I found music that unapologetically said something. It wasn’t like country music, a paean to an old way of life that could never return; it wasn’t like pop, all painted and gummy; it was real, it was about issues, it was about life. Of course, much rap says nothing worth saying; but when you have heard rap that speaks to the black community about issues especially important to that community in a language that naturally rises from that community — then you have heard music with meaning.

I also love rap from a professional perspective. Preachers and rappers both make their living with words. Each of us has a stock of standard stories to draw upon and our professional reputations are staked upon being able to tell those stories well, using communication appropriate to our community. Some of the most clever wordplay and arresting language is used — regrettably — not in the pulpit, but behind the microphone. As a preacher, rappers actually give me something to look up to as there is such focus on the moment of communication and communicating in a memorable way.

Finally, I love rap because it brings this suburban white male into contact with a culture that is different from my own. I don’t mean to romanticize gangsta rap; I recognize that much of it is not pure artistic response to harsh realities but created by and for a listening market. But listening to it — even the worst of it — keeps me connected to an urban society different from my own.

At times, contact with that different culture challenges me to change and ask provocative questions; for instance, we should ask why inner-city America is still overwhelmingly religious while the suburbs are increasingly secular, if not atheistic. That challenges me, makes me think about what is deficient about the brand of Christianity I practice. At other times, contact with that different culture challenges me to think about how I can address deficiencies and needs in that culture, even coming from outside of it.

Regardless, it does me well to listen to rap because it takes me outside of what I know and challenges me to think differently.

Married life is the best kind of life there is. Trading freedom for security has always been the way we roll here in the U.S. of A! So many rough areas of a man’s life can be smoothed out bythe delicate touch of a feminine hand.

Decision-making is a prime example. Making decisions is a lot of work. Where to live, what job to take, what to wear? Who has time to figure out the proper choice in all of these important areas? Most single men learn to make decisions quickly, weighing options and coming to decisions so fast that the process seems almost primitive in its simplicity.

The married man can still quickly reach a simple decision, but it is never the end result. Instead, it’s just one stop on the interminable amusement park ride central to any marriage: the discussion. By looping around and around the many possible choices, a man with a skilled spouse eventually comes to see the ignorance of his original choice, and the unparalleled superiority of the course his wife has already selected. Eventually these “discussions” can strip a man of his desire to make an initial choice, streamlining the entire process!

Marriage also lets a man grow beyond the boundaries he places on his social life. Many single men prefer the company of a particular group of friends, spending the majority of social time with them, coming to know them well. Once a man is married, these constraints are taken from him, and he can come to full social fruition. New friends he would not have chosen! New activities he does not enjoy! An entire new family with whom to spend holidays, reunions, excruciatingly boring conversations, and arguments!

And chores! Once a man has a wife, he has a partner with whom to split the domestic tasks central to any household. A single man has no assistance in performing these chores, and no helper to decide when they should be done. It’s true that marriage brings a man a tidier house, but with a spouse helping, the net decrease in work will be offset by the extra discussions that will fill the saved time, in lieu of radio, television, or blessed quiet.

It’s true that some freedom is lost. If I were married, I couldn’t keep the random and flexible work schedule I enjoy. I wouldn’t be able to spend my leisure time any way I like, I wouldn’t have as much time for quiet reading, I might not amuse myself so much with the Internet dot com. I certainly wouldn’t be able to drop everything and take a trip, change my plans at the last minute, or do any of the other things that make me the man I am.

No, I would become a different man, a better man, with a thousand chips of my very nature shaved away by the delicate chisel in my wife’s knowledgeable hand.

I only hope that man will think of the old me fondly from time to time, as he lives his life to the beat of his life’s new drummerette.

If he can find the time between discussions.

You know, when you’ve been married as long as I have (almost three weeks!), you almost forget what it was like on the other side…

Being single has its advantages. Gas mileage, for example. With only one person in the car, you’ll use less gas, you know, when you drive places… alone. And you’ll never have to worry about another person changing your radio stations. In fact, you never have to be exposed to any tastes other than your own! Gosh, that does sound pretty good… cruising down the highway of life — alone — listening to the same old songs on the radio…

And there are benefits outside your motor vehicle as well. Like at work! Now that I’m married, Karen calls me at work once or twice a day. But if I were single, think about how great it would be: eight uninterrupted hours without hearing a friendly voice on the other end of the telephone line. Even better — eight uninterrupted hours without hearing the person I care about more than any other say, “I love you.”

Yep, being single sure has advantages. I mean, at home you’ll never have to worry about someone messing up your stuff, the kitchen, unmaking the bed, or leaving the toilet seat in your least favorite position… because there’s never anyone there. In fact, when you’re single, you have the immense joy of doing all the cooking, cleaning, laundry, and chores yourself. All by yourself. Sure, you can daydream all you want that the next time you’re at the laundromat, there’ll be a pretty, single girl there who shares your joy of separating whites from darks for a bleach load, or your cultivated taste in fabric softener… but probably not.

And who does this ‘God’ fellow think He is? “It is not good for man to be alone.” What’s that all about? Certainly people weren’t designed with a helper in mind, a divinely inspired counterpart, like that “Bible” of yours says in Genesis 2:18.

When you’re single, you’ll experience neither the joy nor the pain that having a spouse brings. You don’t understand what Solomon means when he writes, “you have ravished my heart with one look of your eyes.” Just the numb comfort of loneliness and hope deferred.

Man, those were the days!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a loving wife to attend to. Cheers.

“I don’t hate women. . . my mother was a woman!” — Mike Tyson

It would be wrong to suppose, just because I am on the opposing side of this issue, that I favor a ban on women in ministry. My first two pastors were women and I have nothing but the utmost respect for the role they played in my early development as a Christian.

I simply think there are unavoidable Biblical statements that must be incorporated into our understanding of what is and isn’t appropriate for how women function in the body of Christ.

In 1 Timothy 2:11-15 we find, to me, the most formidable barrier to a carte blanche approach to women in ministry. Paul mentions subjection, authority and Eve’s role in the Fall of man as all playing a role here. Unless we reject Paul’s words as Scripture, which Peter specifically warned us not to do in 2 Peter 3:15-16, calling them Scripture, I don’t see how we can ignore his statements.

He uses the word subjection (hupostassas), which is also noted in the relationship of men and women in Ephesians, 1 Peter and Colossians, and mainly connotes order as opposed to chaos within an organization. Any attempt to define the separate roles of men and women in the church and family has to take these Scriptures into account.

Is the woman less of a Christian? No. Does she have a different role to play in the church and family? Yes. A role that carries with it submission to male authority? Yes.

In this section Paul says, “I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over a man.” In the Greek the phrase “to teach” is not constructed as a one-time action; it refers to holding the position of “teacher.” The word “teacher” is interpreted elsewhere as “master” (rabboni), and refers to the person who ruled on doctrinal matters in the synagogue and was recognized as its final authority. Paul was not forbidding a women to preach or teach in his assemblies, in my opinion, but rather forbade them from holding that place of authority.

He links this, however uncomfortable it makes us, with the Fall, Adam being “first formed” and Eve being “deceived.” If we need further proof Paul believed there was a lingering judgment on Eve’s descendants, we need only read through verse 15, where he makes the statement, “Nevertheless she shall be saved in childbearing.” What was the punishment bestowed upon Eve for her place in the fall? Pain in childbirth. Paul notes that though there is a lingering judgment that has placed her in subjection to man, judgment will not overcome her. But the judgment still remains.

Paul also told the Galatians, “In Christ there is no male and female,” and this statement is not a contradiction. Man has no favor with God that woman does not have, no special gifts or perks. We just serve in different roles. My boss is not inherently better than me, but he is over me in authority, and I must respect that.

What should a woman do if she is called to preach? Preach with all her heart! Teach? Teach with all her heart! Sing? Sing with all her heart!

But should she be ordained? I do not believe so — but I willingly acknowledge another thread that runs through the Bible. God rejects those who reject him, and uses whomever is faithful, whether or not they meet the requirements of His own scriptural statements.

The culture of Christ’s day treated women as second-class citizens. Jews of that time were known to thank God for not making them “a dog, a Gentile, or a woman,” and almost all ancient men treated their wives, daughters and sisters as mere possessions. The famous trick question of the Sadducees, meant to attack the resurrection, was built on the concept that a woman’s existence — even in Heaven — was primarily defined by which man owned her.

And into that world came Jesus Christ, the living Word of God, who never treated women this way. He spoke, alone, to the Samaritan woman at the well (Jn 4), He visited Mary and Martha at their home, He allowed women to support Him financially (Lk 8), He was lavishly anointed by a woman at dinner (Lk 7). He did not allow a woman caught in adultery to be condemned while her male compatriot got off scot-free (Jn 8); when His disciples fled, the women in His life anointed Him for burial (Lk 23) and first witnessed His resurrection (Mt 28).

Similarly, throughout the Bible, women served in leadership and ministry roles. Deborah led the nation of Israel (Jdg 4-5). Miriam, for all her faults, was a prophetess (Ex 15:20). Priscilla taught and preached with her husband (Ac 18:26), and in Romans 16, Paul sent greetings to many women in the ministry, including deaconess Phoebe and apostle Junia.

Against this powerful model of Christ’s behavior and the normative example of Biblical ministry by women, we have — what? A passage in I Corinthians that, on its face, seems to demand absolute silence from the same women who were just given instructions on proper public prayer, and a passage in I Timothy written to those in Ephesus, a city known for false teachers and the female-dominated Artemis cult.

It is not that these passages are unscriptural, or somehow less important than any of the rest of the Bible. It’s precisely because none of these texts can be ignored that, one way or the other, we must reconcile the contradiction between the repeated use of women in public ministry throughout the Old and New Testaments, and the apparent stark prohibition of such behavior here.

Is it simply that God used women when men were not available? Not so of Miriam, who served with her brother, or Deborah, who ruled Israel alone, while married. It’s not true of the women Paul greeted in Romans, and there’s no suggestion of a divine or universal command in those churches to limit their ministry to certain roles, or to avoid making women the ultimate ‘teacher.’ The only places this is mentioned are Corinth and Ephesus.

Let’s look at those churches. Much of I Corinthians was devoted to order during worship, which (from context) likely had to do with largely uneducated women dressing provocatively and blabbing during church. And like I said, in Ephesus, local women were quite ‘liberated’ in their form of worship. Weighing the evidence from other churches against the history of these two, doesn’t it make more sense that Paul’s words were guidelines for specific situations, rather than universal, normative commands?

I do believe that in general, men and women are called to different roles in the family and church. But God has made us all unique, with different gifts. Not all women have the gift to encourage; not every man can teach. It would be improvident to suggest, based on two passages and the Fall, that we should limit the use — or even the context of the use — of some of God’s gifts to half of His people.

Hey, I have an idea.

You know hockey? That sport with the small base of rabid fans?

What a sport it is! Such speed, as players fly down the ice; such grace, as the best players weave in and out and around defenders on their way to the net; such precision, as the best shooters pick their spot and put it in the one area the goalie can’t reach; such power, as the best shooters wind up for 100 MPH slapshots that nearly tear the back of the net.

Which brings me to my idea. Let’s clog the ice with goons!

Let’s take that sport, with such a unique combination of athleticism and grace, and let’s make sure every team has at least one guy whose job it is to go out and fight the other team’s one guy. Let’s make sure that the fast, exciting guys (many of whom are from another culture) cower in fear that they might get knocked in the head while Western fans nod appreciatively at the Russian getting his due at long last! Let’s be sure that head shots stay legal and that at least once every game there is a fight with at least one player caught in the flattering “jersey-stuck-over-my-face” pose!

Why would anyone want to watch Sergei Federov or Simon Gagne or Sidney Crosby or Daniel Briere, with their crisp passing and deadly accurate shooting, when we could watch Todd Fedoruk or Colton Orr mangle each other for a while?

Further, let’s make fighting part of an “unwritten code” so that it’s cloaked in romanticism! A near-apocalypse would happen if a dozen (coincidentally?) mostly black NBA players cleared the benches and brawled; lengthy suspensions would result and white America would cluck their tongues at how bad the NBA’s getting. But if we have a “code” for mostly white players to live by, with consequences like getting your teeth knocked out, then suddenly it’s quaint! We can say it’s just part of the game, always has been, and always should be. Hey — Hammurabi had a code! So should we.

What would hockey be without the fighting? Speed, agility, grace, precision, drama? Who would ever watch that?

I am here to defend the use of Goons in hockey. If you don’t know what a Goon is, let me explain. He’s the guy who lumbers off the bench and pulverizes the opponent who dares to initiate, or even attempt to initiate, some type of painful contact with a hockey team’s “skilled” players. A skilled player, of course, has a Russian, Swedish or Finnish name and the same size uniform and skates as the Goon wore in Pee Wee hockey.

I know that the usual tack would be for me to cite the Code, that unwritten (yet often written about) set of laws that serve as the rules of engagement for Goons. I would explain to you that skilled players are valuable assets who need protection and explain how deterrence necessitates fisticuffs — like a safety leveling a wide receiver who catches a pass across the middle, you do it so they think twice the next time they think about doing something they shouldn’t.

But I’m going in a different direction — economic concern. For the Goons.

Here’s the question to consider — what else can these guys do for a living? These are not, as one athlete has said, “the brightest tools in the shed.” These people have struggled to learn human speech and have even found a meaningful way to contribute to society that (usually) doesn’t involve violent crime. Why turn them out?

And Goons are entertaining! During a tense playoff game several years ago between the Flyers and Devils, noted Goon Claude Lemieux (my spell check offers lummox here) was trash talking Flyers captain Eric Desjardins. After a particular rush ended with a Desjardins shot rather than a pass, Lemieux taunted him with the remark, “You always think about yourself first! What does that ‘C’ on your shirt stand for? SELFISH?” And then we have Bernie “Boom-Boom” Geoffrion’s now-famous words of wisdom to his Montréal teammates before a big game: “Three things we must do tonight, and that is shoot and pass.”

Where else can the world use men like this? Burger King? Wal*Mart? Sure, but these places seem to have enough imbeciles already, and if they were also huge and muscular, I couldn’t make fun of them anymore. We need to keep fighting in the NHL — to keep Goons employed and off the streets.

“I was delayed that afternoon because I had brushed the teeth of a pretty animal that I’m patiently taming. It’s a chameleon. This endearing animal smoked, as usual, some cigarettes, then I left.

Then it locks and, maîtresse! You pitcherpin so that at nice vase I sit down if the paths tombs.”
–Desnos

Go ahead. Tell me what that means.

. . .

Yep. I don\’t know, either. That\’s because it\’s poetry, which was never meant to be understood by anyone but the Opium Club.

Think of all your favorite authors when you were little, all the people you learned to read from. Tell me, how many of them were poets? I\’ll wager not a lot, because kids can\’t learn to read on poetry. Why? Because it doesn\’t make sense! And when it does make sense, it\’s talking about feelings or nature or other things that are really, really boring to read about, and have no impact on society whatsoever.

Prose, on the other hand, is not only much easier to understand, but it\’s also really exciting! Are you a science fiction fan? A mystery reader? Narrative and memoir? Do you like straight-up non-fiction about humor, politics, history, or theology? Prose has it all!

And by the way, feel free to show me what Mere Christianity and The Chronicles of Narnia would look like in poetry. I would guess that not too many people would read those versions. They wouldn\’t get them, because the author would play around with the words, try to say things in new ways without actually saying them, using things like metaphor and alliteration that tie up your tongue and muddle your brain. Also, they\’d throw in archaic words and references to heathen gods we\’ve never heard of because we\’re good people.

With prose, on the other hand, we can learn about all sorts of different subjects, and authors can communicate important ideas and cultural phenomena. Sound boring? This is exactly what Lewis did with Narnia and Pratchett does with his Discworld series. One draws you into a new and exciting world, while the other keeps you on the floor laughing! When was the last time poetry had you on the floor laughing?

Poetry is nice, I\’m sure, for those ten people in the United States who get it. For the rest of us, though, prose is the more interesting, accessible way to go.

I was in third grade when I discovered poetry. It was during “reading” class, and I had just discovered the amazing talent of tuning people out. We had 20 minutes of silent reading time, to be followed by the rest of our regular class time. Halfway through silent reading, I came across the word “fuchsia,” and I stopped.

Who invented a word like “fuchsia?” I knew it was a color, but what did it mean? I put down my book, picked up my pencil and paper, and proceeded to sit through the rest of silent reading and the first fifteen minutes of class writing about what I thought fuchsia could be. And that was my first poem.

Why tell you this? Because I think that poetry is about something deeper than the conveying of information: it\’s about the beauty inherent in everything that there is to convey. Even tragedy or atrocity point to what could be beautiful and no longer is.

Poetry isn\’t necessarily about an argument, or a description, or a collection of thought; and that is why it is wonderful. Taking words that would not normally complement each other, kneading them into submission (but never entirely!), and hoping that what you come up with will catch someone\’s soul besides your own — that is one way to look at poetry.

In more formal verse, the challenge is to go beyond the rules — of expression, depth, etc. — while obeying the rules of form and meter. Such a collision of goals results in poetry that constantly seems like it is trammeling up a few drops of what really is inside of what we can perceive, like oxygen inside a beaker. We can\’t really see the gas, but the form of the glass contains it just long enough for us to get a sense of what it\’s like.

Prose, while able to accomplish more in the areas of formal cataloguing of knowledge, information, and advertisement, can claim no advantage over poetry in storytelling, social commentary, persuasion, or celebration. Many of the greatest contributions to literature (Homer, Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, and Shakespeare, to name just a few) contain what? That\’s right, poetry — because it expresses beauty, emotion, and that tugging behind your navel that means that something important is going on.

And just look at the tomes of prose in the world — anything from tax law to textbooks, poorly written novels to theological treatises — where do we draw the line on what gets published? What is quality? What communicates well? Poetry must work much harder to prove its worth, and the poet to prove her or his gift.

What we have to decide is what is more important to us: the dry, systemic, and categorical communication of human experience in truth that is prose, or the vibrant, painful, beautiful communication that is poetry.

Dear _______ ,

Hi! Some of you are my family, some of you know me from church, and some of you are friends of my parents, whom I assume must have some money. Don\’t you just love the Northeast this time of year? Or whatever part of the country you might live in? I just love it when the snow melts and the growing grass seems to scream, “Time for a short-term mission trip!”

That\’s right — while our youth group leader isn\’t sure yet where he feels “led” to take the youth group on our annual summer mission trip to any non-American place that\’ll have us, we\’ve been told to raise $3000 anyway. So I\’m writing you! Won\’t you please donate $100 so I can spend a day traveling to Honduras or somewhere, a day to recover from jet lag, four days to hammer away on a roof or something, another day to sight-see, and then a day flying home?

I\’ll take pictures!

While I am already knee-deep in college planning and other social trappings that will ensure a life lived here in the States, I think it best not to invest myself completely in a summer job that will expose me (and the Gospel) to my unbelieving contemporaries. Instead, I want to spend a week or two struggling with the language somewhere visually stunning and, quite possibly, way more Christian than my own country! Viva wherever!

I\’ll be going with 20-25 other young people and in addition to our iPods, we’ll also be taking our petty dramas and romances. Yeah, Shannon is going but she\’s being really weird lately. We, like, never play foosball anymore on Wednesday nights. I think Tyler may have told her how I kissed Esther. OMG! Hopefully we can work it out over a pile of rubbish.

Look, it\’s just $100, but it’ll look like a million bucks on a college application. So whaddya say?

What’s that? I live mere miles from inner cities choked with poverty and crime, places where Satan has laid easy claim? I have friends in school who don\’t even know I\’m a Christian? (My art teacher does — she goes to my church!) My understanding of theological matters is at best elementary, while my concept of missions will soon be forever shaped by gross excess and lack of commitment, in an appallingly poor nation we will leave to flap in the wind? And — worst of all — I only stand to (maybe) accomplish temporary physical gain, while learning to accept that as reasonable proxy for the eternal and spiritual?

Well… How ’bout $50 then?

My first question when I received this assignment was how exactly we were defining short-term mission trips. Since Job was involved, I should have known the answer would be “narrowly and cynically.”

So, if the question is whether I think it’s a good idea to take weeklong trips, masquerading as vacations, to areas so distant as to be a financial burden, by large groups of people with questionable spiritual maturity, then I guess not. But what we’re looking at here is an error in execution, not a wholesale indictment of short-term missions.

Let me start by conceding that I don’t believe ministry is ideally accomplished in the short term, that it takes commitment and often immersion to make real Gospel connections. But many people have ministries almost entirely defined by the short term, including the apostle Paul, and — in a way — Job’s own pope-whuppin’ hero, Billy Graham. One man plants, another waters, you know the drill.

And who said a missions trip has to be to the other side of the world? Job correctly recognizes that there are fields to be harvested right in our backyard, and yet he still frames this debate in caricature. Having personally led student-based mission teams all over the northeast United States, I can assure you that not every effort fits that mold.

Ultimately, I think short-term missions should have a few goals in mind. Energizing existing ministries with extra manpower and new perspective is obvious. So is the idea of encouraging both the visiting team and the host church, by shrinking the world and expanding the body of believers.

But what is also okay is to concede that sometimes the visitors will be the ones most blessed and convicted, challenged to go back boldly to the need at home, while not forgetting the world of need they’ve witnessed firsthand.

You might even be able to get that all done in a week.

What did you do with your spring break?

The Flyers started their postseason with a loss this year, but it was this game, and the game that followed, that convinced me they had a legitimate shot at winning Lord Stanley\’s Cup this year.

In the opening game they lost 5-4 at Washington, before a sellout crowd that could only be called “manic.” They were so pumped! Alex Ovechkin had almost singlehandedly led them through a streak of 11 games without a loss to win the Southeast Division. He had also pretty much clinched the season MVP award, by scoring 65 goals and lifting his team into the playoffs. Winning game one was inevitable for the Caps.

So why was I so sure Philly would win the series and have a shot at winning it all? Because, while weathering the first game storm, they still scored four times — and each goal was effortless. Washington scored five goals in a frantic pace they could never sustain, but the Flyers sat back, played patient hockey, and netted four effortless goals.

It takes three things to win the Stanley Cup — solid defense, opportunistic offense and hot goaltending. The Flyers show all three.

Solid defense — The Flyers have a deep defensive core with a good mix of young guys and hardy veterans. Hatcher, Modry and Timonen are three solid veterans, while Coburn, Jones and Kukkonen are three young guys with size and speed. And the entire team is playing with a patience that dictates defense first, then offense.

Opportunistic offense: Solid defense produces turnovers, and a turnover in the hands of a sniper winds up in the back of the net. The Devils made a living, and won a couple Cups, with a lineup that featured no superstars but snipers on every line. The Flyers’ top seven forwards averaged nearly 28 goals each this year. That’s the kind of depth a team needs to take advantage of every opportunity to score, and the Flyers have it. So far, in this series, they have scored 16 goals from 8 different players, and they have done it effortlessly. It’s sustainable.

Hot goaltending: Marty Biron gave up five goals in game one, so you might question calling that hot goaltending — but let me explain. That loss was, as I said, inevitable. If the Flyers put ten men on the ice, it would not have kept the Capitals from doing whatever it took to win. Strike it from the record.

But Biron ended the season by shutting out Pittsburgh and New Jersey, the two best teams in the Atlantic Division. He came back in game 2 in Washington and pitched another shutout. His last six games, including that five-goal game, give him a GAA of 1.83 and a .933 save percentage with three shutouts. I call that hot goaltending!

Hello Lord Stanley!

As an amateur Chaotician and part-time Historian, I bring good tidings of great joy. The curse of William Penn will be lifted this spring, and the Broad Street Bullies shall win the Stanley Cup.

For those of you who aren’t familiar, William Penn founded the original British colony of Pennsylvania, or “Penn’s Woods.” Residing atop Philadelphia’s City Hall is a statue of Mr. Penn, complete with goofy colonial hat and shoe buckles. For years and years, the city maintained a gentlemen’s agreement (strictly enforced by the city planner) that no building in the City of Philadelphia would exceed the statue’s prominence of 548 feet.

The ’70s and ’80s saw a veritable hotbed of sporting-related successes in Philadelphia. Championships were won by the Flyers in ’74 and ’75 (with Stanley Cup Finals appearances in ’76, ’80, and ’85); the Phillies won the World Series in ’80 and the NL pennant in ’83; the Eagles won the ’81 NFC championship; and even the 76ers won the NBA Championship in ’83, making the finals in ’77, ’80, and ’82. Things were looking good in the City of Brotherly Love.

But then, disaster struck. Developers broke ground on One Liberty Place, the first skyscraper slated to supersede the statue in height. Since construction of the 945-foot behemoth began in 1985, Philadelphia has not seen a championship in baseball, football, basketball, hockey, college basketball — or (worst of all) even horse racing’s Triple Crown.

But today, things are changing. Eclipsing even the shadow of One Liberty Place is the new Comcast Center, the tallest building in all of Pennsylvania. How will this change the sporting atmosphere of Philadelphia?

Two reasons:
1. Comcast owns the Flyers and the 76ers.
2. Attached to the tallest beam on the skyscraper is a statue of William Penn.

From his new perch, high atop the Comcast Center, ol’ Billy Penn can finally stand at ease as the tallest man in his woods, lifting his curse with him.

Go Flyers and God bless America!

The context of this clash was whether it would be wise for a Christian college to build a dorm that would house both men and women. I think it would be both foolish and unnecessary.

I strive, in all areas, for a realistic philosophy, based on facts and data. History tells me it is impossible for sinful humanity to eradicate poverty. Obvious physical and emotional differences between the sexes illustrate why (in general) I prefer my firefighters male and my schoolteachers female. I would be a terrible painter, so rather than fighting for a Pyrrhic victory in the name of fairness, I seek the best realistic outcome.

To fight poverty, that means capitalism — using greed to increase wealth for all. In the workplace, that means a system where anyone can work a job, but we don’t lower standards to achieve arbitrary quotas. And when it comes to young adults, it means we consider all the consequences of having them (not just ones on close-knit ministry teams) sleep in close proximity. Without some tremendous benefit, the simple biology of the matter rules it out instantly. I don’t see that benefit.

Erin argues that separating genders “warps the ideals” each holds about the other. That might be true — MIGHT — if we were returning to the days of separate classes and segregated chapel services. But we’re talking about separate sleeping areas — places where men can be fools without irritating women, and where women can be fools without feeling judged by men. We’re talking about a system that makes it easy to see who belongs in a dorm, making sexual assault far more difficult.

Besides, if anything warps gender ideals, it’s co-ed dorms. At Syracuse, they corroded and profaned relationships, breeding misbehavior, distracting from studies, and (from all accounts) eliminating romance. They were a buffet of loveless hookups and debauchery. In this era where so much of our lives are open to the world, there is still something powerful to be said for mystery — for boundaries. Houghton is not Syracuse, but co-ed dorms still do not reflect real life, because they are not much like reality. They are a contrived environment vastly unlike any other in the world, and if you think they’ll help you learn about men, I expect you’ll learn the wrong things.

Living with the opposite sex is not the same as knowing them. I learned about women by growing up with a mother and sisters, and by meeting women outside my home. I don’t understand how seeing female classmates brushing their teeth in pajamas would have improved our interaction — or much of anything, really… At least anything worth improving.

As for “real life,” the point of college is to educate people and prepare them for careers. Thus, it need not reflect “real life” in any significant way; in fact, it’s easier to learn when you don’t have to work for a living at the same time. And so students choose their own schedules; sleep in with few consequences; queue up at certain times to be fed by others; and deal with virtually none of the hassles of independent life. American colleges give students the illusion of maturity while protecting them from real responsibility. Many students never even connect the experience of college with its rapidly rising costs, thanks to loans and parents.

Yet, perversely, when college students speak of being treated as adults, they always want more of the freedom and none of the responsibility. If a college truly wished to prepare students for real life, it would not make it easier for them to act — it would make them more immediately responsible for the consequences of their actions. That is reality.

So not every decision a college makes is based on whether it trusts its students. Some things are just bad ideas. Even for good people.

I agree with what Steve says about college students crying out for “real life” and actually meaning more freedom with less (meaning almost never an equal amount of) responsibility.

Just as much as any other college student, I certainly have wanted to be treated more like an adult and then, when it happens, been a bit overwhelmed by all that it entails. Where I think that I differ is in my idea that although perhaps the modern Christian college is not intended to reflect real life, this can in no way be a positive thing.

Yes, there should be an element of the monastic, but especially at small Christian colleges, that element can very easily be taken and shoved down the throats of students who either do not understand it, do not understand why it is in place, or will continue to act out despite any actions taken to keep them in a study-focused “good student mode.”

Keeping women in one dorm and men in the other warps the ideals that either gender has of each other. Maybe I’m just exaggerating, or my experience has been strange, but this I have seen: when all women live together in one place, and are always together, warped expectations that emerge from that bunch as regards how men act on a day-to-day basis.

I’ve lived in close proximity to unrelated men for extended lengths of time, and I can honestly say that every time, I came away either thinking about, or beginning to understand, some of the differences between the sexes — and appreciating them! This you can’t get from across campus… not really.

As for mystery eliciting romance – if there’s one thing that a lot of (especially conservative) Christian youth need, it’s a deromanticizing of the college experience. I’m not saying that people shouldn’t date, but often that mystery about the opposite sex, when coupled with traditional expectations and parental pressures to get married (so common at Christian colleges…and most colleges, really) translates into a hyper-romanticized experience, which can be all the more disappointing for those who don’t themselves get a ring by spring. Does the sentiment, “God told me that you’re the one I’m supposed to marry!” disturb anyone at all?

I’m not saying that I didn’t appreciate having nights where I could walk from the shower room to my room without having to worry about a guy somewhere (and mutual embarassment). I’m not pretending that in many schools (the one where my best friend attends, Central Michigan, is a prime example) that do have co-ed dorms have seen a corroding of the male-female relationship, or distraction.

But what I am saying is that when the administration tells the student body just how deeply they care for us and believe in our ability to make choices… then go on to delineate, point by point, all of the regulations set in place to keep us dependent, immature, and well-behaved, I get frustrated.

I don’t think that, had South Hall been co-ed by wing as was possible when it was built, Houghton would have seen a major decay in the behavior of its students. To tell someone that they are mature and able and adult, but then not give them the freedom to prove that, is the same as saying that you don’t trust them, and although co-ed dorms would not solve that problem, it would certainly give that freedom.

Those who dislike basketball need to meet my wife. I\’m 6\’3” and she\’s 5\’3”. I\’m stocky and she\’s, well, slight. (At least she was before she was pregnant, but that is not the point of this story nor is it particularly wise to say.)

When pressed to choose, most assume that I was the high school basketball player in our home. After all, I\’m a fair shooter and a middling rebounder. But I was not the high school varsity player ”” she was.

This is because basketball is the most egalitarian game one can play. A $10 basketball and a neighborhood court, YMCA, or high school gym, and you can play. No bats, no helmets, no pads.

There are no height requirements; there are advantages to being small and quick, and advantages to being a giant though slow afoot. There are advantages to being able to shoot 30 feet from the basket, and advantages to banging around under the hoop.

Basketball also can serve as a language when words will not do. I spent seven summers working as a camp counselor at a local YMCA in a small, economically depressed city near my home. Though my charges were near-universally of a different color from me, though we spoke differently and had different heroes and role models, basketball was a way I could communicate with them. Whether it was a standing challenge to beat me in H-O-R-S-E or running five-on-five with local high school kids, it was a way to fit in, a way for my ideas and being to be taken seriously, a way to break down barriers between us.

Perhaps basketball could even help President Bush\’s much-maligned foreign policy. A game of 21 with Kim Jong Il? Around the World with Kofi Annan? One-on-one with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper ”” if we win, they have to take North Dakota; if they win, we have to take Manitoba?

The possibilities are endless ”” thanks to basketball.

A sporting event is a contest, a pitting of self against other, in which there can only be one champion. The players are combatants, playing through pain, injury, and weather to bring the battle to a close. But not so basketball. No, organized basketball is most often played indoors, protecting its mollycoddled players from the danger of sun, rain and wind. A polished wooden floor and sterile fluorescent lighting lend a bleak aura to the basketball landscape.

The Mayans in pre-European America had a similar sport. But their hoop was vertical, their court was outdoors and there was no use of the hands. Any child can toss a ball through a hoop with their opposable thumbs, but try doing so with a bounce off a hip. Combine that with the imposing physical nature of basketball’s ideological predecessor and you have a sport worth playing!

In contrast, modern basketball players are kept apart throughout the “struggle,” the least physical contact resulting in a foul. They trot up and down the court like so many braided-maned polo ponies, either bouncing the ball against the ground while they prance or limply slapping at it in an attempt to jar it from another’s control. The observed proper technique for these slaps leaves the wrist hanging as limply as the decorative nylon netting that hangs, streamer-like, from hoops at either end of the court.

These aforementioned hoops separate basketball from true sports of the people. Without the resources to find a tall pole with an attached hoop of metal, a young person cannot practice this loathsome pastime. But any enterprising youth can find a stick and a ball, improvise some bases, and have a rousing game of baseball. Likewise can be improvised a soccer pitch, with markers delineating the goals’ width and a spirit of good sportsmanship their height. The only firm requirement for these sports is space.

From the super-short super-tight shorts of the 70s to the ridiculously baggy ones popular today, basketball has long acknowledged its status as court jester in the kingdom of sport. Yes, basketball remains true to its roots: slapdash construction of a peach basket with a hole in it, dreamed up by some Canadian to give his students something to do when it was too wet to go outside and play a REAL sport.

Ever since I taught my younger brother to play chess I have been avoiding this day — the day of face-to-face competition. Now you\’re going to see why I hid the chess pieces.

The first thing I noticed about my dear brother\’s piece is that except for our own canines, every other dog he mentioned was fictitious. Why is this pertinent? Well, I submit that my esteemed opponent lives in La-La Land with those fake doggies. Here\’s what happens in the real world, Dave.

Thanksgiving ’98: I run home for a stick of butter I left on my kitchen counter. As I enter, I encounter a strange smell that could only be described as “fouler than death,” and the butter is missing. When I call my dog, she slinks over to me. Suddenly, I see why: there is butter-induced dog puke all over my kitchen — and my living room. But we weren’t finished! To top it off, she left a cow liver in the hallway!

That’s not all! A year earlier, when she had puppies, she broke out of her carefully constructed kitchen kennel, and had a puppy in every room before we got home! So point 1 is this: cats make cat-sized messes. When a dog makes a mess, it can change your family vocabulary forever: “Life is rough, and then your dog eats butter.” Check.

Point 2: The worst thing a cat will do to a visitor is ignore her. But when visiting dog-occupied homes, I’ve experienced a number of horrific scenarios — the large dog that hates me and wants to kill me, the large dog that loves me and want to slobber all over me. Or the VEEERRRY large dog who thinks I smell reeeally greeeaat, and would love to smell me more, forcing me to push its huge face (where the teeth are) away, at risk of great physical harm. Finally, there’s the small dog who sees me as a threat and barks loudly and constantly, threatening to bite if I so much as move.

Yip yip yip, yip yip! Yip, yip, yip, yip yip! Yip yip!!

Yip!

Check.

Why do I like cats? Because they know how to shut up!! Plus, they\’re soft and cuddly, don\’t need a lot of attention, and can be left alone for a weekend with a bowl of Special Kitty and a dripping faucet. A cat is like a stuffed animal with a personality! We get ours fixed and train them to go to the bathroom outdoors, then sit back and enjoy the benefits — which include killing massive numbers of rodents (ridding the world of potential epidemics), with no thanks asked in return. A recent study says that cats can even prevent heart attacks! Maybe it’s the calming effect of not having to clean up butter puke and roadkill.

By the way, Dave, your rook\’s in the hall closet. Love you, bro — checkmate.

Wallace P. MacSweet. Liberty Diefenbaker Proton Fay. Lady and the Tramp. Rin-Tin-Tin, Lassie and Ol’ Yeller. Benji, Air Bud, Underdog, Chance, and Shadow, to mention but a few. Time fails me to tell of all the shining examples of dogs who have distinguished themselves in the annals of human history through their loyalty, bravery and undying devotion.

When the Phantom needs a sidekick, does he turn to anyone but Devil to watch his back? Where would Charlie Brown be without Snoopy? And speaking of Snoopy, does he content himself to lie around eating up the family food budget, producing nothing but fertilizer? No. He is a certified war hero and flying ace, an attorney, and a hockey player to boot.

What does the cat world have to set against this? A lazy, fat, lasagna-eating, hairball-hacking fleabag that takes every opportunity he can find to embarrass and humiliate his owner?

And which side was Catwoman on in the epic battle of good and evil in Gotham City?

The dog has always been regarded as man’s best friend. Whether it’s for companionship, protection, or a hot meal in a pinch, dogs have always been the one animal on this planet that man could turn to in a time of need.

Imagine running the Iditarod across the frozen tundra, temperatures hovering near 50 below, and your life depending on a pack of . . . felines. If you ever even got a cat into Alaska, you certainly could never get it to leave the house in those sub-zero temperatures.

Dogs are domesticated friends, fellow laborers in all our troubles. Cats are parasites, who somehow attached themselves to the human race long ago, finding a soft place to sleep and free food.

Dogs are working animals. Blind people use seeing-eye dogs to navigate the world, and policemen use specially trained dogs to search for drugs, firearms, and explosives. Dogs control crowds; they find escaped criminals and lost Boy Scouts. Ranchers use dogs to round up sheep and cattle — nursing homes use them to improve the mental and physical health of the elderly. What do cats do, again? Oh yes, nothing.

I read that the essential difference between cats and dogs is this: When you come home after work, feed your dog, and pet him, he looks at you with devotion and wonder, thinking, “Wow, he must be a god!”

But when you do the same to a cat, it looks at you with contempt and annoyance, and thinks, “I must be a god.”

I was mildly coerced into getting a personal MySpace page and I regret the decision to this day.

It’s not that I think I’m too good for personal networking websites; I love the Facebook and I was using sites like the long-since-obsolete Quickdot when most of today’s MySpace users were still stuffing crayons up their noses and putting anything that wasn’t nailed down into their mouths.

What’s that? They still . . . Okay, that’s a bad example. But the fact remains I was annoying other people through telnet way back before many of you modern MySpacers were even born.

I just hate MySpace.

I hate its clunky, horrifying design, strips of blue flanking unreadable text links and unending advertisements for insurance, movies, and ladies’ underwear. I hate Tom.

I hate the terrible things people do to their own pages; I hate when someone’s lousy taste in music is automatically inflicted on me; I hate the uniformly awful attempts at changing the default layout.

I hate that I can spend an hour ranking my ‘top friends,’ and I hate the way (mostly) girls use their profile pictures to draw attention to all the wrong things for all the wrong reasons.

And I hate, more than anything, how every time I go on the blasted site, I have to clear out solicitations from seminude women, advertisements for natural male enhancement, and spam comments full of broken images and Trojan horses.

As Job says, it’s YourSpace, honey child. Not Mine. And as I toss and turn my way to fitful sleep tonight, haunted by the constant fear that I might have missed the chance at a lower rate on my second mortgage, with every labored breath, I’ll wish I’d held out.

I pray you have the strength I did not.

Or, if you don’t, that you’ll at least add me and our band!

Hey Steve.

How’s it goin? I just moved to the NEW YORK,United States area and I wanna meet a nice guy around here :-). I moved here to NEW YORK,United States a couple of weeks ago for work and now that I’m here I have nobody to hang out with! I read your profile… You’re cute and I liked what you had to say :-).

DO you know whats on most girl’s minds but they won’t tell you or will they. I am telling you this because it is the honest truth, look I should know…

Anyway you won’t believe this. that day I just filled my zip and my address in a form. A few days later I got a Visa Gift Card worth $500,and was told it can be used at any store!!! It really worked when I trying to buy an iPod!! Cost me nothing! LOL….

**~PERSONAL questions~**
Do you think I’m a good person?

Would you let me sleep with you (in the same bed)?

Would you let anything happen in that bed?

If you could change anything about me — would you?

Our lenders are ready to give you a loan! Approval process will take 1 minute!

Plus I’m just graduated college and I’m lookin for a guy who is a little bit older or more mature than me. You say you’re 27 and you’re cute so I guess you’re qualified :-)

if u don’t like out of the box thinkers that leave me alone!noo i’m just kidding really…lol..

And If you weren’t there FRIDAY NIGHT i lost that bet with ryan, so i made those SPECIALpictures available for ONE WEEK ONLY!! rember to stop by my webcam anytime!!

I’ll be the first to admit that I am generally less informed than the average high school sophomore about politics, though you might not know it from how animatedly I like to shout at my more conservative friends (either because I perceive more holes in their arguments than those more liberal, or I just like to be argumentative). Writing this clash is largely the result of my foolish and hasty statement of belief that there is too much money in politics. This is based on a deeper idea which I will try, briefly, to explain.

Whether or not spending more money will make a potential presidential candidate more likely to get elected: I’m sure this can be proved and disproved many ways, and has been already. It’s the nature of numbers, the ability to be manipulated. There are always new statistics coming out, to exhibit or ignore one side of the argument or the other.

Whether the president or other politicians make too much money: that is for each person to decide as well. The current congressional salary (2008) is $169,300 per year. The annual salary of the president was increased to $400,000 per year, including a $50,000 expense allowance, and the vice president makes $221,100.

So given the facts that “not just anybody” gets elected to public office (thank goodness!); one must have at least some degree of personal means, influence, and experience to get elected; and that the majority of politicians have families, businesses, and hobbies to support — are these salaries too much? I have heard that every president ever elected took a pay cut when he entered office. So are they being paid too much? I think so.

The bigger idea that I want to address (which I am only in the early stages of thinking through) is that there is too much money in society as a whole.

I am just as a slave to money as the next hapless American college student. I am studying at a college that, by the time I graduate, will have collected in payment for my undergraduate education more than the golden $100,000 that seems to represent a comfortable income for middle class America. So I will have paid — or have promised to pay — what a great deal of middle class families strive to make in a year. Isn’t that too much?

And why do middle class families feel that $100,000 would be a comfortable amount to live on? Property and income tax. Utilities. Groceries. Food. Clothing. Hobbies. Family outings. Transportation. The same things that lower-class and upper-class families spend money on. Isn’t there a simpler way to do all this?

Instead of going to a theme park that costs $60 per person and wastes electricity flinging souls around on aerodynamically sexy roller coasters, why not wade in a river and catch crawfish — or make a game out of clearing brush away from an old campfire-pit, not worrying about how soon it gets done or how well? Why must we take three trips to town each day to cart kids to school, get items for a honey-do list, and pick up a pizza for dinner?

Simplicity is just that: simple. Some might say that it is for the simple-minded, and I will admit that I have said that to myself many times. But when I say that there is too much money in politics, I am lumping politics in with life in general: things could be done a lot simpler and a lot cheaper. Yes, it might require cutting back. Creativity. Sacrifice. But wouldn’t we be the better for it?

I’ll see your bet and I’ll raise you. Not only do I disagree that there’s too much money in politics, I actually believe that there’s not enough.

I’m happy to admit that the money we have in the system now might not be the best money. It might not be used for the best things. It might not be spent for the best reasons. But I’m convinced that it’s impossible to actually get the best of all those things — and any attempt to try is likely to produce even more problems, while unconstitutionally limiting speech. Frankly, the problem isn’t money, or more correctly, the speech that money facilitates. The problem is accountability.

Whenever possible, I like to err on the side of freedom. That’s especially true when it comes to matters of how people can spend money they have earned. Take Mitt Romney, for instance. He received a lot of criticism for spending tens of millions of his own money in an attempt to become the Republican nominee for president. But why? He earned it honestly, in business, through hard work and effort. And although many less affluent candidates sneered that he was trying to “buy the nomination,” the results actually proved that dollars alone do not lead to electoral success.

Yet many remain convinced not only that money is the main key to winning elections, but that there’s something inherently wrong with money in politics. And this opinion, often informed by a confusion of the effects of money and incumbency, has led to a system that drastically limits the way we can spend our money, and what we can say when we do.

Well, call me old-fashioned, friends, but I happen to take the First Amendment at face value. You’ll remember it from high school; it’s the part of our Constitution that states (among other things) that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech. When “reformers” prevent me from spending money to espouse a certain view on the political stage, how can they pretend this is anything other than a restraint on speech? How can they defend it in light of the text of the First Amendment?

Maybe you think that the danger of money influencing politics makes these laws a necessary compromise, a proper exception to our First Amendment rights. But I answer you — what speech could possibly be more important to protect from government regulation than that speech which criticizes the government?

I support greater transparency, so we can know who writes the checks before we cast our votes. But the current system is designed to just shut it all down, like we’re a bunch of children, too stupid to understand issues, willing to vote for whichever candidate runs the glossiest ads. Please explain to me — I would love to know! — how we are helped by this convoluted system that prevents a group of Americans from publicly talking about a candidate, favorably or unfavorably, within 60 days of an election, when the information is most relevant.

Presidential candidates in 2004 spent about $661 million in that race. That sounds awfully high, doesn’t it? But it turns out McDonald’s spent $635 million in advertising by itself — back in 2001! General advertising for “cooking products and seasonings” topped $675 million four years before that! And way back in 1998, $720 million was spent on alcohol advertising JUST INSIDE STORES.

I happen to think that the future of our country — the First Amendment — is a little more important than Mrs. Dash and Captain Morgan.

There comes a time in every superpower’s life when it looks at the steaming, writhing squalor that once could have been greatness and think: “Enough is enough.” There are as many reasons for the US to remain in the UN as there are for a battered husband to remain married — two. Ridiculously stubborn masculine pride and oh-so-foolish feminine hope.

After rescuing the world from its second global conflict in as many decades, the United States scooped up what was left of her allies, dumped the equivalent of trillions of dollars into their stagnant, welfare-state supporting economies, and created the United Nations. As with all wars to end all wars, most folks were pretty eager to make peace. So 51 nations signed on, creating a group dedicated to end war, safeguard human rights, promote social and economic progress, improve living conditions, and achieve other worthwhile, lofty goals.

Now 60 years, countless wars, at least a dozen genocides, and epidemic after epidemic later, the UN is still cautiously optimistic about the possibility of forming a subsidiary body of a specialized agency’s functional commission (under the direct control of no fewer than two regional commissions), with oversight from the secretariat, charged with maybe getting around to fixing that world peace thing some day. But for now, they’re all pretty focused on hating America.

The crux of UN stupidity is giving two-bit, third-world dictatorships equal footing with the United States, United Kingdom, and other reasonable, civilized, developed countries. For Heaven’s sake! The UN still can’t decide whether the crisis in Darfur is regional unrest, civil unrest, or just plain, old, run-of-the-mill GENOCIDE! Oh, sorry, the UN-sanctioned term is “gross violation.” So, sorry, 200,000-400,000 dead Sudanese, you haven’t been genocided, you’ve been “grossly violated.”

What I propose is simple: relegate the UN to the minor leagues and start our own global organization devoted to awesomeness and peace through strength. Let the socialists and dictatorships have the UN. Until countries grow up, institute democracy and capitalism, and reach a certain level of development, the UN is all they get. I say that the US, UK, Japan, Germany, Australia, Canada, South Korea, Israel, and Taiwan all leave the UN (and leave the French there as well) and form our own permanent multi-national coalition.

Just like the EU won’t let just anybody in until they’re sufficiently developed, neither will we. It’ll be like a members-only club that demonstrates to the world that you’ve made it.

And while the UN is busy mailing letters requesting the cessation of hostilities against civilians in Sudan, we’ll send our letter too. Taped to the front of a cruise missile.

The political side of the UN won’t win a whole lot of points with me or any thinking person. It’s slow, bloated, and controlled by either a handful of elites who can singlehandedly stop it from taking any meaningful action (i.e., the Security Council) or a large number of countries from the developing world with no particular qualms about abusing their citizens (i.e., the General Assembly).

That said, though, the UN has had a positive humanitarian influence on the world. The greatest example is probably smallpox; with cooperation from many of the world’s governments, the World Health Organization took on one of the greatest killers in history, successfully making the world a whole lot safer for those born in developing countries.

The World Bank (chartered separately, but technically under UN jurisdiction) offers inexpensive loans to not only help countries escape poverty (their weaker suit), but also to reconstruct after major crises (their stronger suit). They provided some of the funding that helped Germany and Japan become the economic powerhouses and strong Western allies that they are today. Finally, other arms of the ECOSOC have made significant strides in providing vaccines, education, and food to children in impoverished countries.

Of course, most arguments about the United Nations aren’t about what it has done; instead, they are about what it could do differently, or how much better everyone would be if these crises had been handled by the free market and private donations. There is obviously no factual data on a hypothetical UN-less world, but given the intransigence of the private sector and individual governments to today’s humanitarian crises (even with UN help), it’s very difficult to believe that we could have defeated smallpox or rebuilt Western Europe so quickly, without UN resources and organizational tools.

It’s true that the UN will probably never give the United States as much as it asks us to give to them. This is the case with governments at any level; the ones who need their services are never those who are able to pay for them, so someone else has to pick up the bill. The UN was created partially to fill a perceived need for world government, but it is not particularly effective politically. As a result, it instead finds its strength in coordinating and administering humanitarian responses, and it has performed these types of missions very successfully.

Whether or not the UN could be 1000 times better than it is, its existence has helped the world.

Today, Syracuse will swelter. It’s the hottest day of the year. The high will be 95; combined with tropical humidity, this will make it nearly unbearable outside. Last week, I spent 7 days in New Mexico, Satan’s sauna, where highs reached triple digits every day.

What a perfect time to extol the joys of cooler weather!

I’ve worked outside in temperatures that ranged from 25 below to 95 above, and I’ll take the colder end anytime. Most of the worst jobs in America face extreme heat, including cowboys, ironworkers, longshoremen and roofers. Horses and hot tar don’t give you a 6-hour break at high noon!

It’s true people are more comfortable in warm-weather attire, but let’s think about extremes. If you’re too cold, you can always put on warmer clothing, or more of it. But when it’s hot outside, there’s a pretty strict legal limit on how high you can, uh, let your freak flag fly. Even if you can get nekkid, there’s no guarantee that unfortunate decision will cool you down enough to be comfortable.

Plus they say freezing to death is one of the least objectionable ways to die. Your extremities slowly go numb, which sounds like bliss compared to the searing pain of heatstroke pounding your head into seizure, hallucination and coma.

Maybe the best reason to like cold weather is its effect on relationships. When it’s hot like today, unless you’re submerged in a body of water, you don’t want to be near anyone. Tempers shorten, fuses blow, and even a platonic hug exchanges more fluid than a blood transfusion.

But not only do you want to be around other people when it’s cold, it’s practically necessary to conserve heat! Cuddling up on the couch with someone special isn’t an unpleasant, sweaty chore like in July — in the winter, it keeps up both morale and body temperature.

Hot weather is for individuals — sweaty, uncomfortable, and alone — but cool weather? Cool weather brings us together.

Imagine yourself, eight years old, waking up one morning and noticing the air is unusually crisp and muted. As you tumble out of bed, heart racing, breath quickening, you know that — yes, out the window — SNOW!

You run screaming down the hall, smack into your mother’s knees. “Not without these!,” she chirps, pointing to the mountain of snow gear she will soon inflict on your person.

By the time she finishes protecting your cute little extremities from frostbite, you have to pee, you couldn’t play in the snow if your life depended on it (or get up if you fell down), and the radio has announced the roads are plowed, so school is not canceled.

This would not happen if it were hot. For one thing, you can easily move in the attire required for a hot day, which is next to nothing. More importantly, school can’t be canceled in the heat because there is no school! That means days filled with tans, swimming pools, water fights, picnics, sports, and siestas.

Oh, yes, siestas. It’s a physical impossibility to work when it’s 105 degrees out, ladies and gentlemen. That means you quit at 1:00 and don’t start up again until 6:00, if at all!

Still not convinced? Let’s not forget these other important points:

— Ice will kill you on the road. Hot asphalt will not, unless you’re stupid and walk barefoot on it, and then it’s your own fault.

— Heat makes all the scary things go away, like snakes, big things with teeth, and children.

— Heat stroke is temporary, but another good reason not to work. Frostbite is forever, like diamonds, but without the jewel or the finger to put it on.

— Water parks, ice cream, barbecues, parades. Have you ever tried to have a parade in below-zero weather?

If you still prefer the cold, I’ll pull the patriotic card. As Americans, we stand for liberty, and if shorts, tank tops and flip flops aren’t liberating, I don’t know what is. Certainly not your snow pants.

I hail from the Advent Christian denomination, the Millennium Falcon of Protestants — old and small. Two main tenets from our statement of faith create the most distance between us and the Empire.

First, we believe in “soul sleep” — a person doesn’t immediately ascend or descend to heaven or hell but remains, well, dead (1 Thessalonians 4:16) until Christ’s return and the subsequent judgment. Second, we don’t believe hell lasts forever, as some might imagine. We believe that when Matthew writes that “these (the wicked) will go away into eternal punishment,” he means eternal destruction (not necessarily torment) and separation from God.

Let me clarify that point. My opposition would seem to read that verse to mean the wicked will go away into an eternal life of punishment; I read it to say the end of their lives is the punishment. While neither of these Adventist points pertain to salvation and are best summed up as “splitting hairs,” they are, nevertheless, important for Christians to discuss because of the way the world has begun to paint our views. This point can lead to the larger and more relevant debate — how else is our faith colored by things other than Scripture?

Be it Gary Larson’s Far Side or the iconic film It’s a Wonderful Life, we — and the world — have begun to view both heaven and hell through the filter of modern fiction, lore and whimsy. The idea of the torment one might receive eternally in hell or the bliss awaiting in heaven is largely produced by our “Mind’s Eye.” Lava, steam, wailing, pitchforks? Clouds, togas, gold, pearly gates? With this as our tapestry of thought, our theology tends to coordinate itself with it. I don’t think anyone would argue accuracy has been the foremost concern of Christianity over the past few centuries.

But rather than deferring to Dante, I note instead the words of the Apostle Paul in his second letter to the Thessalonians (1:8-10) — “He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord, and from the majesty of His power on the day He comes to be glorified in His holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed.”

While I can find a duality of thought in some verses, this one is far too straightforward to be renegotiated per the notion that the damned are due the déjà  vu of recurrent scorched skin. Paul infers nothing but a totality of dismissal from consciousness. I think the word “everlasting” is employed here and elsewhere concerning the afterlife because of the pagan religious thinking that Thessalonica and other locations were prone to. The idea of a soul as a cockroach, able to scurry under the fridge of malleable consequences, was one Paul was urgent to dispel. And it’s making a comeback.

While I have already noted that our main concern should be what happens here in the fourth quarter, not in the locker room after the game, take it from Chewbacca — things are not always as you’ve always thought them to be.

“There is no doctrine I would more willingly remove from Christianity than [hell], if it lay in my power…”
C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

In 1793 William Blake published The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Although he confessed ambiguity over Blake’s meaning, C.S. Lewis intended and entitled The Great Divorce as a response of sorts; in his view, the inhabitants of Heaven and hell could never be reconciled, for they are ever growing further apart, not closer. It’s a salient point in whether hell is eternal — if hell is temporary, we must assume that either its inhabitants are, in some fashion, being reformed, with an eye toward reuniting them with the inhabitants of Heaven — or their immortal soul has to be destroyed, allowing it to escape eternal damnation through annihilation. Is there some hint in the Bible of a place where such reconciliation could be accomplished? Is there evidence for annihilation to render Hell temporary?

First let me make clear that my belief in eternal hell is not based on Lewis’s work or personal preference, but the authority of the Bible. It is stated clearly in Matthew 25:46 that “these [the wicked] will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” The word eternal, used twice, is the same word in the Greek and carries the same meaning in both phrases. The punishments of hell are just as eternal for the wicked as eternal life is for the righteous, whether we consider purgatory or annihilation. Other references, including Mark 9:42-48, Luke 16:19-31, 2 Thess. 1:8,9, Jude 7-13, and Rev. 14:9-11, affirm that Hell and its attendant punishments are eternal.

The only Christian doctrine to support a temporary rehabilitation arrangement after death is purgatory. This is a doctrine of the Catholic Church whereby God takes people at death and holds them in torment until someone ransoms them. Originally this could be accomplished through prayers and good deeds on their behalf, but during fundraising for St. Peter’s Basilica, the church shifted its preference to cash.

Any attempt to make hell less than permanent on the basis of reforming the wicked completely removes the belief in hell, leaving us with Heaven and purgatory. But this would be purgatory even the Catholic Church does not believe in, for in their doctrine, purgatory is purification the believer undergoes in preparation for Heaven. It’s never portrayed as a place the wicked can go. In Catholic doctrine, no one escapes Hell; only the Christian sees purgatory, then Heaven.

Annihilation is a more modern achievement that rests on two arguments. The first is that God can’t punish finite sins with an infinite Hell, for this would be unfair and disproportionate. But how then can we expect God to reward finite obedience to the Gospel with an infinite Heaven? Each position is taught in equality in Matthew 25; what applies to one certainly would apply to the other.

The second argument is that the Bible doesn’t say all men possess immortality, only God and the righteous. This would mean men would eventually perish and hell would cease to exist. There is more evidence for this, as Scripture does not seem to make any explicit statement that all men possess an immortal soul. But the enormous weight of passages presenting hell as eternal gives sufficient reason to believe it is taught by inference.

Nowhere, New Mexico

It’s 6:15 in the morning, and I’m on my way to work. The sky has a mashed potatoes and golden butter look to it, and the sunrise’s fingers turn pink as they stretch further west. The sunflowers are blooming, yellow heads turned up to worship the sun. A few times on the mountain pass, I have to slow for the massive elk wandering across the road.

The cafe opens at 7, and like clockwork, Frank and Roy and Robert come in for their eggs, bacon, toast and coffee. I don’t ask how they want their eggs done, or what kind of bread they prefer. They’re here every morning; I already know.

Throughout the day, Anne and Mike, Sam and Elaine, Mark, Lisa, and Jacob will probably come in to chat and check out the special. Today will be busy, both with work and with catching up with everyone, passing on praises and prayer requests.

On the way home, I’ll wave at the people I pass on the mountain. Some I recognize, others I don’t. When I get home, Grandma and I will eat dinner on the porch and watch the thunderstorm march over the valley. We’ll take the dogs on a long walk before settling down with some hot chocolate and a good book by the time the storm breaks over us.

London, UK

Some friends and I have decided to go to a pub for dessert — a pub that we frequent at least once a week. It’s close to Guy Fawkes Day and there are fireworks going off everywhere, but we don’t linger. It’s after dark and this is a park; we should move as fast as we can.

We spend two hours at the pub, oblivious to the passing time and the Sunday drunks surrounding us. When we look up again, my purse is gone.

The gruff bartender promises that he’ll provide the police with CCTV and takes my name down, but won’t let me use his phone to call the police myself: “Don’t you have a mobile?”

“Well, I did. It’s in my purse.” Moron.

My friends and I leave the pub. I call the police from a friend’s phone while several sirens scream by me. They don’t answer. When I try again and they pick up, the Cockney operator tells me disdainfully to call the non-emergency number.

I run home down London’s dirty streets under the patches of dark clouds because I have to get rid of the nervous energy. I don’t stop shaking till morning.

I was raised in the city, that noted bastion of civilization, and although the country is a wonderful place to visit, I would not choose to live there full time, and the main reason is the lack of people.

I once lived on a farm for a summer, and I can assure you, it gets boring when your nearest neighbor is a mile or more away. What good is a chess set with no one to play? What good is a softball field if all you can do is bat rocks with a stick while playing an imaginary game in your mind? Any truly joyous activity requires the presence and participation of other human beings. And you can find them in the city.

Ever since the first rude barbarians realized that domesticating animals and cultivating crops was much easier than chasing your food down and killing it in the forest — while trusting serendipitous encounters with edible fruits and vegetables for roughage — cities have been generally acknowledged as the best mode of living upon this green earth. Indeed, the entire course of civilized history was one in which barbarians settled down to the good life, lost their wild lonesome ways, then patiently waited to be conquered by the next envious band of brutes who realized what they were missing in their rustic wanderings.

I believe that every person needs a good balance of quiet solitude and lively social intercourse. For me, the city provides the best opportunity for both. When I want to be left alone, I go into my library and close the door, or I watch TV with my wife in the living room. When I want to be with people, I go sit on my front porch, or we go out to eat.

And nothing equals a walk through our neighborhood, where the sidewalks are sheltered by ancient shade trees, bordering the twilight beauty of gentle homes twinkling with warm light — as evening settles on the distant spires of chapels, and various towers of commerce, that grace our small city.

Alexander the Great did the world a signal act of service, for which we should all feel gratitude, when he conquered the entire civilized world, establishing one common language and a culture that revered education and the building of public libraries and theaters. Where would we be without this grand impetus toward education and social intercourse, which was followed up and fortified so well by the laws and roads of Rome?

Never mind, I know where we would be — the Dark Ages. When libraries were burned, priceless art was destroyed forever, and the great cities were broken and all but abandoned.

Tribuo mihi urbs!

I am a reasonable woman. I try to look for the good in other people, and I’m perfectly willing to listen to opposing points of view, because it’s only when we truly engage those with whom we disagree that we are able to learn anything about ourselves! Most disagreements, from parking spaces to peace in the Middle East, could be settled by nothing more than a steaming pot of coffee and a double dose of understanding.

But not this one.

Simply put, if you don’t hang your roll of toilet paper so it hangs down from the front, you’re a subhuman insect that I can and will crush like the Wicked Witch of the East. With the weight of my WHOLE. FREAKING. HOUSE.

I’ve tried to reason with you people. I’ve tried to show you that it’s obvious that if you set up the roll of toilet paper to hang from the front, it’s easier to reach, easier to tear, and easier on the eyes. After all that I’ve done for you, I guess I just don’t understand why you’re still so incredibly stupid! Why can’t you do anything right?

Don’t you understand how important this is??

Sometimes I’ll be visiting a friend’s house and I’ll politely excuse myself to use the bathroom. I usually don’t need to go — after all, my bladder is Hellga-strong — but I like to do spot checks, just to make sure my friends are toileting smart. Usually things check out just fine in the potty department, but last week, my yoga buddy Stacey failed the test big time. First thing I did was whip and flip, spin that bad boy right round so I could piddle proper, the way God intended, with that Quilted Northern rolling down before me like justice, or a clear mountain stream.

Second thing I did was stomp back out to the living room and smack Stacey down. Some women would have thought, Let it go, Tawny, or It’s not a big deal, or At least wait until after the baby shower, but not me! And what kind of woman hides behind a pregnant lady anyway?

See, when it comes to toilet paper, there’s one way, period. And if any of you ever try to bring those weak backwards ways into my bathroom, I’ll shiv you with the roller, wrap you up with Charmin King Tut-style, and drag you out to my trunk in the dead of night.

The police will never find your body.

I thank you for your time.

Oh, it is so on.

You read that old biddy’s babbling? Goin’ on and on about “easy to tear” and “easy on the eyes” and all, like we’re too stupid to trust our own brains over the prejudices of a two-time felon?

That’s right, Tawny, I’m callin’ you out. Or should I call you “Psycho T”?

But let’s get to the point. If you roll your toilet paper from the front, like Tawny Nutjob over there, you’re an uncultured boob. Let me tell you why.

The bathroom — at least my bathroom — is a place of peace and rest, a getaway from the stress of my life as a full-time housewife and part-time Herbalife saleswoman (CALL NOW for a great deal on HOODIA!).

So when I go in for my afternoon constitutional, I want to be soothed. I crave beauty and grace in a world of harsh plainness. What I absolutely do not want to see is a nasty ol’ strip of toilet paper all up in my face, reminding me again of the unpleasantness of life, and the task that will so soon be behind me.

No, no, my friend. The paper belongs in the back. It’s prettier. It’s more elegant. It’s safer from the claws of my four cats (Muffin, Muffin II, Chatty Catty Kitty, and Muffy). It balances the energies in my bathroom and restores me to a state of inner peace.

And if you disagree with me, may God have mercy on your soul.

Tawny may have a point when she says it’s easier to tear from the front, I don’t know. I guess I don’t think of it much. But you know what would make it even harder to tear? HAVING NO HANDS!! Is that a risk you want to take? Because that’s how much this means to me! You come to my house, I’ll cut your hands off, Tawny! Let’s see what you think about toilet paper when all you’ve got are a couple of stumps at the end of your bony, wizened arms!!

Do not mess with me on this.

In conclusion, rolling the toilet paper toward the back provides a general increase in aesthetics, protection from the playful paws of silly kitties, and allows you to remain in possession of all your important extremities.

The choice is yours.

On a Thanksgiving day a few years ago, my brother Joel slaughtered, scalded, plucked and then deep fat fried two ducks, to serve as our turkey proxy. They were good ducks, by all accounts, well-bred, well-fed and extremely well-cared for. They were cooked well and thoroughly. There was nothing suspect about their life or culinary preparation…but they were doomed from the minute they were born, because ducks are all dark meat.

The time spent between conception and parsley was merely spent building up to my disappointment. I blame cinema and literature for instilling in me a sense of awe concerning duck: that it was a sort of Everest of edibles. In fact, duck is oily, salty, fatty and overwhelmingly underwhelming. I ate the duck, I tried to appreciate the duck, I smiled and said I liked the duck. But my soul gobbled for the unhyped, protein-infused, and profusely healthier heaps of white meat a turkey offers.

White meat is not only healthier, easier to handle, and not disgusting — but it complements, and is complemented by, other foods. It doesn’t demand a stage all to itself, but instead favors a team effort in pleasing your palate. From gravy to casseroles to cold sandwiches to soups, white meat knows how to delegate.

Now, don’t get me wrong — I’m a bachelor. I’ve eaten my fair share of dark meat and I will eat it again. I’m not prejudiced against any food, and my stomach is the Ellis Island of your kitchen. Give me your fried, your baked, your raw; give me your tarts that pop, your topping of melted cheese. I don’t care. But as a proverbial immigration officer stamping the papers of the aliens seeking entrance to the new world of my tummy, I can discern those that stand a chance of climbing the menu ladder, and those doomed to spend their lives as esoteric members of an old cookbook. The forgotten. The undesirable.

Thus is dark meat. It is, as a fact, edible, but it is not mainstream. It is not everyday. It is, my friends, the dreaded entity that is an acquired taste. If you either prefer dark meat, or are one of those souls who say they do, so they can be different, I actually don’t wish to dissuade you. Your contributions to the Thanksgiving meal — throwing yourself on the grenade of that greasy mess on the other side of the platter — only serves to distribute the wealth of white meat among those who know that it is the vehicle to a truly satisfying and diversified meal.

Dark meat? You’re dead to me.

Unless you’re free.

There are few things I enjoy more than roasted chicken. My favorite way of preparing my bird is my crock pot, but be careful! Overcooking makes her fall apart, which is fine for Kickin’ Chicken Soup, but not if you want to enjoy the actual chicken pieces with the bones still attached. I like to put a whole orange or a peeled onion into the cavity of my bird while it’s cooking, then season it with an herb mix called Citrus Grill.

Within minutes I’m carving away — carefully putting the boring, tasteless white meat on one side of the platter, and the juicy, flavorful darker portions on the other. I’ve always preferred the dark meat because of the flavor, and it’s not just limited to the meat family. I also like darker versions of gravies, breads, ice creams (Friendly’s Chocolate Almond Chip!), rice, even milk — and of course chocolate. White chocolate is simply disgusting!

I’ve heard all of the stories about how dark meat contains more fat, but for years, I’ve been singing the old song, “If loving you is wrong, then I don’t wanna be right.” And now, I’ve been vindicated — as you shall see from my research. By the way, that research says red meat belongs in the the dark meat family, so a vote for the pasty white stuff is a vote against the good old American Porterhouse!

The primary reason dark meat has been labeled bad — besides the political agenda — is saturated fat content. Unfortunately, the general public was considered too dumb to understand the difference between saturated fats and other fats. I cannot accept that. Dark meats simply have more myoglobin proteins, the magic stuff that ships oxygen to the muscle cells; they need them to transfer oxygen more efficiently to the muscles. Muscles which are used more frequently become dark. This is why non-flying poultry drumsticks are dark meat, while breast meat is white.

Dark meats tend to contain more zinc, riboflavin, niacin, thiamin, vitamins B6 and B12, amino acids, iron than white meats. Chicken dark meat contain vitamins A, K, B6, B12, niacin, folate, pantothenic acid, minerals as selenium, phosphorus and zinc. Even the fats in most of the dark meats have healthy parts; they contain Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids, and other ‘healthy’ fats. Now take a look at the fat content of that bowl of morning cereal twigs with a cup of organic milk. I will take my steak on a grill with some wood chips, thank you. Preferably with Djere grilling.

It’s easy to hate on Oprah. Oprah is generally blamed, perhaps rightly, for perpetuating a sort of pseudo-religion, a stand-in for the Gospel, if you will. She promotes self-help books like The Secret that promote un-Christian (and downright wacky) ideas, and darn it, she’s just more successful and has more money than the rest of us.

Yet amid all the derision, we often forget the remarkable good Oprah has done. I’m not simply talking about her new South African school or other big donations, important though those are. I’m talking about a far greater accomplishment.

I’m talking about the fact that I have been in many gatherings of white women, my grandmother’s age, talking about a black woman seriously. Some of these women are quite liberal, while some put the fun in fundamentalist, but none of them grew up in a culture where African-American women were accorded respect. And yet, here they are, talking about her last show, reminiscing about great interviews in the past, forming an emotional bond with a black woman. Astonishing.

Is the emotional bond with Oprah perfect and praiseworthy? Probably not. It’s arguably not even real; you could argue white people love to have pseudo-relationships with African-Americans who remain safely behind television screens and stereo speakers. But you have to admit that it is something, given where we have been as a nation, that ladies of privilege–young and old–dab their tears and share their smiles with a woman of color born into hard Mississippi poverty and raised in a ghetto.

Oprah’s not a messiah; but let’s celebrate the significant inroads she has helped to make in the racial arena.

Let me start by saying that I’m not the type to begrudge anyone the opportunity or ability to become rich, famous, and influential. So I’m not here to hate on Oprah just because she’s probably the most powerful woman (person?) in the world.

I also think it’s great that she’s so philanthropic, even if that is part of her shtick. For what it’s worth, I’m sure it’s mostly genuine, even if it is undeniably crucial to her own future success.

But when it comes to the hero worship of the big O, I just don’t get it. Other than going on several semi-successful diets and giving away more cars than Bob Barker, what has she done that’s all that impressive? I mean, besides all that charity work. More to the point, what has she done for me?

I guess what really bothers me isn’t so much that everyone else takes her so seriously, but that she does as well. A couple years ago, she rubber-stamped James Frey’s memoir as a best seller by recommending it to her lemmings via her all powerful book club. When it later came out that Frey was a fraud, he was summoned back to the show for a good whuppin’. How dare he lie to Oprah… er, I mean, to the people? He threatened her credibility… um, I mean, betrayed millions!

In the end, I simply find the Oprah entity to be vapid, but probably no more so than everything else on TV. Considering what she’s up against in the daytime lineup, I suppose it’s no wonder she’s emerged as the people’s champion.

Fire as a survival tool? Yeah, whatever. Fire? You’re dead to me…

I understand that when man first left the Garden, fire may have played a very important role in the survival and perpetuation of our species. Whether it was used for cooking bacteria out of meat or as an agent of warmth, I’m sure fire proved priceless to our ancestors.

But I believe we need to ask ourselves, “Fire, what have you done for me lately?”

If my little single-engine plane crashed in Alaska, leaving my bush pilot dead and me miraculously alive, you best believe I ain’t wastin’ none of my precious time or energy runnin’ around like JoJo the Idiot Circus Clown, trying to make fire. What’s it gonna do, really? Warm my extremities? Cook the snow rabbit I’ll never catch? I’m sure that’s how most search and rescue people find their targets — hunched over some feeble kindling and moss, the face of their watch frozen in their hand, telling the tale of their futile and desperate efforts to refract sunshine into flame.

Me? They’ll find me back at base camp, ripping through some MREs, reading the newspaper, and telling them where I left the bush pilot. Wanna know why? I didn’t stay put and waste my time on combustion; I sucked it up and com-busted my way right outta there!

Okay, I can hear you now. “Job, you’re an idiot!” “Job, you’re gonna die.” “No, Job, seriously, you’re an idiot.” But perhaps I’m just forward-thinking. For centuries people thought Earth was flat, and as a result, tethered themselves to familiar ports, afraid to sail off the edge of the world. Similarly, for centuries, people in survival situations have trusted Fire to save their sorry selves, and they’ve stayed tethered to their locations, rubbing sticks together and acting like they actually know what flint is, SOSing themselves crazy.

But me? I’m a latter-day Columbus, willing to thumb my nose at accepted science and Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria-ing myself to new frontiers.

Fire might be a luxury, but when it comes to survival, it is SO overrated.

Of all the survival tips, tools, and tricks, fire is the American Express: don’t leave home without it.

Any storied mercenary, mountaineer, or adventurer such as myself will tell you that when it comes to surviving the chilling cold winter winds of Siberia, the torrential monsoons of Southeast Asia, or a hostile desert crawling with wildlife, without fire, you will die.

You. Will. Die.

The benefits of fire are obvious and threefold.

First, heat. When the sun goes down, Earth loses its heat source. When the planet loses its heat source, so do you. And a survival situation is more than just the discomfort you face while jogging six blocks down the street to Starbucks to get warm, Job. When base camp is hundreds of miles away, when there are no straight lines to gauge direction and distance, when you’re injured and you can’t just follow your nose back to your Froot Loops, what will you do? When hypothermia sets in, there’s only one way to stave off the cold that permeates, debilitates, and suffocates. Fire will save your life.

Second, protection. Most of the predators that will attack a human in the wild are both nocturnal and opportunistic. Wolves, jackals, jihadists, dingos, and ROUSes all attack under the cover of darkness. Light from a fire will reveal your enemy and, in a pinch, make for an effective weapon. Use of tools separates the higher primates from the lower primates; use of fire separates us from the higher primates. Every other creature is instinctively afraid of the very tool some would so callously cast aside — fire will save your life.

Third, morale. The greatest obstacle to survival is not nature, predators, or enemy combatants. It’s human nature. Fear and hopelessness will debilitate you more effectively than any RPG: from the inside out. If your survival depends on others, keeping morale high will increase your chances immensely. In the cold and dark, fear creeps in, and though light and heat may seem like creature comforts, they’ll keep you sane. Fire will save your life.

As a luxury item, fire is overrated. But as a survival tool, it’s next to none.

Fire will save your life.

The true gridiron classic, the crossword puzzle simply outclasses its numerical counterpart.

The crossword puzzle (in its modern form) dates to its 1913 invention by Arthur Wynne, but word squares have been found even under the ruins of Pompeii, a testament to their timeless popularity. Shortly after Wynne’s initial “Word-Cross,” the crossword puzzle again took the world by storm, easily becoming its most popular word game. Crosswords require finesse, creativity, logic, a firm grasp on language, and a sense of humor.

Sudoku, on the other hand (if that’s how it’s spelled), is a newcomer to the puzzle world, invented in 1974 by Howard Garns. Unlike the crossword, which requires creativity, logic, and knowledge, Sideko is solved by logic (or luck) alone.

And speaking of alone, Saduka is usually solved alone, a testament to the poor social and hygiene skills of its practitioners. The crossword is truly a democratic puzzle — the game of the everyman. Think back to the last time you saw someone hunched over a newspaper, pen (or for cowards, pencil) in hand. A crossworder may look up, make eye contact, and speak directly to you. “Hello, friend,” they might ask, “What’s a four letter word for ‘killer whale’?” It’s more than solitaire, it’s an interpersonal event… it’s proper socialization! It’s community!

Replay that scene in your mind, but substitute the lesser puzzle of Suck-doku. Instead of eye contact, your feral co-worker will likely make indiscriminate marks on the page, muttering to himself, never quite acknowledging your presence or humanity. Years later, after failing to complete even one square, he is, frankly, quite likely to snap and firebomb your company warehouse.

Oh yeah, and size does matter, baby. From the standard 15×15 grids of your weekday puzzle all the way up to the Weekly World News’s 35×35 Bigfoot puzzles, crosswords trounce Sakodu’s petty 9×9 grids. Aesthetically pleasing, the crossword contains radial symmetry, contrasting white and black squares in interesting designs. Suducu’s only claim to fame is that every puzzle is as boringly plain as the last.

What’s it going to be? The logic, beauty, and cruciverbial wonder of the crossword, or the irritatingly confining multiplication table that is Sydyky?

P.S. If anyone could help me with 26-Across — “Wish to a traveler,” eight letters? Yeah, thanks.

Crosswords and Sudoku are very similar, really.

Both combine the excitement of painstakingly filling out small grids in a strictly regimented way with the fun of sitting quietly. Both are presumed by many reliable sources as activities that build the intellect. And both are best enjoyed responsibly.

However, if one of the two had to be sacrificed from our nation’s coffee shops, subway trains, and lecture halls, the choice would be simple:

We would have to ditch the crossword.

Sudoku is, by its very nature, inclusive. Speaking the universal language of numbers, a Sudoku puzzle spreads its grid wide enough to encompass people from any culture, any walk of life.

Crosswords trend toward the opposite extreme of exclusion, taking on themes so obscure as to alienate the vast majority of those initially drawn to their checkerboard good-looks and witty tete-a-clue-tete. Glamour without warmth is not what I look for in a woman, and absolutely not what I want in a pastime.

Sudoku’s simple, yet elegant rules can be learned in minutes. Place each digit, 1-9, one time in each row, in each column, and in each 3-by-3 square.

Compare that to the nuances of a typical crossword puzzle. If there’s an abbreviation in the clue, does that mean the answer is abbreviated as well? In what tense do they want this word?

And what’s with all the Latin?

I’ll admit — Sudoku is a relatively new addition to the flashy world of the comic-page. But even considering the Jumble, word-search, and the behemoth that is the New York Times crossword, Sudoku remains one enigmatic David who can take up nine smooth digits and get the amusement done.

I am driving and I pull into the tiny parking lot of a Sunoco gas station. There are only three or four spots, but I am seriously lost, and on top of that, I have to go to the bathroom. Badly. So I park my car, grab my purse, get out, and run inside.

Although there are several other people at the gas station, the first thing I notice is that I am the only Anglo, and the only woman, in the building. As I search for the likely dingy and dark bathroom, the only thought that stands out to me is: I hope I locked my car…

What just happened there? Because I was the ‘white’ woman in the situation, I assumed there was automatically a higher probability that the men around me would commit a crime? Yes. Exactly.

I didn’t even tell you what race any of the men were — but how many of you had a picture in your head? Lebanese? African-American? Ukrainian? In the past year, I have met people of all three backgrounds at gas stations, and never have I been robbed, never have I been assaulted, never has anything gone the least bit illegal.

So how is it even possible that racial profiling — the practice by law enforcement officers of taking into account racial or ethnic background when taking action — could seem right?

The ACLU defines racial profiling as the practice of investigating, stopping, frisking, searching, or using force against a person based on his or her race or ethnicity, and not criminal behavior. Pedestrian stops, “gang” databases, suspicion at stores and malls, and immigration worksite raids can be included in the definition as well.

So please tell me, what gives our law enforcement officers the right to do such a thing? To arrest someone based on the way that they look instead of their behavior? To detain, search, or harass someone because they can??

The answer is: nothing gives them the right. It is systemized racism, and should not be tolerated.

If racial profiling were called by almost any other name, or used almost any criteria other than race, I doubt many would be averse to it. Trying to prevent crimes or attacks on US citizens using statistics about which person is more likely to be a terrorist or criminal sounds pretty reasonable.

So what if race is one of the factors involved? Does a good idea suddenly become ludicrous? I’m going to talk mostly about international terrorism — it’s the situation in which racial profiling is most clearly justifiable (and therefore not wrong in every situation, or in principle).

There are some questions about the efficacy of racial profiling, but that’s not at issue here; the question is whether questioning or detaining someone comparatively more based on their race infringes that person’s right to privacy. Racial profiling, when done correctly, does not imply that anyone is guilty of a crime; rather, it is more comparable to what happens when the police are trying to track a felon.

If a white male of average build has brutalized someone while walking down the street, does it infringe on anyone’s constitutional rights if, in the course of finding the one who committed the crime, a few white males of average build are taken aside and questioned? We are at war with certain parts of the world whose inhabitants happen to look a certain way, and we need to react to that fact with smart policies designed to prevent attacks rather than kowtowing to PC sensibilities.

I would happily be detained for longer at an airport, even for hours, if it meant there was a slightly smaller chance that my plane would be taken over by hijackers or terrorists. This type of racial profiling may be a little insulting and quite inconvenient, but it would be difficult to find a credible constitutional lawyer who considered it a true infringement on constitutional rights.

Of course, engaging in racial profiling requires us to maintain rigorous standards and keep a watchful eye out for possible abuses of the system; it should never provide an excuse for racist actions. Additionally, racial profiling for strictly domestic crimes is a bit more complicated, and should be far more limited than racial profiling at airports or borders.

However, saying that all racial profiling is wrong regardless of the context sacrifices security, safety, and reality to political correctness — a very dangerous sacrifice to make.

Misplaced compassion is a dangerous force. On this earth, we must all reconcile justice and mercy, because an excess of either produces similar harm. This is why I tell you that if you care about the people of Mexico — if you really care about them — you should support stricter enforcement of our immigration laws.

First, my opponent’s opening argument, carried to a logical conclusion, would entirely eliminate the right to own real property and the sovereignty of nations. None of us deserve anything before we’re born, do we? And our country, bordered as it is by those pesky “invisible lines” drawn before any of our births, apparently has no right or claim to its territory, and should have no ability to enforce the laws its people make. Really?

Fortunately, that’s not the way things work. Governments derive their powers — as Don Shula and Peyton Manning reminded us so wonderfully before the Super Bowl — from the consent of the governed, and owe no duty to provide for those they do not govern. National boundaries mean something, and always will. I’m on the north side of that “invisible line” because my ancestors worked hard and made choices that benefit me. I dang well do have a right to be here, because those folks built “here” — meaning my country, which has passed laws to control who gets to enter it and live. That is our right. Period.

I can’t believe someone could actually believe a country has no right to control entry through its borders. The well-known tragedy of the commons should be enough to dispel this argument; bringing in hordes of people with no connection to this country, simply because they might find a better life here than at home, is a recipe for utter disaster. Our government is not responsible to give the whole world jobs. The church has the largest role to play in helping the less fortunate, not the state.

All that is to say that the choice is not between (a) opening our borders to all and (b) allowing children to starve. That’s emotional blackmail with little basis in fact. And I’m not complaining that “them durn forners” are “taking all our jobs,” either — I like free trade and outsourcing, which make up the other half of my opponent’s argument, with which I totally agree. Moving factories to Mexico does much more to help its people than immigration ever will.

Cultural issues, although they matter, do not compel me to make this argument. There are clearly differences among the peoples of the world, but no race or nation is uniquely blessed. After all, our country is the richest and most advanced for many reasons — most due to ingenuity, technology and hard work, but some due to our shameful exploitation of this continent’s natives and the African slaves.

And that’s my main point. Illegal immigration continues that pattern of shameful exploitation, success on the backs of the poor and powerless. We rightly deplore it when we read about it in our history books, but ignore it when it hides in the guise of mercy. The farm lobby lies through its greedy, manure-specked teeth when it says enforcement of our laws would drive lettuce to $35 a head. What big business truly wants is a permanent underclass of simple-minded drones, human machines who can be replaced at will, paid a pittance, and discarded when necessary. Modern-day slaves, battling not only the scourge of poverty, but also the greed and deceit of those who pretend to help them escape it.

Tough love is the answer when your teenage son crashes your car, or when your underage daughter comes home drunk. As a nation, we must reject a sloppy sentimentality that misdirects our admirable compassion for the needy by both encouraging a culture of lawlessness and creating a new slave class for modern-day robber barons to rape and pillage afresh. They come here illegally, so they will not turn to the law for help. Their own nation shamefully casts them off on us, and so they sacrifice in search of a better life — one that ends with them literally worked to death.

I really don’t care what some poem says on a French statue — our founding document is the Declaration of Independence. It recognizes that all men and women were created equal, and all were endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. That sure as heck doesn’t mean they all get to live here — we can do what we like with our borders, and frankly, I’m all for drastically limiting immigration of unskilled workers who aren’t fleeing torture or persecution. Go to the mall — we’ve got plenty of dumb folks already.

But if and when we do let anyone in, the Declaration compels us to treat them like we would our brother. That includes both a responsibility to obey ALL our laws, and the right to be treated like a human being. The current policy treats both of those as optional.

“Thou shalt not oppress the stranger that is among you.”
Exodus 22:21

One of the funniest shows I can remember watching in the 70s was All in the Family with Archie Bunker. He was the hero of a generation of white men who sat in their easy chairs complaining about the encroachment of foreigners and minorities, who were ruining our way of life.

It was great comedy, but I’m a Christian now, and I resent the fact that the residual effects of that humor still color our conception of what it means to be an American. We think that somehow, because we were born north of some invisible line, we deserve to be here, while those born south of that line do not. I can’t accept that. It’s one thing to be born on third base and another thing entirely to have hit a triple. You did nothing to deserve to be here.

“But these people are criminals! They broke the rules to get here. Let them go through the proper steps to become citizens like my ancestors did.” That would be nice, I agree, but it’s never been that way. We have always taken in a large number of illegal immigrants. Could you really tell a man whose child is starving, “Fill out this form and leave it at the desk, we’ll call you if something comes up”? I couldn’t.

I wonder what you would do if your family was living in poverty, while 50 miles to the north, there was enough money to lift them out of despair and sickness — all you had to do was get there and work for it. Would you not do everything in your power to help them, regardless of the rules?

“But they’re taking our jobs!” Yeah, they are. What do you want to do — send them home? Let Americans pick produce working for some union that gets them health benefits, decent wages and a good pension plan, while we end up paying $35 for a head of lettuce? Does that fit into your budget?

I get so tired of people whining about losing jobs to foreigners. Our last large textile mill here closed down in 2006; two guys from my church worked there. One ended up as a supervisor at the new Wal-Mart distribution Center, and the other collected unemployment for a few months while working construction under the table.

When a plant closes here, it’s an inconvenience — somebody’s daughter has to settle for a less expensive dress than she wanted for the prom; some guy has to buy his son a used Mustang for graduation instead of a brand new model. Cry me a river.

When the plant opens up in some Third World nation, suddenly people who would have died live! Kids who were begging on the street, or being exploited by perverts for sexual gratification can earn money and change their living conditions. And some poor woman raising her kids alone in the good old USA can afford to buy them new jeans.

The truth is, when we think we’ve hit bottom here, there are still another seven layers of hell we’ll never experience — because we live in the wealthiest nation on the face of the earth, with the most extensive welfare network on the planet.

If you starve here, it’s because you want to. You have to work hard to fall through the cracks. And yet we begrudge help to those who have come here in response to this invitation:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

Maybe we need to rework that old poem:

Send your wealthy to our scheming shore,
the ones with jobs from across the sea,
the rich investor who can help us more,
the learned man with the Ph.D.,
we’ll leave the light on for you.

I know many people chafe against America’s stint as the world’s police, but if that role were ever necessary, the situation in Darfur is the time. This is not the global equivalent of assault, grand theft auto, or arson. It is, my friends, murder one.

I’m an isolationist at heart, but not spurious in my desire to see American intervention in areas of political or religious upheaval. I think, at times, intervention is necessary, and I support our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan currently, and Haiti and Somalia in the past. But the sheer scope of the tragedy in Darfur — the injustice, the lawlessness, the bloodshed, and the fact that there are no cool heads to be put towards prevailing — gives this situation a sense of urgency on steroids.

Whatever compassionate, protective, empathetic part of the brain that responded to the great tsunami should also respond to this senseless loss of life. There are not sides to be delicately understood, or diplomatic measures to be massaged here. What is necessary is for the only nation with the willpower, the means, the expertise, and the track record — the United States of America — to send not only our soldiers and sailors to Sudan, but also our Marines.

This can’t be misconstrued as a search for oil or hegemonic dominance. This is an instance where the darkness of the world is winning, while we do nothing about it. I don’t speak of darkness in the Biblical sense — although I could focus this argument entirely on our need as a believing nation to alleviate the suffering there — but rather a darkness of ideology that continues to dim the value of life and the vigor of freedom all over the world. Our indifference — perhaps too strong a term for 2008, but which will most certainly be applied (perhaps accurately) years from now — to the plight sickens me on a personal level and frustrates me on a policy level.

What an opportunity — to reshape an image, reinvigorate our “brand,” and mold an emerging Africa in a better shape — while ending the slaughter (and that is not hyperbole) that should be casting a shadow over our nation’s collective conscience.

It’s a human rights crime. 200,000 to 400,000 dead, over two million displaced. Why the discrepancy in numbers? The chaos makes it impossible to carry out a proper count, but one thing is for sure — the situation is dire. So how could anyone say that the U.S. shouldn’t send troops to Darfur?

It’s simple — sustainability. History has taught us that the only way improvements can occur is through sustainable development. What does that mean? Consider intervention like a drug. Morphine is meant to alleviate pain. Unfortunately, if it’s administered without prudence and discretion, the recipient will become addicted, and the drug will destroy his life.

Likewise for international aid. For example, look at the 2007 report of the Millennium Development Goals. In most cases, there has been improvement, but it is, unfortunately, nominal. NGOs, much like foreign aid, can sometimes facilitate dependency and make it difficult for a country or group to overcome circumstances on their own. Or worse, they will fund the corrupt government, or opposition groups, while civilians continue to be slaughtered.

This is what I fear for Darfur. But aid is exactly what the displaced people are expecting. In a stunning article written in 2007, Amber Henshaw interviewed six people within the camps, asking them questions like, “What do you think is needed to reduce, and hopefully stop, the fighting and killing completely?,” and “What do you think could most change your situation right now?” The answer was always, “Protection from the international community.” The six Sudanese interviewees were convinced that nothing would change until troops, whether from the U.S. or another country, were deployed to shield them from the Janjaweed.

Millions of dollars have been poured into developing countries; yet, as the MDG report testifies, the change is negligible in relation to the resources. Perhaps it’s heartless to say that the Sudanese people have to do it themselves. But the fact of the matter is that history tells us they do.

June 2, 2007 — Kelsey Smith, 18, was abducted and strangled by Edwin Roy “Jack” Hall, outside a store where she had purchased a present for her boyfriend. Hall’s identity and apprehension was aided by the store’s use of security cameras. On his MySpace page, “Jack” called himself a “Sweet Troubled Soul,” interested in “eating small children and harming small animals.” Prosecutors are considering the death penalty.

February 1, 2004 — Carlie Jane Brucia, 11, was returning from a sleepover when she cut through a car wash. There she was led away by a man, never to be seen alive again. The camera at the car wash showed a man in a uniform shirt approaching Carlie, talking to her, and then leading her away. NASA assisted by enhancing the image, and the FBI helped find Brucia and her abductor. Police arrested Joseph P. Smith, who had been arrested at least 13 times in 11 years, and had been previously charged with kidnapping. Carlie’s family described her as a beautiful young girl who loved her cat named Charlie and enjoyed time with her friends.

February 12, 1993 — Jamie Bulger, 2, was kidnapped from a mall in Liverpool, England, by two 10-year-old boys, who then took him for a long walk which ended with them senselessly beating him to death and tying him to train tracks. The boys, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, had been stealing things all day at the mall. Caught on CCTV with James, the boys were convicted of his abduction and murder.

May 30, 2005 — Natalee Holloway, 18, disappeared while on a post-graduation senior trip in Aruba. She was last seen leaving a popular nightclub with three young men — Joran van der Sloot, Deepak Kalpoe, and Satish Kalpoe. All three men were arrested but released, and there was no security tape available of her on the island. Her family and friends hold out hope for a miracle, and her mother travels to churches, sharing her testimony of God’s strength and presence in her life, despite these devastating circumstances.

I could have listed numerous cases of missing kids where cameras could have provided some needed answers and valuable closure. I personally believe that when you are in public, you and your actions are public property.

The argument in favor of surveillance cameras is a touching one. How many crimes against innocents — especially children — could be prevented? Isn’t saving a life — just one life — worth any qualms we might have over privacy issues?

Of course, exactly the same argument could be raised for banning McDonald’s. Many more people die from the results of overeating than are murdered each year. Shouldn’t our government be concerned with this? Isn’t saving lives the point?

While people who feel this way (including my worthy adversary) are to be commended for their humanitarian spirit, I don’t understand the role of government in this way. Government doesn’t exist to save the lives of its citizens, it exists to preserve the rights of its citizens without which freedom is a hollow word.

The genius of the seminal documents of our nation is that they recognize the dangers of totalitarianism: give all the power to the state and watch the state misuse it. The right to privacy implied in the Constitution provides an important safeguard against this.

I may occasionally choose to give up my right to privacy. With a club card, I allow the grocery store to know what I purchase in return for discounts. I allow cookies on my computer in order to use internet services I enjoy.

I am willing to compromise my right to privacy in extraordinary circumstances, or simply for something special I enjoy. But I am unwilling to compromise my right to privacy simply to walk around town or use the subway.

Does that mean that occasionally people will violate the rights of others, even the sacred right to life? Yes, of course, and those people should be punished appropriately. But violating the basic rights of all to protect against a few predators is simply unacceptable.

It’s good to be the king.

The Tyrant King of the Lizards, that is.

T. rex is the epitome of dinosaur. Weighing four to six tons, 40 feet long, 20 feet tall, and with a four-foot jaw filled with razor-sharp teeth upwards of 12 inches, T. rex was not built for play dates. He was a killing machine that ate meat.

The image of dinosaur conjured up in every mind is of an enormous Tyrannosaurus, standing over the body of a lame dinosaur like a Triceratops, Stegosaurus, or an Apatosaurus, roaring in delight. Oh, I’m sorry, did I say Apatosaurus? Perhaps I meant Brontosaurus.

While the incorrectly named Brontosaurus would passively graze, staring around with its vacant, cow-like eyes and walnut-sized brain, Tyrannosaurus stalked the primordial jungles of Laurasia, with a brain over twice the size of herbivorous dinos. That’s right, Laurasia, or present-day America. If America were a dinosaur, it would totally be T. rex.

Broadly speaking, the only lame thing about the T. rex is the disproportionate size of its teeny forearms. But recent discoveries show that the arms, while small, were incredibly muscular, designed to hold its prey in place while it was devoured.

So who’s it going to be? The Tyrant Lizard King, with his gigantic brain, or the dim-witted, hopelessly lame, salad-eating “thunder lizard”?

Today is “July 4th Eve,” the day before we celebrate the birth of our wonderful nation. The story involves a small group of poorly-armed militiamen successfully fighting off the forces of a terrible king and rising to become a mighty colossus. It would be nigh on sacrilegious if, on today of all days, the readers of Bweinh! selected a tyrant as their favorite dinosaur.

Once you get past the hype surrounding the T-Rex, what is it? For what does it use its kingship over the other dinosaurs? According to Calvin and Hobbes (a reliable source if there ever was one), T-Rex was either a fearsome predator or a loathsome scavenger. Regardless of Calvin’s answer, we should be unwilling, as Americans or Christians, to accept a dinosaur fitting either description as our favorite. There are better paths than predator or scavenger.

Enter the brontosaurus. Simple- minded and simple-living? Probably. Defenseless? Hardly. Strength has always been a prerequisite to peace and the brontosaurus is built to last. No teeth or claws to speak of: just pure size and a willingness to group together with others when necessary. Its name means “thunder lizard,” and it is indeed mighty, a force of nature — at least 23 metric tons to the T-Rex’s 6.8.

With this in mind, the brontosaurus now seems more like the mighty United States (its fossils have also been found here). And the T-Rex is placed squarely with the North Koreas and Irans of the world: noisy and fussed over for weaponry, but in the end unable to match the sheer size and power of its mighty adversary in a fair fight.

Do not reject America’s proud heritage of reluctant heroism and unmatched power in exchange for tyranny and a set of shiny teeth.

To the uneducated eye — otherwise known as people who think fans of any “Star” franchise are just a bunch of dorks — there’s not a lot of difference between Star Trek and Star Wars. But I’m here to tell you, despite the Trek’s mountainous advantage in total number of TV shows and movies, I’ll take quality over quantity. Allow me to take you to a galaxy far, far away…

I guess I should start by admitting that I am far from an expert in Trek matters. But as near as I can tell, Star Trek’s contributions to our world consist of little more than “Beam me up, Scotty,” and the worst fight scene ever.

Star Wars has so much more to offer. They have better characters and better actors (not that it’s that hard to overcome the ongoing intentionally unintentional joke that is William Shatner). There’s the charisma of Han Solo, ably played by Harrison Ford, easily the most successful actor from either franchise. There’s the mystery and wisdom of Obi Wan Kenobi, originally thanks to the legendary Sir Alec Guinness. There’s spunky old Yoda and his beloved verbal patterns, part of a genius partnership with Jim Henson. And of course, there’s the terrifying Darth Vader, with the booming voice of James Earl Jones — consensus choice for the greatest screen villain of all time.

And there’s more to love. Light sabers, for instance. If you try to tell me you’ve never wanted a light saber, you’re lying through your teeth. That goes double for Jedi powers. The entire Star Wars universe is just a more intriguing place to be, which accounts for the massive popularity of the entire line of Star Wars video games that put you right there (Incidentally, I highly recommend Lego Star Wars, Battlefront II, or Knights of the Old Republic, depending on your genre of choice).

The creative genius of George Lucas brings all this to life, with an attention to detail that makes everything more authentic and a superior sound track that makes everything seem more important. So if you’re ready to vote for Star Wars, may the force be with you.

And if you’re not, then this isn’t the clash you’re looking for. Move along.

Space. The final frontier.

If you’re anything like me, when you read those words, you began to hear the haunting strains of a string orchestra begin to swell. In your mind’s ear, each phrase was delivered with the firm, yet understanding tones of a Royal Shakespearean Company-trained actor. And in your heart was awakened a yearning — a yearning to be entertained.

Those four words (for those of you who may not know) are the opening to Star Trek: The Next Generation, the second well-known television series in a series that to date has numbered seven incarnations. Ten films have been spun from the original concept, with an eleventh currently in production. Compare that with a measly three good Star Wars movies, with another few that even die-hard fans loathed. But commercial success can’t be our only basis for comparison. With that in mind, how do Wars and Trek really compare in a number of key areas?

Robots
Star Wars gets points for sheer numbers, but let’s face it: their robots are annoying. Neurotic gold-plated three-dollar C3PO flutters around uselessly, his talents for “interpreting” rendered useless by a voice that engenders a burning hatred in the end-user. Data, on the other hand, is a positronic-brained android of the classic Asimov model, neither annoying nor metallic-looking. Sure, he may not look human, but he wants to be, which is more than you can say for the whirring, beeping R2D2.

Muscle
Chewbacca may be hundreds of years old, but it’s pretty obvious he didn’t spend any of them at the speech therapist. His voice is even worse than C3PO’s, and can only be understood by his “partner” Han Solo. Klingon Worf, son of Mogh, on the other hand, has any number of memorable lines. From “Sir I protest! I am not a merry man!” to “If you were any other man, I would kill you where you stand!,” Worf worked hard, played hard, and enjoyed nothing more than a tall, frosty glass of prune juice. And I’ll wager his conditioner bills were much lower as well.

Character With Big Ears
Leonard Nimoy brought his quiet dignity so obvious in his recording of “The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins” to the role of the ever-logical half-Vulcan Mr. Spock. Who does Star Wars have? Oh, only those three little words every Star Wars fan loves to hear:

Jar Jar Binks.

As a people, Americans have always paid our collective independence more than its share of lip service. We claim to be a land of freedom, say we have thrown off the bonds of tyranny that yoked our nation in her infancy, and present ourselves to the world as a paragon of liberty. Yet we persist in using a system of weights and measures based not on any semblance of sense, but on the whims and physical characteristics of the despotic few who governed the monarchies of antiquity.

The standard system ruled the roost of world business for centuries, growing comfortably fat off the toil of our brows and calculating machines. Wide rolls of strange numerical conversions began to hang from its jowls as it glutted itself at the table of commerce. Was this monster decimal? Octal? Dodecahedral? Who could afford to question? Time was better spent trying to determine the number of ounces in a hogshead, or inches in a furlong. But a new wind was about to blow.

Amid the tumult of the last time the French showed any collective semblance of bravery, a few daring souls decided to forge a universal system of measure. Rather than the length of a king’s thumb, or the volume of your average sheep bladder, they selected a length they would use for a base, a length of the people. The world was changing! The king was dead; he could no longer force the people to memorize numbers like 12, 16, 1160, or 5280! Instead, they counted their fingers, counted their toes, averaged the result and arrived at the number 10. That’s right, the same number upon which our entire system of numbers is based.

Not only can you convert between a nanometer and a kilometer just by moving a decimal place, you can even move between two and three dimensions without straining. Without measuring someone’s anatomy. Without consulting a council of bearded elders, table of ciphers or magician’s grimoire. When was the last time a child was able to proudly tell his teacher the number of cubic inches in a gallon? But any precocious tot can be instructed that a thousand independent little cubic centimeters together become a proud, powerful liter.

In a time of increasing foreign tension, should we really be raising the next generation to measure the world in a way foreign to the others who call it home? Is it worth enduring the confusion and inconsistency of the standard system, just so our grandchildren will measure their ice cream in the manner of our fathers? Just look into your heart, and count your toes.

I think you’ll find they hold the answer.

I pastor a church in a threatened part of the world. Chester County, Pennsylvania, just east of Lancaster, is a county of rolling hills and mushroom farms, and is a traditional home to horse trainers. You can still pass an idyllic Saturday in the southern part of the county watching the county as it used to be.

But the town where I pastor, Exton, has long been under threat. Every chain restaurant in the world, it seems, has moved in. I live about twenty minutes away, in Coatesville; a mere ten-minute drive from our church or home could take you to five McDonald’s, three Wendy’s, two Friendly’s, three Applebee’s, and countless other familiar restaurants that have conspired to all but destroy local cuisine.

We don’t need more themed chain restaurants beating the individuality out of us, and we sure don’t need a metric system forcing us all into a mold, even if it is a perfectly square, perfectly sensible, extremely user-friendly mold.

Do you really prefer the meter to the yard? We know how the meter came into being: it was a product of the “pure reason” so popular (and so stunningly bloody) in the French Revolution. Indeed, in 1799, the French stored away the originals of the meter and the other metric units, adorning the metric system with the motto, “For all men, for all time.”

On the contrary, we don’t know precisely where the yard comes from, only that its origin lies in charmed tradition. The girth of a person’s waist? The distance from Henry VIII’s nose to the tip of his outstretched thumb? No one knows for sure–all we know is that it’s a much better story than a bunch of progress-minded revolutionaries laying off the bloodshed long enough to standardize something random, then attempting to force the rest of the world to use it.

And they have tried to force the metric system. Don’t believe me? Ask the “Metric Martyrs,” a group of five English grocers who were fined for failing to measure their produce in metric units. Ask any Canadian you want. Their government went to the trouble of creating a logo to demonstrate their allegiance to metric’s new world order, pushing imperial users into underground quietness. Like Narnians, they must patiently await their chance to again enjoy their nation as it used to be.

So, go ahead, vote for the metric system. And while you’re homogenizing the world, would you also cast a ballot for eradicating local accents, closing the family-owned hardware store, and creating a list of state-approved songs for worship?

Thanks so much.

Steve wants me to make the argument that Huckabee is a conservative. While I think this is as easy as arguing that the oceans are wet, Steve seems to think it will require a verbal kung fu of fantastic flips and acrobatic maneuvering to prove. Steve thinks this because he has his own vision of a conservative, and being a consistent Republican gives him some degree of clout in that theatre.

However, Steve is not the mold from which all conservatives are born, and it is ridiculous for him to state, unequivocally, that issues such as the pro-life movement (and Governor Huckabee’s lifelong support of it) don’t even begin to align the man from Hope with others who also call themselves “conservative.”

There is not a soul on the planet that I agree with on everything. I could probably even make a creepy, Freudian argument that I don’t even agree with myself on everything. From W to Huckabee to my own father, I don’t completely agree politically with anyone, although I support all those three with thorough veracity. This is because the greater cause of a person with a conservative worldview is the achievement of a more conservative world — and it is obscene and politically motivated to try to say that Mike Huckabee is not a bona fide conservative, with some of the best traits of that station.

First, Mike Huckabee is the most serious outspoken and unmuddied pro-life candidate in the history of the party. He never engages in double-speak, and harbors true disgust for the attitude towards the unborn in the country. He also is aggressively against homosexual unions and for pulling out of Iraq prematurely. He is against universal health care, which is fast becoming a pan-liberal stance, and he wants to get rid of the income tax — the great golden chalice of American fiscal conservatism.

The governor also makes his support for Israel, Taiwan and South Korea a central part of his campaign, and he makes his intention of further pressure on the Cuban dictatorship an integral part as well. Huckabee was the first governor in the country to have a license for a concealed weapon, and his lifetime membership in the NRA is just the beginning of his support for Second Amendment rights — arguably the most authentic and robust of all the candidates. Mr. Huckabee is also a supporter of capital punishment (a point I personally disagree on, but a traditionally conservative one) and is the only candidate who has ordered the execution of inmates.

Really though, Steve just wants to rail against Huckabee’s history on taxes and immigration. I throw out immigration immediately. The issue of illegals in this country is too new, too organic, to immediately find its issues falling into political categories. I, with my President, support the guest-worker program. Many conservatives do not. But the supporting of the integration of Mexican people and culture into our country does not yet have a political home.

True, Mike Huckabee did aggressively lobby to allow the children of illegals born in this country to qualify for state scholarships — but I think it’s sad I have to teach a civics class to explain that if you’re born here, no matter the circumstances that brought your fetus over the border, you are a United States citizen. And it’s perverse to punish those children for their parents’ crime.

On taxes it’s true that the Governor had to raise taxes at times during his term, in response to the demands of his liberal legislature, but the Governor also lowered taxes with every chance he got. I doubt anyone would make the argument that George H. W. Bush is not a conservative, although he himself raised taxes as President. Sometimes, regrettably, tax-raising is a fact of federal life. And frankly, it can require a certain brand of bravery to do it.

But, as Steve asks us to do with Romney’s newfound social conservatism, we should dismiss the past and accept the candidate on what he currently runs on, and Huckabee runs on a tax-cutting platform. By every spoken and stated stance he takes, Governor Mike Huckabee is a true blue social and fiscal conservative and it’s painfully laughable that anyone should think otherwise.

This is not a political website; it is a website about everything, from the perspective of writers and thinkers who seek to follow the example of Jesus Christ. Several of us, and many more of you, don’t care much about politics, and so I try to ensure you won’t be overwhelmed by a flood of political coverage here. But some of the most interesting issues to me (and maybe you) are those bearing on faith. When Mike Huckabee began to take off, largely on an appeal to evangelical Christians, I watched closely. I did a lot of research on the man, what he believes, what he’s done, what he stands for. And I am left to conclude one thing.

Mike Huckabee is not a full-spectrum conservative.

Maybe you aren’t either! If not, this debate isn’t really that relevant. You might find that the governor’s beliefs match up well with your own, and if so, great! For Mike, those include a desire to close the Guantanamo Bay prison and bring al-Qaeda prisoners into the United States, granting them full constitutional rights and access to our courts — oh, and a promise to sign a federal ban on smoking in all public places, Constitution be darned! And I almost forgot how he freed thousands of prisoners and took hundreds of thousands of dollars in questionable gifts!

Ahh, post-modern conservatism.

I need to make an admission, though. On social issues, to his great credit, Mike Huckabee is a consistent conservative. He is a friend of life and I will not minimize that for one second. But there are three legs to the conservative coalition, three parts to its whole. Gov. Huckabee possesses only one of those legs, the one, in fact, that the president affects the least. And if you’ve ever had the misfortune to sit on a one-legged stool, you know it won’t hold you up for long — even if it has a winning wooden smile and proudly boasts its status as a “Christian stool.”

One of those legs is foreign policy. Gov. Huckabee wrote, in an article he submitted as part of a series in Foreign Affairs, that our nation has been a cocky high school student that “dominates others” around the world. Willfully ignoring the actual history of attempts to gain UN cooperation that predated the Iraq invasion, he went on: “The Bush administration’s arrogant bunker mentality has been counterproductive at home and abroad.”

When asked about the biggest foreign policy news during the campaign season — the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran — Huckabee was ignorant and clueless. Later, his excuse for cluelessness pointed the finger, again, at our sitting commander-in-chief: “President Bush didn’t read it for four years; I don’t know why I should read it in four hours.” Condoleeza Rice finally had to smack him down with the truth.

Which party are you in again, Huck? In these dangerous times, I don’t want a candidate who doesn’t know what he’s talking about in Iran or Pakistan, and can’t figure out who his foreign policy advisors are, probably because he doesn’t have any to speak of.

The third leg is fiscal conservatism. Job doesn’t mention that the results of Huck lowering taxes “every chance he got” was a net tax INCREASE of $505.1 million. And he wasn’t always “forced” to do it either — that link recounts his requests for tax increases. But now he misrepresents his record. Fiscal conservativism relies on cutting taxes whenever appropriate, and lowering spending whenever possible. That’s not Mike; under him, state spending increased 65.3% from 1996 to 2004, three times the rate of inflation.

It is not BRAVE to raise taxes, as Job improbably argues to my left (in so many ways). It is liberal — just like Huckabee’s endless rhetoric bloviating against CEOs and businesses. I sense a pattern. And his hopeless plan to replace the income tax with a national sales tax is not conservative. It’s just crazy.

Conservatives share a certain mindset — the underlying principles that have served the movement for years, including respect for life, belief in smaller government and a proper understanding of the Constitution and liberty. Mike Huckabee has the first principle in spades. But in place of the other two, he has something else entirely — a desire to have government solve our problems. This is the antithesis of conservatism. And it’s not at all “obscene” to point that out.

While tea lovers revel in tea’s health benefits, naysayers worry that anything as deliciously stimulating as java must be unhealthful. Most recently, coffee has shed its dangerous reputation, as researchers uncover evidence showing that coffee is safe in moderate amounts and might have some surprising benefits!

For instance, drinking more than four daily cups of coffee lowers the risk of diabetes. Tea has no similar effect. Coffee protects seniors against Parkinson’s disease, and is linked to lower rates of liver and colon cancer, while the FDA says more research is needed to support tea’s anti-cancer claims. Coffee is also chock-full of disease-busting antioxidants, the number one source of such chemicals in the American diet.

Butsowhat? We don’t really drink it because it has health benefits — that’s just a bonus. We suck it down at a rate of 400,000,000,000 (yes that’s 4 HUNDRED BILLION) cups a year because it tastes so good!

Lines at the local Starbucks any weekday morning are far longer than the voting lines in November. To say that coffee is a habit, bordering on a national obsession, would not understate the case. Coffee has become such a staple in the West that no event, public gathering or meal for large masses can be held without taking the “coffee factor” into account.

Quick Facts:
–Coffee is the number two beverage in the world, second only to water in total volume consumed.
–Coffee is nearly four times as popular as tea, the third most consumed beverage, and five times as popular as soda, which ranks fourth.
–In 2006 alone, the specialty coffee market racked up an estimated $12.2 billion in sales, up from $8.3 billion in 2001 (according to the Specialty Coffee Association of America).
–The number of coffee retailers has risen from only 1,650 in 1991 to 23,900 in 2006.
–Worldwide coffee consumption in 2003 was estimated at over 1.4 billion cups every single day — with more than 400 million of them consumed in the US!
–The average American consumes about 10.5 pounds of coffee per year, about half of what they consume in Scandinavia.

But what’s the true source of coffee’s momentum? Perhaps it’s the blanket of aromas (ahhhhhhh), the taste (love it!), the hot nutty-sweet bite of flavor teasing our tongue (Vanilla Biscotti from Folgers is hea-venly), or the lush, familiar warmth of our kitchen hearth and bouquet of mother’s cooking. It takes us home again and starts new traditions with our own families. Coffee is a win/win/win.

Coffee or tea?

It’s a question that’s haunted mankind for the ages. It will be answered here, today.

From time immemorial, mankind has been drinking medicinal teas for just about every ailment under the sun. Can’t sleep? Have some tea. Nausea? Have some tea. Heartburn? Indigestion? Upset stomach?

Diarrhea?

For most gastrointestinal ailments, there’s an appropriate herbal tea that, let’s face it, tastes better than the pink stuff. Coffee, on the other hand, can cause insomnia, heartburn, constipation, upset stomach, and the like.

Coffee 0, Tea 1.

Coffee is one of those foods. You know, the ones that always smell better than they taste? It’s true and you know it. The aroma of coffee is strong and inviting. But the taste just lets you down time and time and time again. One sip and you remember why people have to add flavor, sugar, cream or milk to make coffee bearable.

Tea, on the other hand, is as versatile as it is delicious. Feeling Christmassy? Have a nice peppermint tea. Feeling groggy first thing in the morning? Perhaps a nice English Breakfast Tea is in order. Feeling like commanding a starship? “Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.” is right up your alley. Equally aromatic, quintessentially delicious… tea is the way to go.

Coffee 0, Tea 2.

Ever since Ahmed Al-Starbucki first opened up shop, pushing his harmful wares on Christendom, the price has been ridiculous for coffee, and it’s just getting worse. The only way I’ll touch the stuff is with a healthy dose of milk, chocolate, and sugar, but six bucks for a stupid drink that’s just going to bind me up? Heck no! Tea’s a commodity. You can buy boxes of the stuff for cheap, and all you need is hot water.

Coffee 0, Tea 3.

From tummyaches to mistletoe to Jean-Luc, tea’s just the better choice. And so many choices! Hot or iced, tea has it all!

If the question is “Should we view China as an enemy?,” my answer is yes. Should we be marching in the streets burning Chinese flags, boycotting Chinese restaurants and dry cleaners? No. But make no mistake: the Chinese government views the US as its chief rival for military and economic dominance in Asia, and ultimately throughout the world, and that makes us enemies.

China is experiencing an economic boom that has pushed it into the top 6 in both GNP and GDP, and it’s using that windfall to increase military spending, even though it already possesses the largest standing army in the world and the 5th-largest military budget. It’s also using that money to upgrade its technical capabilities, acquiring sophisticated guidance systems and other improvements (legally or illegally), with a stated purpose of developing capabilities to interdict US expeditionary forces and US carrier battle groups in the Western Pacific.

China boasts 20% of the world’s population and aspires to be the dominant force in Asia, which contains 61% of the world’s population and 3 top economic powerhouses, including Japan and South Korea. Anyone remember why Japan bombed Pearl Harbor? America was flexing its economic and military muscles in Asia, and Japan felt they had one choice — expand or die. They gambled on confronting the dominant power in Asia rather than settling for playing second fiddle for the next few hundred years, and they lost. China has the sense to know they will face that same choice one day. It is no secret that they are preparing for it, and so are we.

But where is the danger zone? Aside from general tensions arising from our projection of power across the ocean to remain the dominant force in Asia, there are two major flashpoints:

North Korea — we fought the Chinese face to face in North Korea at the Chosin Reservoir, and by proxy all over Asia from the 1950s through the 1970’s. Has North Korea been in the news lately? Is Afghanistan part of Asia? Think they feel threatened by the only superpower fighting in their backyard and threatening to start another war in their side yard?

How about their front yard? Taiwan. They currently have 790 ballistic missiles aimed at Taiwan, and are not at all secretive about the fact that invading the island is the primary focus of their short-term military planning. We are pledged to defend Taiwan in case of invasion, and in fact have already intervened twice when China has amassed amphibious assault groups across the strait.

Don’t get me wrong; I do not mean to say that we as Christians are their enemy — but as I said before, they know that our country is ultimately their enemy, and our military planners know the same thing.

Knowing the feelings of many Bweinh!tributors on this issue, I am under no delusion that I will win this Clash. I also do not take issue with my opponent’s claim that China might see the USA as a potential military threat. However, I would like to point out that defining our enemies to include all nations that would consider taking up arms against us if their regional interests were threatened could characterize almost every nation in the world as a potential enemy.

Remember the stink that certain Europeans raised when the US intervened through a legitimate organization (NATO) in the Balkan region? Even our closest allies, those with whom we have a history of cooperation, were highly mistrustful of our intentions. Since our history with China has been considerably more spotty, it is quite likely that the present situation is simply the same phenomenon exacerbated by past interactions.

In other words, in the military arena China and the USA certainly have differences, but the differences aren’t large or deep-seated enough to net China a special “enemy” status.

In any case, friendliness among nations isn’t measured by alliances and military agreements as much as it used to be. Rather, it is measured in dollars, and in economic terms we have seen over and over again that in the era of globalization, ostracizing any one large nation hurts everyone involved far more than cooperation does.

An example: our dollar is currently in a free fall (thanks, Ben Bernanke!). Even though we’ve sunk past the pound, the Euro, and now even the Canadian dollar, the Chinese government and other “unfriendly” governments around the world continue to hold reserves in US dollars, which helps to stave off the inflation of our dollar — even though switching to a different reserve currency could provide far more stability and credibility to foreign investment than staying with a weakening currency.

Being friendly with China also provides more opportunities for trade, which could open one of the largest single markets in the world (aside from India, I suppose) and lead to further harmony between our two nations. True, the Kantian peace thesis of democracies not warring does not hold when one nation involved is not democratic. However, in China’s case, the other two legs of the Kantian Triangle (involvement in international institutions and involvement in trade) are increasing by the day.

China cannot afford to treat us as an enemy because its economy would slow to a crawl, and we cannot afford to treat China as an enemy, due to the vast potential of its economy to shape the way the world operates. We must continue to engage China with the wariness that we would afford to an engagement with any nation, but the end goal should be to bring China into a closer, friendlier relationship with the United States.

Telling other Christians you don’t like youth ministry is like slipping up and implying to a woman that she should lose some weight; shocked disbelief melts quickly into scorn. Fortunately, my disregard for such is an orbital blessing of having zero tact — you just get used to people’s disgust.

I’ll preface this harangue by saying souls have been won via youth ministry and that is, truly, the end of the argument. We count such as joy. People have been called to it, some are genuinely and admirably good at it, and much of the unbelieving or disbelieving world is moved by it. And the people I know who do youth ministry are the some of the best believers in my Rolodex. Should any of those souls read this — you know who you are — I trust you won’t see it as a personal attack. I would test your food for you or check under your beds for intruders; I would gladly relinquish any pulpit to your greater gifts. And though I’ve been known to mock youth pastors, I regret that our subculture has lampooned them to a point where their enthusiasm and uniqueness are treated like the Kool-Aid pitcher crashing through your wall.

But I come at youth ministry from a comprehensive viewpoint. I see it as a huge financial expense that produces very little return, treated with special honor though it’s relatively new. In a country as morally orphaned as ours, the desire to tag in for parents incapable of teaching their kids about the gospel and moral living is intoxicating, I know. But this is impossible in the broad sense, a hacking at the leaves, not the root — especially when most youth pastors are emerging from their early twenties themselves. Still the Church throws millions of dollars at the institution because it seems so relevant, obvious and even sexy?

A major problem with youth ministry is that young people develop close personal relationships with their youth pastors, not with Christ. And by definition, this relationship ends, kicking the crutch out from under the teen. I’d be more comfortable with the ministry if pastors acted like shepherds, not buddies filling the hole of good influence for a time.

When I think of what we could do with the funds spent on youth ministry, I get excited. Churches could hire a prison pastor, a pastor for the elderly, a director for service projects. I’m uncomfortable with the fevered sense of inadequacy some bodies feel without a youth pastor, and the depth of our love for this template for success in the face of such a morass of spiritual needs. The preoccupation with youth ministry baffles me.

But in short, I’m a Christian fanboy; I love this faith to death and I’m already in line for the sequel. And youth ministry is my Jar Jar Binks. I don’t like seeing so much money and talent spent on a guild and culture that doesn’t produce the lasting belief or believers to account for all we pour into it.

I know, I know; I’m a pig. But that was a pretty big lunch she ordered.

Full disclosure — I’m what you might call a “professional Christian,” having made the entirety of my adult living working for the church, much of that with youth. But I also grew up exclusively in churches without a professional youth worker, and I believe very strongly in a full-Body approach to ministry.

In many ways, I agree with Job that the efficiency and effectiveness of youth ministry should be frequently evaluated, even scrutinized, just like every other effort of the church, to ensure we are doing what is right. But the idea that a church should not make a significant and concentrated investment in youth fails to measure up logically, Biblically, or even from Job’s preferred viewpoint, the “business model.”

Taking the coarsest argument first, from a business standpoint, it’s pretty much a given that developing product loyalty at an early age is sound business. Even if it involves an exorbitant present expense, hooking a customer early brings a payoff for the rest of his life. Just ask our friends at the tobacco companies (Oh, I forgot, they don’t advertise to minors anymore! *wink wink*). And if you don’t hook him early, someone else probably will, and you’ll have a much tougher time selling him later in life.

If Job wants to know where the urgency and insecurity comes from in churches without an intentional youth ministry, I have a theory — they don’t want their church to die off. Which is exactly what would happen to a group that failed to bring in new, young blood, and is, in fact, exactly what has happened or come close to happening in many churches.

“Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.”

In a world where more and more parents will not or cannot do this, the church must. Certainly every effort should be made to reach the whole family, but for those adults who choose to go their own way, yet send their young off to church, we must step into the gap. The church must stand up and give our youth the best possible opportunity to choose the Way, the Truth, and the Life. I know that I am the man I am today because of the lessons I learned when I was young. I was blessed to learn them in my home, and I take that blessing seriously enough to fight the uphill battle to teach them to kids whose homes contradict them daily.

Do we need to make sure we’re giving our kids the real thing? Absolutely. Do we need to be careful not to segregate the Body? Without a doubt.

But where there are failings in these or other areas, it’s an area for that church to improve, not an indictment of focusing on such a bountiful harvest.

During my time on the camp ministry team this summer, I learned a few valuable lessons. One was never to buy flip flops that you don’t think can take some serious wear ‘n tear. Another is that, not infrequently, teens’ misbehavior is an expression of much deeper psychological issues, not just rebellion.

The third is — I can’t stand the Simpsons.

There, I said it. Bring on the criticism of my sense of humor, my taste, my ability to see a classic. Of course, the Simpsons has endured for almost 20 years — so why on Earth can I not see that it’s what the people want? If you want, bring on how much I actually laugh at the Simpsons’ rendition of Hamlet. Yes, I do find it funny.

So why can’t I get into the concept, appeal, and vast majority of this apparent masterpiece?

When the team arrived at Jumonville — the Laurel Highlands quite near Pittsburgh, PA — it was four days before the Simpsons movie premiered. I had seen a few commercials (especially during David Beckham’s first game in the USA) and thought only that it looked like something I’d probably eventually see, most likely in a situation where I was extremely sleep-deprived, sugar high, and coerced by my dearest (and most insane) friends.

During the four subsequent days, I honestly can say, I don’t think I heard a certain refrain less than forty times —

“Spider pig, spider pig, does whatever a spider pig does…”

And this didn’t stop on July 27th when the movie came out, as I had hoped. If anything, it intensified. We moved onto our next camp in Maryland, a family camp. Certainly, a family camp in the practically-seaside town of Denton wouldn’t have such a great population of Simpsons devotees, would it? I stand corrected. Vast numbers of kids and teens (and a few adults) seemed to have only one thing on their mind: The Simpsons Movie. Or perhaps two things: the Simpsons movie, and its relation to the grand overarching metanarrative of the Simpsons. You’d think that after a point, they’d realize its sheer inanity, that they’d stop being enthralled by a cartoon whose beer belly and doughnut fetish borders on disgusting. That they’d get it.

But no, unfortunately, that was not, and most likely never shall be, the case. So I’ll just mind my own business (unless, of course, I’m writing Clashes) and not criticize other people’s preference in humor or movies or whatever. I’ll ignore the fact that “d’oh” (or, phonetically, doh) has been rather ridiculously added to Webster’s Dictionary (roll over all you want, Noah). And I’ll still giggle at “Nobody out-crazies Ophelia.”

But for heaven’s sake, people, can you stop singing about Spider-Pig?

I, Hoss, personally love the Simpsons, because it provides high-quality entertainment for the masses — just like Djere (who failed to write this Clash, so his 15-year-old brother had to do so).

The Simpsons may be an old cartoon (19 seasons), but I still need my daily fix. The Simpson family is made up of:

Homer — a mean, abusive drunk who never ceases to make you laugh, whether he is creating art for Eurotrash or sneaking into Canada to buy drugs to bring back home.

Marge — a loving mother of three and an enabler, who picks Homer off the cold laminate floor and still loves him just the way he is.

Bart — a little “heck raiser” and the class clown, who does whatever is needed to get a laugh, or else he’ll beat you up and ride off on his skateboard.

Lisa — the gifted child, a book-smart Buddhist who never backs out of an evolutionary debate.

And finally, Maggie — our gunslinging baby.

Then they add a slew of townsfolk to make the thirty minutes so very magical. New this past summer was The Simpsons movie, which — in my opinion — was one of the greatest movies of all time. Homer saved a pig and started singing:

Spider Pig, Spider Pig,
Does whatever a Spider Pig does,
Can he swing from a web?
No, he can’t, ’cause he’s a pig!
Watch out — here is a Spider Pig.

Meanwhile, he was holding the pig to the ceiling and there were hoof prints everywhere…

Another great part was when Maggie went through a sinkhole and escaped outside a fence. When we were watching it, a woman in the audience yelled, “Oooooh!!! That’s how she got out there!,” and everyone else started laughing. Clearly, the Simpsons movie is best watched on a big screen.

In conclusion, I strongly believe that the Simpsons reign supreme over all animated cartoons, and will live forever in the hearts of many.

Let me be clear. The LDS organization is not an orthodox Christian church. Although they teach the Bible and worship Christ, they also believe God was once a man, men can become gods, Joseph Smith used a mystical device to translate buried plates from an unknown language into an English text that happens to include even the errors of the KJV, that a vast civilization of diasporan Israelites moved to America, yet left no corroborating evidence, and — most importantly — good works are necessary to give effect to Christ’s death.

So why are we here? My opponent demanded I defend my support of Mitt Romney. I told him that Romney’s religion would not keep me from giving him my vote, and that, given the right contest, candidate and circumstances, I could — and would — vote for a Muslim.

I tell you now — it is indisputably true that the Mormon religion is more similar to Christianity than is Islam. I don’t claim the LDS faith is correct, so this debate might be about who is “more wrong.” So who cares, right? Well, in a world where some wrong people are trying to kill you, while others want you to give up Diet Coke, a little exposition of the fine lines might be necessary.

The fact that Job argues this point shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the world. Civilized culture and Judeo-Christian values are under attack by a terrorist enemy whose goal is universal forced conversion to Islam. Clearly not all Muslims are terrorists. But how many Mormons are? How much of their scripture is devoted to beheading those who reject it? Here’s a hint — none. Islam claims to be a religion of peace, but Mormons are much better at it. Would you feel safer as a Christian in Beirut or Salt Lake City?

I know Mormons teach some strange and unbiblical things, and I believe Joseph Smith was a con man who lied about, well, pretty much everything. Their conception of the nature of Christ is wrong; their proprietary sacred texts are frauds. But though Mormon doctrine is far more uniquely American than Christian (with its extreme focus on self-improvement and ‘progress’) it still contains significantly more of the truth than Islam does. And culturally, Mormons are indistinguishable from American Christians, except that people are more likely to see them as “different” and “kind.”

It’s true that Muslims make distinct claims on truth, just like us. So does Scientology. So do morons who deny the Holocaust or claim 9/11 was an inside job. Subjective, hermit-like logic like Job’s lumps a group in with its strongest opponents, because, hey, we all get real wound up, right? The logical extension of his argument, given his own theology, would be that he’d rather go to a potluck in Addis Ababa than Atlanta. Or the Vatican. Or my church.

If you are a Mormon, I pray you’ll come to know the whole Truth. If you’re searching for a religion, I urge you to avoid the incorrect LDS faith. But there are two things I will not do.

One is deny Christ’s ability to work salvation in the hearts of any who call on His name, regardless of the doctrinal error of their congregation.

The other is honor a faith that requires total submission to the rule and custom of man in the name of a dour and vengeful God, by pretending it is somehow similar to our abiding and singular faith in Christ and His atoning work on the cross.

This debate was born out of an oft-argued topic this election season — Mitt Romney’s campaign and whether evangelical Christians should support it. I, of course, say they should not, while Steve has been supporting the Governor since the first shots were fired.

In the middle of one of our many skirmishes, I informed Steve that I think Islam is more kin to Christianity than Mormonism is. A sophist strike, perhaps, but one I do fully believe. And here, my friends (and any FBI monitors who may be perusing this) is why I think Islam is closer to our Faith than the one in Utah you taw a puddy-tat…

It is most kin to our Faith because it is so unkin.

Bear an analogy? The Rolexes sold in Times Square are, regrettably, not actual Rolexes. They do not have the precision, dependability, craftsmanship — and most importantly — the warranty of an actual Rolex.

They are not the same animal, but their entire existence is the pursuit of appearing as though they were. Those that sell them will tell you they are from Switzerland, and perhaps share a fantastic tale of how they fell into their possession at such a obscenely low price. There are those who buy the counterfeits as fools, and those who know they are counterfeits, but wish to fool others: the fact remains, they are not now, and never will be, Rolexes.

They are damned to be knock-off versions. Just like Mormonism.

Meanwhile, Islam is Casio or Fossil or some such thing…peddling an immensely inferior product, I assure you, but a product that does not aspire to appear as something it’s not. It is its own brand, desiring at every step to point out its differences from other brands, rather than trying to align and assimilate. It is not trying to blur.

As such is Christianity, preferring the role of lightning rod.

I would prefer to debate, and would frankly prefer the company of a Muslim, because I would not feel as if I were being cajoled or subtly ambushed. They have their beliefs, distinct and wrong, which endeavor always to point out the flaws of Christianity wholesale; whereas the LDS appears to be in an almost constant state of apologetic deception — a role Christ would cringe at. He brought division; not compromise. He brought a demand for complete change in life, thought and heart.

Christ demanded that His followers stand in stark relief from their surroundings — not a sad pliability and arc. And any type of Faith that attempts otherwise finds itself playing a whole other game entirely. Spectators, really.

Islam is wrong, but they tell us with equal vim that we are just as wrong. We are not arm in arm, tiring our fingers out counting our comparisons.

And so I see Muslims as more like us, the same way I’d see an Iranian sailor as more like me than the fellow dressed as one selling cell phones at the mall on Halloween.

I am in no way in favor of children viewing adult material. I’m not even in favor of the vast majority of adult material. But I am against an adult using the Internet and having it censored.

Censorship’s main problem is the inelegance that defines its operation. To function properly, a censor’s parameters must be defined by a person, and enforced by a machine. This is a less than ideal situation. The first problem is mostly that of scope. There are many ideas on the Internet with which a given librarian may not agree. What’s to stop that crusading librarian from blocking that subject from all patrons, for their “own good”? Restricting access to one arena opens the door wide to restriction for any other, and I fervently believe that the power to restrict people’s access to ideas could and would be misused.

The other problem with censorship is enforcement. A computer is a machine, and as such would make mistakes in enforcing almost any type of censor that could be installed.

A violence filter could block images of religious icons, news articles exposing the savagery of which humans are capable, and even reviews and previews of sweet Lady Hollywood’s newest blockbuster.

A sexuality filter could block access to this article (it does contain the word pornography), websites devoted to the health and safety of young people, and even reviews and previews of sweet Lady Hollywood’s newest blockbuster!

And a profanity filter might decide that your 56-year-old eyes cannot be trusted reading the velvety prose of my erstwhile opponent’s last clash, written back when she still extolled the virtues of free speech.

Friends, a better solution exists. In every public library I’ve ever entered, the computers were fitted with polarizing screen filters. This inexpensive device renders it impossible to see what the screen contained unless you were sitting in a chair directly in front of it. This way, when I’m triumphantly reading my newest clash against sex trafficking, or my latest public service announcement lauding the HPV vaccine, no child will be harmed by the foul language and ideas. To be doubly sure of their safety, a NetNanny-style censor could be activated should a child need to use a computer, as I have no problem restricting the freedom of those little monsters.

Because, remember — they are our future.

I had a librarian in high school named Mr. W. He was old, at least 75, and perhaps the most ill-tempered librarian I’ve ever come across — and I’ve seen some vicious librarians. He commonly yelled at students for talking, and was known for his tendency to throw students out while they were studying or doing research. We were all quite thrilled when he was fired, and we were absolutely triumphant when we found out why. Pornography had been discovered on his work computer. We were right! He was the devil!

But he was a teacher, exempt from the Internet restrictions imposed on students. It was just assumed that, as an adult, he would have the self-control and moral standing to refrain from such behavior.

Clearly, this assumption was wrong.

Library computers exist to assist in research and provide those without access to a computer the opportunity to use the Internet. They are not there to enable people to look at pornography or read about methods of violence. If a person wants to expose himself to such filth, he should get his own computer and do so in his own home. But when a free service is provided by public funds, we have the right to impose restrictions.

Yes, it’s true that at times, censoring can be annoying. There have been occasions when I was doing research, and for some odd reason, Houghton’s filter refused to grant me access to pages due to “adult content,” which was absurd. It’s irksome when you’re doing research on, say, breast cancer or victims of human trafficking, and you’re barred access because of explicit content. It’s inconvenient, but easily remedied. In a library setting, it’s not that hard to either find another website or ask the proctor to lift the restriction for the moment.

Internet censorship in libraries isn’t an impediment on your rights. It’s not a ridiculous attempt by the nanny state to turn you into a moral human being. It’s common sense, because there are people who would use those computers for the sole purpose of viewing explicit or malicious content — and that doesn’t belong on a publicly-run service.

It is a question that has troubled philosophers throughout the ages. Is Job a real person, or is he merely some sort of literary device — a real man with real adventures or just an allegory, meant to teach us a lesson?

This could be simultaneously the hardest and easiest clash I’ve ever had to write. I know Job personally, and have seen him many times (albeit not as many times or places as he would have indicated). So I’m convinced. But for the benefit of the rest of you, let’s consider the evidence before us.

First off we have a rather large sampling of writings to reference. While “Job Tate” could conceivably be some kind of pseudonym, the writing has a very distinct style and voice. These writings also mention many places, dates and individuals, seemingly too many details to be faked.

Second, we have photographic evidence. While many people on the Internet use phony photos to deceive others, this is usually done to upgrade their attractiveness. I don’t see how that could possibly be the case here.

Finally, we have eyewitness accounts. While you may not know Job, you may very well know and trust someone who does. Steve, Tom, Djere, Mike, Connie, and myself are just a sampling of those associated with Bweinh! who could testify to Job’s existence.

Of course, even if you remain unconvinced, I think you’ll have to concede that the question of Job’s actual existence is not nearly as important as — nor does it in any way take away from — the truths we can learn from his tale.

I sometimes wish that I could be happily ignorant, believing with all my heart that somewhere out there in the ether a benevolent Job Tate watches all that goes on at Bweinh.com and smiles, but I cannot. I am too rationally-minded to put my faith in children’s fairy tales any longer.

It is said that a thousand monkeys typing at a thousand typewriters would, after a thousand years, reproduce the works of Shakespeare. For the so-called ‘Best of Job’ features, I’d give twenty monkeys a half-hour. In short, the order that we perceive in “Job’s” articles is nothing more than random chance that we choose to find order in. Sorry, Tatists.

Of course, there’s also graphical evidence of Job Tate’s existence. If this type of evidence suffices to prove the existence of an entity, then Job exists, as do Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, Homer Simpson, and Erin E-surance. Our pantheon is growing by the day.

Finally, there are personal testimonials of what belief in Job has done for people all around the world. Sorry, guys, but anecdotal evidence won’t cause me to put my faith in a concept as ethereal and unreliable as Job Tate.

Belief in Job is a panacea that detracts from our ability to solve Bweinh’s problems through our own endeavors. I’m going to say it as clearly as I can: Job does not exist, he does not love you, and he is not returning someday on a white horse to double our readership and make me write articles again. If we desire these things, we must achieve them ourselves.

Baseball revolves around 18 players, guaranteed a minimum of 3 “at-bats”. These “at-bats” comprise all of the “action” in the game. Upon leaving the “on-deck circle,” the player initiates an “at-bat” by performing a series of rituals, which include spitting, scratching, adjusting his athletic supporter, clearing his nasal passages using either digital extraction or single nostril compression, adjusting the Velcro straps on his batting gloves, rubbing dirt on his gloves, inspecting his bat, and swinging the bat several times to assure it is operating properly (no one wants to get “caught looking” at a third strike because their bat jammed).

The manager of the team then uses a series of hand gestures and body contortions to relay his “score” for the rituals to the third base coach. Once at the plate, the player has only seconds to read the score as it is relayed by the third base coach. He can then either accept the score, or call time, step out of the “batter’s box,” and begin the rituals over again in the hope of getting a better score. These ratings can account for up to 65% of his “slugging percentage,” so they are extremely helpful during “arbitration hearings.”

Once the score is settled, the “catcher” then calls for the “pitch,” using a combination of hand signals and Morse code. Due to the noise of the snoring crowd, this information is sometimes garbled, requiring a conference where the “catcher” jogs to the “mound,” while the “pitcher” stares in confusion.

“What’s a fart ball?”
“What?”
“A fart ball? I’ve never heard of that!”
“It was FAST ball! FAST ball!”
“No, dude, that was an R. An S is dot DOT dot!”

Boring as this is to watch, it often leads to the most exciting play in baseball — “the brawl.” This is not to be confused with a hockey brawl, in which people actually fight — but sometimes while the catcher and pitcher are getting their signals right, the batter falls asleep, and the catcher calls for a “brushback pitch” to wake him. He usually awakens angry and confused, and lurches onto the field, yelling unintelligibly. This awakens the crowd, which in turn awakens the players on the bench, who stumble around, groggy and puzzled, shouting and gesturing in an attempt to find out whether the game is over and, if so, who won.

Once order is restored, the batter takes a mandatory 17 pitches, is declared either out or safe, and leaves. The broadcast crew, a team of sociopaths skilled in torture, replay all 17 pitches with a computer, to show the audience what they missed while they were fixing a sandwich.

All of us have been to a basketball game. They are fast-paced, whirling dervishes of action: high scoring, adrenaline-carried affairs that, wouldn’t you know, capture the attention of millions upon millions of ADHD-leaning Americans. Much of the time, when thinking of baseball, people look instead to a sport such as basketball, and they expect baseball to be roughly the same, except with a square field, a stick and a smaller spherical projectile.

But baseball is different. It is slower, more careful, but at the same time, it contains all the enthralling moments that make sport so very addicting. It takes concentration and precision to play, and (horror of horrors!) attention and patience to watch, but these just make it even more enjoyable.

I remember the first home run I ever saw. It was at a West Michigan Whitecaps game in their old stadium outside of Grand Rapids, and I think they were playing Ludington. No, I can’t recall the player or the inning or even the final score, but knowing that one person sent the ball flying that far had a magical quality about it that demanded respect for the players and the game.

And who can deny the tee-ball culture in which so many of our youths take part — often “encouraged” by a slightly overzealous parent — which keeps them active and out of trouble, teaches them to work and play as a team, shows them to listen to worthy authority, and coaches them to improvise. All of these are parts of baseball. Though calling it “the American pastime” may be a cliché, to some degree it is quite true.

So say the children who played tee-ball in their community leagues, their city parks, or their sandlots eventually grow up and become adult baseball fans. They know the calls and the punishments, and they can shout (righteously angered) at an ump who is clearly calling the game in favor of the other team (crooked cheaters!). They can tell when a pitcher is tiring or a shortstop is oblivious or a runner without fail is going to steal third base. In short: the fans love the game. They aren’t fair-weather; they aren’t in it for the adrenaline: they are in it for the team.

Baseball is skill. Baseball is style. Baseball is patience. And as long as there are people who eat Cracker Jack, buy nosebleed seats, and take their kids to buy their first real baseball glove, when you flip through the radio channels on hot summer evenings, you will hear:

“Steeeeeeeee — rike three! And he’s outta there!“

I have six paragraphs to convince you that speeding is bad. These pesky little vices are difficult to argue. After all, we’re all guilty of them, and we can always find justification for an occasional offense. Gotta get to work, or the doctor’s, or school. But set that aside. I’d like to address the deliberate persistent Christian scofflaw.

I don’t think anyone would argue that as Christians, we are called to obey the law, be good examples to our weaker brethren (not stumbling blocks), and not waste the liberty we’ve been given on fruitless pursuits. So I’ll move onto my next point — posted limits are set by the government for reasons of safety and gas consumption. The latest PR campaigns say that for every 5 miles you drive over 55 mph, you pay 10 cents more for that gas in your tank. Why drive all over to save 7 cents a gallon only to waste it by going over the speed limit? To save a few minutes? Just leave earlier!

I want to spend the rest of my space on safety, because I believe the only reason Christians deliberately and consistently speed is that they’re ignorant and/or purposefully blind to the facts. Maybe they just need a little information. When speed increases from 40 mph to 60 mph, the energy released in a crash more than doubles (IIHS, 2003). The economic cost of crashes that involved excessive speed were $40.4 billion, representing 18% of total crash costs, and an average cost of $144 for every person in the United States. In states where speed limits were raised to 65 mph in 1987, the higher limits are causing 15-20% more deaths on rural interstates each year. In states that raised rural speed limits, more than 400 lives are lost each year because of higher limits (IIHS, 2003).

In 2002, 39% of male teenage drivers in fatal crashes were speeding at the time of the crash. In 2002, 38% of all motorcyclists involved in fatal crashes were speeding. The percentage of speeding involvement in fatal crashes was approximately twice as high for motorcyclists as for drivers of passenger cars or light trucks.

When Texas increased its speed limit from 55 mph to 70 mph, the average speed on a sampling of its urban freeways and interstate highways increased substantially. Prior to the increase, 15% of cars on these roads exceeded 70 mph and 4% went over 75 mph. After the increase, 50% were exceeding 70 mph, and 17% were traveling faster than 75 mph.

When you speed as a Christian, you compromise your testimony — strike one. When you speed, you waste money, time and resources — strike two. And when you consistently break the law, you put yourself and others in very real danger — strike three. And you’re not just out, you could be dead — or worse, you could have killed the love of your life, or someone else’s. Try living with that.

I don’t enjoy this. I don’t want to defend breaking the law, even one as soft and pliable as the speed limit. I’m writing this primarily out of duty, but I must admit — I do speed. Not by a lot, but I do. I’m guilty. And you are too.

And sometimes it’s okay.

First, let’s talk city. I drive about 5 mph over the speed limit on city streets, sometimes lower if no one is around, but often a bit higher when there’s traffic. And that’s the real reason I speed — the flow of traffic demands it. It’s one thing to stubbornly stick to the letter (or number) of the law when you’re Sunday drivin’ down a deserted lane, but driving 30 mph on a busy boulevard will get you tailgated and cursed. Frankly, 38’s safer.

And if it’s true in town, it’s even truer on the highway. I drove 700 miles this past weekend — no lie — and 650 of those were on the interstate, where I travel somewhere between 72 and 75 mph. The most dangerous driver I saw was going about 95 mph (again no lie) and weaving in and out of traffic like a maniac. But the second-most dangerous driver I saw was driving 60 and chilling in the right lane of the Thruway. Traffic had backed up behind him for a quarter-mile, leading to dangerous lane changes and sudden surprises for those who came over a hill and encountered the mess. Like it or not, it is not safe to drive the speed limit on an interstate highway. And if you prefer to go 68, or 70, then — like the man told the woman — we’ve already established what you are; now we’re just haggling over the amount.

The statistics on safety, quoted by my opponent, are compelling. Some are even accurate. For instance, it is more dangerous to crash at a higher speed. The data, however, suggest that states that have raised their rural interstate speed limits are actually some of the safest places to drive. Deaths in those states have declined drastically over the past ten years, as they have everywhere. You were 37% less likely to be injured in a car crash in 2005 than you were in 1995, when the national 55 mph limit was repealed. The IIHS is a group of insurance companies, whose motives for publishing such a study may not be entirely pure. They raise your rates for speeding tickets, remember? Of course they like low limits.

But yes, excessive speed is dangerous. I can’t stand any reckless driving, especially when it endangers lives. Neither can the police. So they pull people over who drive 15 mph over the limit, or pay more attention to their phone than the road, or get behind the wheel when chemically impaired. The point of the law is to deter unsafe driving, and the speed limit is designed to accomplish that — with leeway built into the system. Officers can ticket a reckless 70 mph driver without having to resort to some subjective measurement of danger — but they can also let the safe driver continue at the same speed.

So drive safely, at a reasonable speed, avoiding distractions. There’s no deadline — and no text message — worth your life.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!

GOAL! GOAL! GOAL! GOAL! GOAL!

Hey there, sports fans! Whether you’re the spoiled spawn of a disinterested suburban trophy wife or more useful to your parents tending the cassava fields than at school, everybody loves soccer! Scratch that: everybody loves fútbol!

Here in America, it used to be that we would raise a collective yawn every four years for soccer’s World Cup, knowing full well that nations we could literally wipe off the face of the planet would make our best and brightest look like a high school junior varsity squad.

But things are changing! Soccer in America is the most popular organized children’s sport, and being a soccer mom is hip! Everybody wants to be a soccer mom… even Mike!

With the addition of international footballers like David Beckham and Juan Pablo Angel, new clubs like FC Toronto, and the “Superliga” tournament pitting the best of the MLS against the best of the Mexican fútbol leagues, soccer’s on the rise.

And why shouldn’t it?

Americans are fat and lazy. The cure? Soccer! A soccer field looks familiar to Americans — a wider and longer NFL field, but players on the pitch run for almost 90 straight minutes, not stopping after every play to release a hip hop album.

Americans lust for blood. The cure? Soccer! Hooligans riot for weeks when their teams lose a match to a rival! Players have been shot to death for scoring own goals! And when a player commits a penalty, the ref pulls out a card — he doesn’t toss a froofy kerchief to the four winds of heaven — and books the offending player. There are no coaches challenging the call on the field, no umpires spitting tobacco, and best of all, no John “Turducken” Madden.

Americans want to be entertained. The cure? Soccer! Hands down, the single most aesthetically appealing points in any sport — bar none — are soccer goals. How many times can you see some 11-foot-tall college dropout reach up and place a ball in a basket? How long will you watch 14 400-pound college “graduates” slam into each other so 1 tiny man can dive over the blubbery mess into the end zone? Are you bored with jacked-up, ‘roid-ragers hitting little white balls over a fence with a stick? Soccer goals are quick and amazing at the pro level, the propulsion of a ball 30 or 40 yards with pinpoint precision. The spin, the physics, the drama, the beauty of a well-struck goal can cause entire nations to bless or curse.

Not that Americans would know anything about that. What’s that? NASCAR’s on? YEE HA!

I know that saying this will make me sound like a jingoistic pig, but would someone please explain what is so beautiful about the beautiful game?

Three things that are not so beautiful:

1. Red cards. In my mind, if a team has to play a man down for the entire remainder of the game, there ought to be dismemberment of some sort involved. But because some guy, in the heat of the moment, tackles another in a particularly egregious fashion, all of the sudden he’s out of the game and his team is now forced essentially to hope for a tie? Really?

When Paul Lo Duca whined and moaned through the Mets’ epic collapse, getting ejected from games, were the Mets prevented from using a catcher? No? Why? Because it’s ridiculous, that’s why. Oh, and by the way, that red card–all a judgment call. Not that the refs having all that power has ever led to corrupt officials.

2. Offsides. Okay, I’m snoozing my way through a game–oh, pardon me, a match — when finally — finally! — someone manages to break through all alone to face the goalie.

For the first time, I raise my eyelids slightly, only to have the ref blow the whistle and inform everybody in attendance that the previous moment of heart-pounding excitement was an infraction of the rules. Oh good. Now I can go back to my sleeping, and the crowd can go back to their drinking, unconcerned that any substantive action may take place on the field–er, pitch–to distract us from those worthy pursuits.

3. Soccer parents. Something must be done about these people. I’m at a JV soccer match today at the local high school watching a girl from our youth group. A girl goes down on a somewhat hard tackle. The ref lets it slide and continues play.

Behind me, a man, entitlement dripping from his lips, says, “Hey ref–what’re you looking at?” and proceeds to carry on an argument with the ref. In a crowd of 50 people max, this man, unencumbered by any sense of shame, barks at the ref at a girls’ JV game.

Don’t tell me this happens to this extent in other sports. Soccer’s big here in the ‘burbs, where people have it all, but are in constant fear of losing it all. The incredibly dull nature of the game gives these people time to ponder the emptiness at the core of their lives and makes them even more agitated about it. Suddenly, a ref’s judgment call turns into a personal attack on my precious little Fiona! Hell hath no fury like a tight-lipped nervous suburbanite scorned.

A vote for soccer merely perpetuates this insanity. Don’t do it!

Those of you who know me as being perhaps on the theologically liberal end of the spectrum of Bweinh!tributors may be surprised to find out that I am essentially politically conservative.

This is something that has developed in recent years, probably as I have grown older and responsible for running a household with my wife Jill. During our first year of marriage especially, we were not making much money. “How are we going to pay for it?” became a consistent refrain — when thinking of buying a car, new furniture or even a pizza for dinner.

So while I hear and am genuinely moved by pleas for universal health care or raising the minimum wage, the question still pops up: “How are we going to pay for it?” Eventually, the answer comes to me: “You are . . . you and the rest of the tax base.” And while I ought to be ready and generous to give to worthy causes, I would just as soon not take the US government’s word for it in deciding what a worthy cause is.

Just on the off chance that the US government decided something immoral was a worthy cause (perish the thought!), I would rather not have the mechanism already in place to force me to pay for it. We need the government to protect citizens from trampling each others’ rights; we don’t need a government determining right and wrong for individuals when that behavior has no impact on the lives of others.

It is the same sort of logic that informs my position that marijuana should be legalized. I’ve never used marijuana; and not like Bill Clinton never used marijuana either. I’ve never used it, period. And I can’t imagine why someone would. But you know what? The threat posed to society at large by marijuana usage is minimal at most. It poses no undue risk to the general populace; it does not rob anyone else of their rights. Marijuana does not threaten to kill or injure anyone besides the user. And if people want to do things harmful to themselves, tobacco is already legal and shows no signs of becoming illegal.

As far as I can see, the main reason for keeping marijuana illegal is that our government wants to send a message that it is abhorrent and dangerous behavior. I don’t condone marijuana usage. But neither do I want our government exploiting its power to determine what is abhorrent and dangerous. Remember, orthodox Christianity isn’t always pretty in the eyes of our government either, but it’s protected belief and behavior . . . for now.

I guess I’m counted among the social conservatives of the world. Jonah Goldberg once described social conservatism (to me and my peers at SLU) as erring on the side of keeping things the same when change is proposed. He illustrated his point vividly — during the 1960’s, a significant number of hippie communes began suffering from terrible diseases no American doctor had ever seen. To make a long story short, it turns out the age-old traditions of bathing and personal hygiene were not just “the man’s” hang-ups after all.

People are good judges of what is beneficial for them often enough that most decisions are safe in their hands; personal choice is one of the greatest tenets underlying philosophical liberalism and democracy. However, these also generally assume people are self-interested, and what’s good for me is not always good for you. Sometimes I can even be fooled into making a decision that’s good for me in the short run, but hurts in the long run. It’s a real shame that we don’t have a natural experiment to show what happens if otherwise responsible adults spend too much on expensive, addictive habits and not enough on their health, family, education, etc.

But of course, we do. We could examine the effects of cigarettes, which cause cancer and eat up resources that could be used more productively. However, aside from addictiveness, tobacco does not have many of marijuana’s characteristics (no mind- altering experience, man!), so it’s probably better to compare marijuana to alcohol, a much more sobering comparison (pardon the pun). Both drugs produce an altered state of mind and can transform you into someone that you are not. Legalizing marijuana doesn’t just put it into the hands of homesick Europeans and responsible folks like you and me. It could also put psychoactive drugs into the hands of a welfare recipient who should be out looking for work or caring for his/her children, or a person getting behind the wheel of a car. Granted, there are still DUI/DWI laws, but think about what an unbridled success those have been and you’ll understand my desire to keep pot illegal. Such regulations barely deter anyway; few believe the risk of getting caught is significant.

Finally, though I may be guilty of employing the slippery slope fallacy, it’s not a particularly good argument for legalizing marijuana. Why make anything illegal at all if the government cannot make moral judgments? Even protecting me from my neighbor implies my life is worth more than what’s spent on protection. Like most arguments, the argument about legalizing marijuana comes down to a matter of degree — to what degree will we let the government determine what Americans shouldn’t put into their bodies? I have no disdain for people who draw the line elsewhere, nor do they lack in morals, but I sincerely believe some people are not responsible enough to limit their detrimental behavior, so marijuana should remain illegal.

Isn’t eating healthy awesome?

Yeah, I know it is.

Sometimes, you’ll go to the dining center or the kitchen or whatever and be like, “I want something delicious, but not too terrible for me.” Then you remember that big brick of soy that you have in the back of the refrigerator. Score! Just throw some ketchup (or mustard, for the rest of you) on that thing, stick it in the microwave, and in a minute or so you have the equivalent of warm meat loaf!

(Culinary Tip: It’s easier to get the stuff down if you imagine that you’re actually eating a piece of an animal. One that was slaughtered in a humane manner. Maybe dead of old age.)

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Isn’t eating healthy more expensive? Well, sure it is, but surely you’ll make up for that by reducing your trips to the doctor! Genetics, environmental factors, medical history and plain ol’ luck won’t have anything on you, once you’re armed with some sprouts — or even just an apple. Rock on!

All I know is, on my deathbed, when I’m thinking about all the fattening meals I could have eaten in my lifetime, I’ll take solace in my rapidly dwindling health and the set of rock-hard six-pack abs that I was THIS CLOSE to developing, until I realized I’d need to put more complete proteins in my diet.

That and actually do abdominal exercises.

Yeah, on that day the icy nothingness of the great beyond won’t have anything on me. Until then, I’ll just keep on ignoring the eye rolls I get from people who haven’t seen the light, and continue annoying waitresses with my inane and often unfulfillable requests. Live long, live hard, and pass those greens!

You know what’s really delicious? Besides The Golden Girls, Tom.

Fatty food, that’s what!

Let those hippie vegetarian longhair freaks eat their “tofu” and “pine nuts” and “lettuce”! True gastronomic connoisseurs like you and me, gentle reader, head straight for the top of the food pyramid — meats, cheeses, fats and oils! What are proteins and carbohydrates but a simple delivery system for the grease and sugar our bodies were designed to run on?

You know how some children in South America carry bags of glue around to huff? I do that too — except with lard.

A lot of people say, “Hey, man, put down the creme brulee! The healthier you eat, the longer you live!” That’s when I remind them that life ain’t worth livin’ without bacon, or pork rinds, or chocolate-covered bacon. Who wants to spend eighty years of torture choking down “fiber” when they can get in and out in half the time, with thrice the caloric goodness! Prolong the agony? Or go out with passion, like a shooting star, double-chin dappled with twin trails of mayo and meat sauce?

I can tell. You’re a star.

And I am too! I save my bacon grease to pour on my Extra Butter popcorn. I use my Magic Bullet to make a tasty Krispy Kreme cappuccino. I even carry four or five Triple Stackers in my briefcase — just in case Burger King ever runs out.

So you can listen to my opponent and eat bizarrely unnatural green things, things people find in the ground — or you can live it up with me, while I wait for my second cheese fry refill at Ruby Tuesday’s.

Me — and Estelle Getty.

I have to extol the virtues of not using profanity. I bet you think I’ll pull out Scripture like Col. 3:8 (“…put off anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, and filthy language”). I bet you already voted for Chloe’s “swearing isn’t appropriate, but there are rare situations, extreme duress, etc.,” because no one can see you vote anyway… But I have a slightly different spin on this. I didn’t write it for everybody (actually, I wrote it for Job) — I wrote it for us, Christians. Let me tell you a story.

It’s Autumn 1999, and I’m a brand-new substitute teacher called in for the day, trying to wade through lesson plans, homework, assignments and unreadable notes from the ‘real’ teacher — not to mention a bad case of senioritis in one class. The day and period were nearly over and one group of guys were up front talking crude, making the rest of us uncomfortable, so I shut them down. Not to be dissuaded, they continued to discuss their favorite subjects in a disgusting way. Since I’d been interacting with them, I decided to weigh in on the conversation instead of verbally smacking them with my big ol’ Mrs. Maxon Ruler.

Boy: “I told him, you don’t have the b*lls!” (They weren’t talkin’ sports.)

Me: “Cheeeez (imagine the Dog Whisperer noise), stop! That’s not the word you need. What are you trying to say? He’s not BRAVE enough, COURAGEOUS enough, or STRONG enough, maybe? So say what you mean! You have a great brain, use it!” They acted like they’d just been taught something they’d never heard before.

Our language is a beautiful tool. What can beat the feeling of finding the perfect word when we’re trying to describe something? It’s extraordinary, really. The right tool can make all the difference — I was just thinking about that this morning while I was stirring creamer into my coffee with a pencil.

We need the right tools and we need to follow Paul’s instructions and put off the early signals of frustration (anger) that lead to other thoughts (wrath). If we don’t, soon we’ll be wondering where that word popped out from. We are called to be different from this world, and I submit WE ARE DIFFERENT. Look around, go check out those bios. Have you ever seen a more different group of people? When we follow Christ’s directives, that difference draws others, even foul-mouthed teenaged boys, and that makes a difference in the Kingdom.

Profanity in everyday conversations is not appropriate. However, there are times when swearing is necessary. For instance, when writing about difficult subjects, choosing against using profanity will occasionally cause the reader to distrust the author, especially when the reader is not the typical audience.

When writing about poverty, drugs, family abuse and incest, etc., I can’t write, “Sometimes you feel like no one’s there for you,” because it goes much deeper than that for the audience. They would tune me out unless I told it like it was: “You’ve decided no one gives a shit, so you have to take care of yourself.”

Similarly, when talking to someone from those types of situations, I cannot use common descriptions of feeling: “I know losing your baby brother in that drive-by made you upset and angry.” Rather, if I intend to get through to him and show him I understand him, I have to speak his language.

One pastor in LA discovered this while working in a deeply impoverished and drug-infested area. He abandoned Christianese, and now his kids connect with him, and no longer think of him as that rich, white Christian guy who thinks he can fix everything. To them, that kind of person is completely ineffective and doesn’t understand or offer the salvation they need.

In one-on-one conversations, it may also be necessary to speak the other person’s language. I have a dear friend who has gone through horrible things in her life, but if I were to say that to her, she would shut me out. To her, it’s not “horrible things,” but “shit.” Instead of being “angry,” she is “pissed off.” People aren’t jerks…you get the idea.

She doesn’t want an educated, well-spoken Christian to attempt to guide her through a healing path. That person doesn’t understand what she’s gone through, can’t connect with her, and surely will judge her. She wants a real person who’s been there and who can give her some guidance.

Granted, the situations in which profanity is necessary are very rare, but they do exist. Missing them could mean driving away someone you could potentially help, or worse, alienating someone from hearing the good news.

We all know that television is a “vast wasteland”; I don’t think anyone would argue against the idea that television producers could use a little more moderation in the schlock they put on the air. Americans as a whole also probably spend far too much time watching television. However, we’re not talking here about trimming a few shows (including MTV in near-entirety), or a few hours watching the tube. We’re talking about whether television as a medium is good or bad. I believe that, as a whole, television has been used for good and has the potential to continue to be used in this manner.

First of all, for pure entertainment, television simply cannot be beat: it’s the cheapest close approximation of life available that is still relaxing to take in. As big a fan as I am of A Prairie Home Companion and the early days of Amos ‘n’ Andy, lack of visuals is a severe setback to their value as relaxing escapes from life. Sure, I can listen to them while driving or cleaning the house, but sometimes I don’t actually want to be doing anything else. Books are nice (easily my second favorite method for relaxing), but sometimes you don’t even want to read. Video games require active input on the part of the viewer and are not optimal choices for everyone’s relaxation. Television is the one medium with enough choices and variety to satisfy all comers.

More importantly, though, is television’s ability to inform us. Where would much of Bweinh!’s readership be without the teachings of Sesame Street? As we grew older, many of us made the switch from PBS to the Discovery Channel, but the medium bringing us information didn’t change. Not only that, but television news continues to be one of the most popular ways to get current, up-to-date information. On the morning of 9/11, where did people turn for the breaking story? Newspapers? CNN.com? No, they turned to television, and TV news delivered as well as could be expected on such a confusing day.

Finally, the following is a brief list of television programs and/or channels that I know are frequent favorites of certain Bweinh! users. No one person probably likes every one of them, but that just serves to illustrate my point about the variety of television serving us all: The Simpsons; The Office; Project Runway/America’s Next Top Model/Top Chef; MythBusters/Dirty Jobs/the Discovery Channel, and the Sci-Fi Channel. Look me in the eye, all of you, and tell me television doesn’t have redeeming qualities.

Television certainly has its drawbacks, but most useful things do. Television should properly be viewed as a tool that can be used for evil or good. As viewers, our viewing habits are our choice, and it would be wrong to blame television for creating some evil along with good.

By way of disclaimer, I am not completely against television. I have spent a great deal of delightfully entertaining time enjoying thought-provoking entertainment with friends and family. In myriad positive ways I have been touched, amused, morally outraged, and pleased by the oases of quality in the bleak landscape of television. However, taken as a whole, television has harmed our culture far more than it has ever helped.

Television encourages complacency. Comparatively speaking, it’s a lot easier to sit on your couch as entertainment is pumped into your home, rather than going out and seeking or making that entertainment on your own. Why read a book when you can have people more attractive than those around you act out a miniature play for your enjoyment? Why do something new when you can share in the experience of literally dozens of other people watching the same program you enjoy?

Even the rare occasions when television moves people to action, there is still a complacent stink about their decisions. The outrage in vogue these days, complaining of the situation taking place in Jena, Louisiana, is being taken up not by people who have thoughtfully examined a number of articles and points of view. Rather, a sorority sister will see a single segment on network news (presented in a manner to most provoke and incite the rabble that constitutes the average viewership), and join with other socially-minded nitwits to protest something they don’t necessarily understand.

Television decreases the attention span. A friend of mine recently suggested I read an article, because it was excellently written. Her paraphrased quote: “You should totally read this! I almost didn’t because it was so long, but I’m glad I did because it was so great!” The article filled a screen and one half in my tiny monitor, and if it had hundreds of words, there were no more than five. Anything not presented in a manic, quick-paced style runs the risk of being completely ignored by your typical person, and television’s ratings-at-all-cost mindset has a great deal to do with that.

In an era of failing schools, sinking test scores, and the prospect of a world stage upon which America plays a background role a very real possibility, I cannot help but consider television’s part in the slide. The few points of light amid the ebony backdrop of reality television, celebrity gossip, and lowest-common-denominator sitcoms cannot provide complete redemption. Television, I name myself your enemy.

But I’m still going to watch Psych.

Meet the Gutierrez family. After suffering catastrophic health issues in Mexico, they left their native land to emigrate to the United States. Settling (illegally) in an affluent Hispanic community in the lush suburbs of Macon, GA, they received free health care, food stamps and supplemental income from various welfare agencies, allowing them to heal from their several maladies and settle into an ideal American existence.

They moved to the suburb, initially, because of the many jobs open to undocumented aliens at area chicken processing plants. But they stayed because they became hooked on fresh chicken and the outdoor BBQ experience — and they don’t use charcoal. See, back in Mexico they suffered a series of disturbing ailments thought to be byproducts of American manufacturing practices, but in reality were caused by the manufacture of charcoal.

As with most countries in South and Central America, there is a burgeoning illegal charcoal industry in Mexico, destroying the environment ways impossible to calculate. I know, because I tried with my calculator and I could not find a way to input words like “greenhouse gases” and “smog.” Charcoal is made by cutting down trees and burning the wood in a furnace (without oxygen), creating coals for consumption by fat, lazy, rich Americans. The immediate effect of the process is the release of carbon monoxide, a major contributor to both global warming and the long, drawn-out twilight of William Shatner’s acting career (speaking of rich, fat Americans). In addition, removing the trees strips hillsides of vegetation, leaving the land prone to erosion, which kills by starvation, and flooding, which kills — well… pretty much by flooding. Oh, and also mudslides.

I stand with the Gutierrez family in my resolve to use only gas when I grill my loco pollo from nearby chicken plants. If it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me. Besides, I like to make my own sauce from mustard, soy sauce and Italian dressing, and soy sauce tastes funky when it’s grilled over charcoal.

Not that I have ever personally used charcoal.

There are few things finer in all the world than a cookout on a warm summer day — the smell, the camaraderie around the grill, the way everything just tastes better when you eat outside. You feel alive. The only way to put a damper on such a tasty scene would be to cheat.

I’m talking to you, gas grill guy.

First off, it’s undeniable that food cooked over a real, charcoal fire tastes better. Since quality of taste is the most important factor when discussing food preparation — particularly if you’re going to go to all the trouble of a cookout to begin with — the debate really begins and ends there. But I will continue, because there’s more to love about charcoal.

For one thing, the grills are less expensive. This leaves more money available for quality cuts of meat. Also, studies have shown that when it comes to expensive cooking gadgets, there is an inverse correlation between how much money people spend and how much they actually cook for themselves. In other words, gas is for posers.

Throw in the fact that charcoal offers an infinitely lower chance of an explosion, and much greater ease and safety of storage and purchase. When I go to Lowe’s (let’s build something — together), I don’t need someone to unlock an outdoor cage to get me a bag of charcoal.

Proponents of gas will say that charcoal takes too long to heat up, and that gas offers more even control of heat. Well, you know what? My microwave heats up quickly and provides even heat. Maybe I’ll just go nuke some hot dogs and call it a day. Give me a break!

The whole point of cooking out is to master that open flame, to connect with nature. For a genuine cookout experience, charcoal just can’t be beat.

No one wants to see people suffering in sickness without access to health care. I understand the terrible dilemmas faced by the uninsured poor in America, and I know that there really are people who cannot afford to go to the doctor. But this problem requires the right solution.

Before we think about changing things, let’s examine the current system, which does a lot more than some believe. Medicaid and Medicare do a lot to cover the expenses of the poor and elderly. In New York, Child Health Plus and Family Health Plus provide free or low-cost health care to ALL residents of the state who meet certain income requirements. A two-parent family with two children can make as much as $51,636 per year and still qualify for Child Health Plus, with only a $30 premium each month. Unfortunately, many eligible people don’t apply for these programs, perhaps because they don’t know about them. Other low-price medical insurance programs are available through various means (although many people — like me, for the last three years — make a conscious choice to go without), and free clinics exist in almost every city.

I might be convinced to support some sort of expansion of these programs, especially to cover the constantly mentioned (but rather rare) single adult stuck in a dead-end, low-wage job. But what I will not support is so-called “free” universal health care.

First, the government will handle health care inefficiently. There isn’t a single thing — not even national defense — that the government has proven able to handle without an increase in cost and a decrease in service. You’re sure you want to put them in charge of your newly diagnosed prostate cancer? For more effective results, we should be trying to privatize things, not nationalize them.

Second, such a policy won’t be free at all — its cost will simply be passed along in the form of much higher taxes. People like me, who get sick twice a year and are blessed with excellent health, will be required to enter this system even if we largely don’t need it, and will pay into the system vastly more than we get out of it. It’s FICA all over again, except on an even larger scale. Just what we all want: the government taking more money out of our paychecks.

Third, the repercussions of free universal health care would be disastrous to our system. Give something away and people value it less and use it more. Elective surgeries will become nearly impossible to get, involving long waits, obscene costs, or perhaps both — just like they already are overseas, regardless of Michael Moore’s lies. And if you think antibiotic resistance is bad now, just wait until everyone with a pulse gets a bottle of amoxicillin every time their nose runs.

Nationalizing health care would give everyone the same standard of care — a painfully low one. Let’s fix the current system to include the people who legitimately cannot afford the care they need, rather than overhauling something that’s really not that bad, destroying it in the process.

My reason for supporting universal health care is simple — people don’t just suffer without insurance coverage as Steve concedes, but they can die without proper treatment, and it’s being priced out of their range. Statistics say that employers and workers will pay an average of $12,106 for health insurance this year, and overall, the cost of employer-provided insurance has risen 78% since 2001, exceeding the 17% jump in inflation.

Yes, health care is available for the poor and lower middle class, but how many of the poor can actually get it? The sad truth is that most poor people are not able to take advantage of these programs. I know because it happened to my family. My father couldn’t hold a job, and I went to six different second grades in two states one year. Record keeping would have been a joke for us, but it’s very important in these programs. You must follow rigid recertification rules twice a year or you get kicked off. If your materials are misplaced by bureaucrats (mine were), you get kicked off. If you don’t have the skills to battle the bureaucracy, you’ll lose your coverage. All this red tape is a supreme waste of health care dollars. It has nothing to do with keeping people well.

But the middle class is probably having the hardest time. They could handle the paperwork and red tape; unfortunately, they just don’t qualify. And every single year their costs keep going up. What if they have a crisis in the meantime while they’re uninsured or under insured? They might lose their homes. I personally will spend 75% of my paycheck (nearly $10,000) paying for health care premiums this year, and that doesn’t include co-pays or prescriptions. My employer doesn’t provide any coverage help.

The difference between coverage and no coverage could be checking out that melanoma or going to the dentist before a tooth becomes abscessed. Steve suffered through only he knows how much pain this past spring and summer, waiting for dental coverage. Maybe he just didn’t want to spend the money, but many others just don’t have it to spend.

I personally suffered from a systemic infection last summer — a simple case of food poisoning spread to a bladder infection. I had health insurance, although I’m notorious for not going to the doctor; eventually I got checked because I was in a lot of pain. I was issued a bottle of pills and sent home. A couple hours later I hit the Urgent Care where I was called a wimp, and told to let the pills work and tough it out. A couple hours after that, I was in the ER and admitted to the ICU.

If I hadn’t had insurance I don’t think I would have tried the last step; I would have been worried about how I would pay the first two bills and trying to believe that the first two doctors knew what they were talking about. But I would have been wrong and I would have died. All that would have been left for my family would be filing the wrongful death suit…maybe that would have covered their insurance premiums for another few years. Some ironic consolation, eh?

I know the federal government doesn’t have a good track record in this area, but New York does. Their programs became a pilot for the nation because they worked so well. We just need to stop wasting money on red tape and develop a health care system that’s fair, affordable and available to all, not just those who can afford to buy a kidney whenever they want one.

Public broadcasting is part of an evil plot to subvert our country’s youth by filling their minds with liberal politics, designed to turn them all into leftist car-burning radicals.

That being said though, it isn’t really the main reason I am so opposed to public broadcasting. The main reason is that we tossed all these topics into a hat a while back and I drew this side of the argument.

However, the best reason for opposing PBS or NPR (the nefarious radio arm of the cabal) is the obvious safety concern, highlighted in a study fabricated by the University of Wisconsin during the late 1990’s. Test subjects drove across the country while listening to the soothing sounds of either R&B music or hard rock, in an effort to gauge the effect of the two formats on driver alertness. As you probably have guessed, NPR was used as the placebo. After 33 deaths from NPR listeners falling asleep at the wheel, the study was cancelled. The university is still in litigation over the psychological damage suffered by the test subjects who were not fortunate enough to perish.

The second reason to hate public broadcasting is their TV presence. The problem is actually twofold. One is their programming. Who hasn’t grown tired of watching frumpy people with British accents make their way through intricate plots based on books written 200 years ago? “The sun never sets on the British Empire,” they used to be fond of saying. I guess all that daylight adversely affected the mental composition of the British author, and somehow the British managed to win a rigged bid process, requiring us to watch their endless prattle for the next 3 centuries.

The second, more dangerous, aspect of their TV presence is the dreaded pledge drive. During the pledge drive, whatever “good” movies they have in their back room are dusted off and advertised heavily. Casual TV patrons are drawn in by this ploy, so after they have enjoyed the first half of the classic movie they have been dying to watch for years, the movie is brought to a screeching halt, so a pleasant little fellow in an easy chair can lay on the guilt trip.

“Have you been enjoying this wonderful trip down memory lane? Did you know that the only way we can stay on the air is thanks to contributors like you? Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah — and if you ever want to see the end of this movie, you freakin’ freeloader, get off your lazy butt, open that wallet, and PAY US!!!”

This, by itself, has led to many nervous breakdowns among the viewing public.

Commercial broadcasting is part of an evil plot to subvert our country’s youth by filling their minds with consumerist politics, designed to turn them all into mindless SUV-buying mouth-breathers.

That being said though, it isn’t really the main reason I am so in favor of public broadcasting. The main reason is that we tossed all these topics into a hat a while back and I drew this side of the argument.

Public television has long been a part of my life. Although I’m an outspoken critic of most television, very little of the programming I’ve come across on WPBS (my local affiliate) offended my admittedly delicate sensibilities. Big Bird and the rest of his crew on Sesame Street taught me colors, letters, numbers, and how to take a punch. Mr. Rogers taught me how crayons are made, and the all-encompassing importance of coordinating sweater and sneakers. Even up through college, my roommates would return from their classes on days my schedule lightened to find me transfixed, my entire being a beam of concentration leveled intensely at Simply Ming.

Whether I was appearing on Whiz Quiz with local celebrity Glen Gough, or relentlessly mocking Rod and Reel, public television was always there for me. Would lack of exposure to the brilliance that is Rowan Atkinson in Mr. Bean have made me less of a person? Would having to put up solely with the depravity, inanity, and banality that is a commercial television station have harmed me irrevocably? At this point it’s impossible to tell, but I’d err on the side of caution and give PBS its due in the amalgamation that is Tom.

However, public radio is the medium of the people that lies closest to my cold little heart. Our local National Public Radio affiliate has kept alive the tradition of real radio programming that laid the foundation for all of our media sources today. The landscape of commercial radio today is a barren wasteland of Top-40 nonsense, jaded partisan babblings, and the warbly, self-pitying strains of country stations just aching to get that truck back. NPR fires back with news featuring in-depth reporting, quiz-shows that simply assume their audience is smarter than a fifth-grader, and entertainment programs in which people read (gasp) actual short stories. Oh, the humanity!

Finally, to defend the lowly pledge drive. Without the sale of commercials, public broadcasting is able to keep itself pure, an ivory tower of news, entertainment and information unsullied by the dirtying effects of the almighty dollar. If the price I have to pay for my cooking shows is watching a pledge drive once a quarter, is that too much? I humbly submit that it is not.

I married into a ketchup family 30 years ago, and though I’ve raised six ketchup-loving children, some of them like mustard as well. So as the leader of a successful multi-condiment family, I think I’m well-qualified to take up this challenge.

I could easily live without ketchup, but I have always loved mustard — its bite and sassiness, its lack of sweetness, and, quite frankly, its low, low price. When you buy ketchup it’ll set you back at least 2 bucks, but not so my little yellow-bottled bargain. You may even get change from your “Where’s George” bill if there’s a sale on.

More importantly, it has NO calories. That’s right. None. Squeeze to your heart’s content, folks. If you can take the zing, it will deliver it fat and calorie-free. Mustard stains come out easier than ketchup too. Trust me. Plus, mustard has a happy color — the same as the little smiley face. As a matter of fact, the first smiley face may have been made out of mustard! Ketchup, however, is the color of death, and has been used to simulate BLOOD in low budget B-movies. Another plus of mustard is that it won’t kill you if you leave it out in the sun all day at a picnic. Ketchup goes rancid and mayo can fill an emergency room, but it’s just plain hard to kill mustard. I’ve seen bottles last a whole year.

This leads me to its crowning point — versatility. Ketchup comes in one form, sickly sweet red (except those weird colors that packed the Dollar Store shelves a few years ago — what was that, Heinz?). Mustard, on the other hand, can be bold, tart, spicy or sweet, to suit whatever strikes your fancy, and it comes in yellow, brown, spicy, spicy brown, horseradish, German, Dijon, and honey (which even my ketchup-loving husband loves!). It works on and in hot dogs, chicken, sausages, burgers, egg salad, grilled cheese, salad dressing, wings, deviled eggs, and especially chili (it’s the secret ingredient in mine!) — to name just a few.

In conclusion, I’ll point out that mustard (seed) is the only condiment mentioned in the Bible, while ketchup has barely recovered from its 1980s scandal, when President Reagan declared it to be a “vegetable.” Ketchup is made from tomatoes, which in their overripe state are mainly used to attack bad entertainment: those B movies, NASCAR, or anything with Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton in it.

Face it, rotten tomatoes just cannot compete with mountain-moving taste, even when those tomatoes are aimed at filthy rich drama queen divas. Now please vote for me and admit that as good as ketchup is, it’s just too one-dimensional. It cannot cut the mustard.

Mustard? Please. Ketchup is king of the condiments. Always has been, always will be. Well, except for during biblical times. We’ve come a long way.

First, we’ll deal with the mustard issue. My main problem with most of mustard’s “strong suits” is that I just don’t like mustard’s flavor, to the point where not using any condiments at all would make even more sense than preferring mustard.

If I wanted to save money, I wouldn’t buy ketchup or mustard. If I were incredibly desperate to save calories, neither would end up on my lean turkey dog. (Incidentally, according to the USDA National Nutrient Database, some prepared mustard actually has 3 calories in every packet to ketchup’s 6. Not quite calorie-free; be wary, dieters!)

Also, while we’re pretending that we eat condiments for nutrition, ketchup has a bunch more potassium, vitamin A and vitamin C than mustard does.

Don’t even get me started on lycopene.

I also want to address the issue of ketchup’s lack of variety. A fine point, but only if you are able to improve on perfection. Mustard simply isn’t appealing enough in only one form, so it has several varieties in a desperate attempt to appeal to SOMEONE.

Ketchup, on the other hand, is just fine as is; you take it as it comes to you and don’t have to ruin it by adding honey or extra spice to it.

The bottom line is, ketchup is simply delicious.

This clash is totally a matter of opinion, but I submit to hypothesis that, generally, when one looks for a condiment, they aren’t overly concerned with price, calorie content (mayonnaise, anyone?), which one has more varieties, or which has better real-world connotations (mad props, though, to my man Ronald Reagan for declaring it a vegetable; try getting anyone to do that with mustard!).

You look for deliciousness, an arena in which ketchup simply can’t be beat. It’s welcome on my food anytime.

I’ve never had a drink of alcohol in my life. I had it in my mouth once by accident — I was toasting a friend at his wedding and was told it was sparkling cider. I spat it into a bush. This status of complete restraint might seem to make me incapable of making an argument about the drinking age in America, but I disagree; as the kid outside the fishbowl, tapping the glass, I may look oblong and distorted by the refraction, but everything in the tank is clear to me.

And as that boy, I support getting a cute “no fishing” sign, buying a few more colorful rocks, and lowering the drinking age for the guppies.

If you don’t think alcohol is more of a threat to America — physically, mentally, emotionally and socially — than terrorism, then you’re reading this at Miller:30 anyway. It is the fuel for the engine of sin, rending this nation apart with almost surgical precision, through crumbling marriages, sexual hubris, and enough wrecked vehicles and bodies to drive an IED to, well, drink. Bars are our temples, Friday nights the new Sabbath, and the tithe given to this liquid and its orbital vices far in excess of 10%. Alcohol is an immovably entrenched American religion, with zealots of greater number and passion than our own. I can only hope to somehow alleviate alcohol’s oppression and shocking effects.

As I think about this drug, I am most immediately aware of the sheer irresponsibility accompanying its use. Current federal law requires an American to be 21 before imbibing an alcoholic beverage and making a fool of themselves at Jeff’s party — by then, the drinker can vote for 3 years, die for his country for 4, and may be graduating from college (or if Steve Maxon, finishing his doctorate), having babies, and living on his own. This sheer amount of societal load (and expectancy) implies an almost-certain furtive use of alcohol before age 21. This use is best defined as rebellion, usually accompanied by reckless behavior and the instilling of certain attitudes that will forever accompany the use of spirits.

My argument follows a simple equation. (The vast amount of alcohol in our country + its glamorization + the legal restraints on its use) x (Ample access to it anyway) = Almost-universal illegal use, overwhelmingly without parental knowledge or supervision. The parental relationship has always served as the tonic to societal malfeasance, and in light of the immense destruction alcohol causes our country, we must strengthen this relationship.

I would lower the drinking age to 17, and the purchasing age to 18. This would require parental knowledge of its use, with proper instructions and expectations. Perhaps it would even produce an unsettling amount of introspection after seeing its effects on our youth, with a small mirroring effect on an adult’s own use. With a problem as powerful as potent potables, we need to flush the enemy out of the shadows and away from punk kids who meet behind the old mall on Saturdays to share a fifth. As with most societal problems, we need to return the responsibility to parents, rather than relying on a law that tries to do the parenting while neutering a parent’s ability in the same stroke.

Theories abound regarding the benefits of lowering the drinking age in the United States. Proponents laud continental European nations where drinking ages effectively do not exist, yet cultural expectations toward alcohol seem vastly more healthy than America. They cite increased parental involvement with newly legal teen drinkers, leading to a much-needed steadying hand while the youths negotiate difficult terrain. Finally comes the oft and proudly cried, “If you can die for your country, you ought to be able to drink a beer there!” However, these arguments fail to ring true for me.

Nations such as Spain, Portugal, and France are often put forward as the new model for dealing with alcohol in the United States. These Romance- language speaking nations have relatively lax policies toward youth and alcohol, and manage to enjoy low rates of alcoholism and alcohol- influenced crime and death.

However, to claim these laudable statistics came about only because of early exposure of youths to alcohol is ludicrous. England, a country with a long-standing legal drinking age of 18, is widely renowned for the binge-drinking propensities of its young people, at home and abroad. The culture of Iberia and its environs seems steeped in alcohol, and that’s the secret to the apparent lack of youth fascination with it there.

But in the domains of the Anglo-Saxon, a more Puritan view of alcohol has lent it an aura of mystique youths are incapable of escaping. Lowering the drinking age will not result in an overnight change to our nation’s culture, nor a reversal of alcohol’s taboo status.

Claiming that lowering the drinking age will encourage parents to take an active role in teaching their children the proper way to approach alcohol is similarly ridiculous. How can we expect a nation of parents, who through ignorance or apathy ignore the illegal drinking of their children, to step up and oversee their legal drinking? Parenting must be left to the parents, I’ll agree with that every time, but when the life at stake could be an innocent, I’ll let society trump the average parent every time.

Arguing that youths are able to join the armed forces at 17, but must wait four long years to drink legally, seems like disjointed logic. Taking up arms to defend one’s country is a very important responsibility, yet absolutely zero well-founded medical studies have shown military training to have an adverse affect on the development of a teenager’s brain. The miracle that is the millions of electrical connections which together form the seat of our cognition is not fully understood, but what is understood are the facts that the brain continues to evolve well into the twenties, and that it is absolutely, unquestionably and negatively affected by alcohol use.

We are a nation founded on freedoms. But sometimes the greater good to society of decreasing brain damage in the upcoming generation outweighs Junior’s right to tap the Rockies after prom.

Let me get the possibly offensive, yet totally true, arguments out of the way first. Women are weaker than men — significantly weaker. Till adolescence, girls can hold their own in a fight, but the same biological imperatives that turn boys into testosterone-fueled beasts of burden unfairly round women off, widening their hips and sounding the “ready for babies” alarm like a bell.

God and puberty prepare young men for battle; after all, to the species, your average dude is pretty expendable. But young women? They get the special estrogen treatment, and since that results in (for instance) a body fat percentage double the size of the closest competing gender, pretending everybody’s the same on the field of battle isn’t a harmless multicultural fantasy — it’s a dangerous, deadly mistake. Many soldiers have to carry gear heavier than the average woman.

But let’s pretend it’s somehow possible to overcome the obvious and innate advantages in speed and strength that men have over women; let’s imagine we’ve triumphed over pregnancy, menstruation, and emotion, and that our enemies will treat captive women the same as captive men. Oh glorious day!

I’d still oppose it with the same strength and fervor. For one thing, it’s not necessary. If women seem to be needed on the front lines, it’s not because there aren’t enough able-bodied young men to pick up the slack; it’s because those guys are bumming around on street corners and slouching their way through English Lit classes. A realistic look at our armed forces in the event of another (God forbid) world war doesn’t involve a battalion of Amazons — it will require a real live, straight-up draft of the men in our country, from high-achieving Harvard Business School types to no-account middle school dropouts.

China invades us any time in the next fifteen years? I’m an airman the next day, and that’s a promise. But try to sign my sister up and you might be the next casualty.

Which leads me to my next and final point. Women do not belong in combat because of what such a policy would say about our nation. Many American men are already shamefully irresponsible, neglecting their proper roles as husbands and fathers to seek their own pleasure and fulfillment. Sending women to carry out what is the ultimate male responsibility — the protection of one’s own nation and family against those who would do them harm — would lower that shame to unbelievable and sickening depths.

Combat changes people; it hardens and coarsens them, as they experience horrors the uninitiated can never understand. They are trained to kill and destroy, work no man should ever have to do — but some must. To extend that tremendous sacrifice to women would be an act of both foolishness and cowardice.

I’m not saying that we should entirely man our front lines with women. Nor am I saying that all women in the service are cut out for front line duty. All I’m saying is that there are some benefits for allowing women to serve in combat situations.

In modern combat, sure there’s still a ton of physically demanding effort: running, carrying large packs, heavy weapons, and still some hand-to-hand combat. But as time has progressed since Cain beat Abel with a club. Weapons have become lighter and more efficient.

Certainly, the strongest men will always be stronger than the strongest women. Usually average men are stronger than average women. But I’ll tell you what: I’ve seen some pretty big women in my day, and I don’t make a habit of visiting the opera. Leather jackets, tattoos and biceps the size of my head… Yet if some hulking beast of a woman rode up to a recruiting station on her Harley and wanted to enlist, Steve would smile at her and sign her up as a candy striper.

Throughout every major conflict of the 20th and 21st centuries, women have played key roles. In both WWII and Chechnya, women served as effective snipers. Though usually pressed into service when defending their homes and children, women have done more than provide aid and comfort to soldiers; they’ve served as soldiers, officers, smugglers, spies, and scouts. Women can be capable of doing the same thing a man can during wartimes, without drawing as much suspicion.

Let’s kick this thing up a notch.

The theory was first proposed by Dave Barry, but let’s revisit it. When women spend time together, their, ahem, cycles, tend to synchronize. If the US Army had platoons of just women, that means for four days out of every month, we would have the single most vicious, nasty, murderous platoon of soldiers on the face of the planet. I don’t know about Osama, but I certainly wouldn’t want to be chased through the mountains of Pakistan by PMS Platoon from Hell.

One of the arguments against putting women on the front lines is usually this: Men who see a wounded woman will be demoralized in combat. BULL! I live near an army base. I read the newspaper reports of spousal abuse. I work with army wives who were either abused themselves or have a girlfriend who was abused. So some GI Joe can see his own beaten wife, but some strange woman? I’m not buying it.

Give ’em guns and let ’em fight back.

I’ve got nothing against fantasy football; I’m sure it can be very engaging. However, I’m a person who likes to keep fantasy truly fantastic. If I didn’t have to be who I am right now, is participating in American football in any way, even at the uppermost echelons, really my ideal? Almost certainly not.

On the other hand, if I could choose to be someone else, would being the emperor of an empire spanning several galaxies be my top choice? Quite possibly, especially if I didn’t have to deal with those nasty coups and uprisings that have plagued empires since their development.

Enter the fantastic world of Ogame.

I don’t think I would enjoy fantasy football very much because I imagine it takes a good deal of prior knowledge and statistical research to be successful, yet much of what determines your team’s success is out of your control. On the other hand, Ogame throws some chance elements your way (the actions of other players), but there is nearly always something you can do to protect yourself, or at least get them back pretty well.

You can never actually lose in the sense of being forced to quit, so a season of hard work is unlikely to come to nothing after a large attack. Finally, Ogame is very quick to pick up; all you have to know is how to tell time. In short, Ogame puts you in almost complete control of your own destiny, and with good strategy, you can reap the rewards of your success or suffer the consequences of your failings, learn from it all, and rebuild.

In a text article, I can’t give anyone a good sense of what Ogame is really like. I will say, however, that the best reason to play is the friendships you can make. Recently I was in an alliance with people from the US, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Lebanon, and while we don’t talk to each other that often, it’s satisfying to know that, because of one silly browser-based game, I now have at least a few friends in countries all over the world.

I wish I could explain it more thoroughly, but my fleets have just delivered resources to a planet of mine, so I’ll see you later.

I just got finished with my fantasy football draft. It’s one of the more polarizing events of the year, as those who take part in such things eagerly exchange strategy and war stories, and those who do not look at the others as though they’re crazy, or the world’s biggest losers, or both.

For those of you who began shaking your head the moment you read the title of this clash (yet for some reason are still reading) let me explain why fantasy football is one of the greatest leisure activities known to man. For sports fans, it’s absolutely indispensable. You’re going to watch the games anyway, so you might as well have a rooting interest, especially for games late in the season when your favorite team is languishing.

Not to mention, every sports fan has always wanted to be a general manager. As we watch the personnel decisions made by real teams, we love to criticize and postulate that we could do better. Well here’s the chance to prove it! Not against actual general managers, sure, but against your friends.

And that’s why fantasy football can appeal even to those who aren’t big sports fans. Everyone loves the chance to gain bragging rights over their friends, be it for a victorious season or just fleecing them in a trade.

The biggest reason to love fantasy football in the internet age is the chance to stay connected with those friends. During our draft, I had phone conversations with my former roommate, my uncle, my brother, a childhood friend and my dad, all decidedly out of town but completely connected through the league. I actually had a conference call with the latter three, a conversational combination unseen since my brother’s wedding.

Listen, I’d love to tell you more, but I’m off to propose a trade.

My heat is well-known and self-evident. No fair observer of American popular culture could conclude otherwise. But in my frequent travels across this great country, I have faced the obvious question, often from schoolchildren and the elderly — “Mr. Mims, just why are you so hot?”

It was for them that I wrote my hit song, a song that has captured the hearts of this country and the world, a song called simply This Is Why I’m Hot.

But I am not content to rest on my laurels and allow this song, brilliant as it is, to alone speak for me and my all-surpassing hotness. I am grateful to bweinh.com, which has so kindly allowed me to briefly summarize some of the reasons for my hotness, in what is my original and most comfortable genre — the persuasive essay.

Reason One: I am fly.
It couldn’t be any simpler. I’m hot ’cause I’m fly. Even if you haven’t actually heard my entire song — which my agent assures me is physically impossible by this point — you are no doubt familiar with this, the central tenet of my chorus and the guiding principle for my life. As Descartes thought, as Helen Reddy was woman, as Spartacus was, well, Spartacus, so too am I, Mims, fly.

No further discussion is needed, but I will nonetheless press on.

Reason Two: I am universally popular.
I know this sounds prideful, but I would be unfaithful to my throngs of adoring worshipers if I pretended things were any different. A summary review of my first verse shows quite clearly that I attract vast support in areas as diverse as “New York,” “the Midwest,” “the Bay,” “the Chi,” and “the dirty dirty.” Can you do that? Legally?

Did you know that I make ladies bounce? What is more, my attire moves crowds from side to side! And, for goodness’ sake, my pimping has NEVER ONCE dragged!

This is why — THIS is why — THIS IS WHY I’M HOT!

Reason Three: I am fly.
Please see above.

Reason Four: Ladies love me.
I hold such sway throughout the nation that I can actually shut down stores for my own shopping pleasure (as in verse 2). As you might imagine, this is quite attractive to women!

But my warmth is not solely dependent on what I can do for the females; it’s also about what they can do for me! These things include complimenting me, staring at me, engaging in extramarital intercourse with me, or even just riding with me in my car. “All aboard,” I say!

Your love gives me wings, ladies.

And they are hot wings.

I thank you for your time.

Mr. Mims may be hot, I will admit. He makes a powerful and convincing case, if you take him at his word. But he’s left out a good deal of this story. And that’s an oversight I intend to correct immediately!

But first, let me also thank bweinh.com for giving me the chance to be relevant again, if only for the two or three days this article appears on their front page. The check is in the mail, folks!

But back to Mr. Mims. He tells you repeatedly that he’s “fly”; he says it twice in this essay and about 325 times in his song. Let’s ignore, for now, the question of what exactly it might mean to be “fly” (don’t those things breed in garbage?), and just assume he’s referring to some sort of external measure of attractiveness.

What he doesn’t tell you is that he regularly dips his hat below the level of his eyes, he has been known to wear a scarf of an apricot hue, and (in the most shocking and disturbing event of all) he frequently and intentionally watches himself gavotte!

Yes, I said gavotte!

No, I don’t know what it means either!

But that’s not the point. The point is that Mr. Mims’s popularity, his flyness, his attractiveness, his heat, if you will, is merely an invention of his own fevered mind, stewing in its own juices and grasping at any explanation for its rising temperature.

Mr. Mims is not hot, my friends — Mr. Mims is vain.

There’s no proof that song is even about him! Don’t you agree? Don’t you? Don’t you?

His travel, which he references, simply proves my point. Saratoga one week, watching horses; Nova Scotia the next, checking out the eclipse. Is this any way to maintain a relationship, Mr. Mims? Think of our children! And while I’m on the subject, do not think for one second that your admissions about extramarital intercourse will go unnoticed by my divorce lawyers!

Where was I?

Ah yes. Mr. Mims’s vanity. Forgive me for making this personal, but — I must.

Before Mr. Mims reached this pinnacle of popularity, before his name was known from “Frisco” to “the dirty dirty” or whatever, he was just my little Mimsy. My world. All the girls dreamed of being his partner, but I — I had him all to myself. He was mine. And we were so happy.

He said we were a pretty pair. He said he would never leave.

Excuse me…..

Ahem. But he threw it all away!! For “big spinners” and “getting on the floor” and “focusing on his cream” and hittin’ switches and hangin’ charms and all that gangsta-rap mumbo-jumbo gobbledygook!

What happened to my Mimsy?

What happened to us?

You’re vain, Mr. Mims. You’re SO vain.

Let’s be honest and first admit that Wikipedia has its shortfalls. The accuracy of many articles is a concern, and it the format also has difficulty when the facts about a person are beyond question, but open to several different interpretations. My dissertation will be on revival evangelist Charles G. Finney.

His Wikipedia entry has a tag warning that the information provided may not be neutral. Why? The biographical facts of Finney’s life are unquestioned, and much of his writings survive. But Finney is a controversial character because people are not sure how to interpret his legacy. Was he a Calvinist? Was he not? Did he save American Christianity or kill it? Were his methods of evangelism a consistent mechanism for the Holy Spirit’s act or a clever substitute for the Spirit? Everyone who thinks about Finney has a stake in the answers to those questions and so his Wikipedia entry can be a battleground.

Yet let’s also be honest and confess that complete and total accuracy and neutrality is not the role that Wikipedia plays in our culture. It may well be true that Wikipedia is not completely accurate or neutral; it also is no doubt true that I don’t have four wheels and a horn. That’s because I’m not a car, nor should I apologize for not being one.

In the same way, Wikipedia is not a completely accurate or neutral source for information, nor should it apologize for not being one. The site itself even says so: on its “about” page, we are warned that especially newer articles may contain “significant misinformation, unencyclopedic content, or vandalism.”

No, you can’t cite Wikipedia authoritatively. But you can learn from it. When I needed a jumpstart for another paper on Finney, Wikipedia led me to a site with all of Finney’s works. The links also led me to a bit of interesting debate from varying perspectives on Finney, as well as the website of the church he founded. While I couldn’t cite anything directly from the site, I found it helpful in getting off the ground.

Wikipedia is also able to cover more arcane and interesting topics than a normal encyclopedia. Hitting the “random article” button five times gave me articles on HSY (a Korean fashion label), Tagin (an Indian people-group), ’70s Rock Must Die (a 2000 album by a group called “Lard”), Carson High School, and Kirkland House (one of the undergrad houses at Harvard). Who else would cover all of these things at all, even if their coverage wasn’t completely bias-free (as if any coverage ever is)?

You also can enjoy Wikipedia. Some people decry the vandalism and turf wars that go on — I sort of like it. It’s a case study in people being people — sort of like Survivor on the internet. If people want to waste their lives arguing on Wikipedia, isn’t it at least nice that we can be amused by their foolishness?

So instead of being disappointed that Wikipedia refuses to be respectable, let’s enjoy its strengths: it has potential to provide new information on esoteric topics and provide geek drama at the same time.

What’s not to like?

There’s a lot to like about Wikipedia, conceptually. There are millions of frequently enlightening articles, especially those on uncontroversial matters, ephemeral lists, and complex topics. Most of their guidelines and principles are wise and thoughtful, and no one denies it’s an educational and entertaining way to spend an hour.

But other than this article, I will never cite to it here.

Wikipedia often reminds me of feudal Europe in the Middle Ages — rule by the whims of the few. You know the party line — anyone can edit anything — but in truth, the site is like any other bloated bureaucracy, full of ardent protectors of power and self-interest.

If an article has a wise, benevolent ruler, or a good group of editors, it may be neutral and well-sourced. But in the frequent event there’s a turf war among users who each want it their way, it becomes part-faculty meeting, part- soap opera, a storm of endless bloviation about complex acronyms and ‘sockpuppets.’ Kissinger once said, “University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.” I think he used that example only because he wasn’t yet able to watch “Netscott” and “Radiant!” argue for days about whether discussions or surveys were better to “build consensus” on Islam and Slavery.

More than just the culture irks me. When researching our Council question about drugs, I read the Wikipedia article about the War on Drugs. It had a questionable claim that marijuana was America’s largest cash crop, and cited an article in a British newsletter, which in turn cited a report from something called the Bulletin of Cannabis Reform. Apparently, as long as information is cited, it can come from the most biased sources. In fact, most of that article reads like the platform of the Marijuana Reform Party, but good luck getting its defenders to let you change that. People, even those who should know better, frequently defend their work like it was their child, especially about politics.

Remember Richard Gere publicly kissing that actress in India? I looked her up, and the second result was Wikipedia, which called her an “AIDS sufferer.” That didn’t seem right, so I looked further — turned out she only PLAYED an AIDS sufferer in a movie; she was actually an AIDS activist. And “activist” was on Wikipedia for weeks, until someone changed it slyly. And there it stood, proud and unchallenged, for over a week, until I came along.

This is why I can’t and won’t cite Wikipedia — you can’t trust it. And you can’t count on anything to still be there in two minutes, let alone two weeks. For instance, “DanEdmonds” decided it was inappropriate to include “AIDS activist” in the article, so he removed it.

I went to the Wikipedia ‘drugs’ article as I wrote this, and its first sentence read: “Drugs are good for you.” I changed it back immediately; the sentence had only been up an hour. But in the past 24 hours, there have been 19 similar attacks by vandals — it’s almost all that’s done to change the page. What a waste of time!

You know quite well how many morons and troublemakers there are in the world. If you still want to trust a vast random sampling of humanity to be authoritative about any subject, be my guest. I’ll stick to using it to find Sir Mix-A-Lot trivia. Did you know politics are “important” to him?

Last year Americans consumed 28 billion pounds of beef, a new high of 70 lbs. per person. If turned into 1/4-pound patties and laid end to end, that’d be enough hamburger to keep a dork with no life busy with a calculator for a lot longer than I care to imagine.

To put it into perspective, it could create a hamburger the size of Rhode Island (I guess… I don’t really know how big Rhode Island is), requiring fries the size of Vermont, a milkshake the size of California, a bun the size of the Great Lakes, and a slice of cheese the size of, well, Rhode Island.

To match the hamburger.

Anyway, my point is that we eat a lot of beef. Beef is as large a part of our heritage as our waistline, and as much as I admire bacon, particularly on a cheeseburger, it can’t be compared with beef for the following reasons, which I’ll enumerate by numbering them with letters, if such a thing is possible.

A.) Versatility
Bacon is, well, bacon. Beef, on the other hand, is cheeseburgers with pickles and ketchup, beef short ribs slow cooked over open flame, filet mignon, beef stew with biscuits on a cold winter night, and ribeyes sizzling in the backyard on a hot summer afternoon. It’s beef brats with sauerkraut, a bottom round roast with mashed potatoes and gravy, a Philly cheesesteak with onions and peppers, prime rib with sauteed mushrooms and baked potato, and a porterhouse served with eggs and home fries.

B.) Bible Sanctioning
When the children of Israel wandered for 40 years and God needed to keep them safe, what was the first thing he did? Gave them a menu. That menu was big on beef, but banned bacon. Why? Trichinosis. Pork must be properly handled and prepared, or bad things happen to the people who eat it. Beef, on the other hand, can be eaten raw. I know — I ordered it raw once at a fancy French restaurant in Canada. I didn’t know what I was ordering, since the menu was in French, but it worked.

C.) Culture
Who can forget the famous Wendy’s commercial from the early 80’s? It starred a small elderly woman, who peered at a measly burger before confronting a fast food worker with, “Where’s the beef?” For months you couldn’t go anywhere without someone muttering the phrase. I remember entering a loaded elevator in Hartford, and as the doors slid shut, someone in back said, “Where’s the beef?” in a dead-on impression of the feisty lady. It made no sense, but we all laughed ourselves silly. It defined an era.

You have the right to choose whatever you want to eat. After all, you bring home the bacon. But remember the slogan — beef…it’s what’s for dinner.

Leviticus 11:7-8:

“And the pig, though it has a split hoof completely divided, does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you. You must not eat their meat or touch their carcasses; they are unclean for you.”

I’ve often wondered about the Levitical dietary laws of the Old Testament and Islam and wondered why. I know that God kept the Jews from eating pork, but until recently I didn’t fully understand His reasoning.

We all know that for “health reasons,” God restricted pigs as unclean meat. Trichinosis, and all that. But pigs are actually quite friendly, personable, cleanly, intelligent, and most imporantly, delicious.

One afternoon as I was meditating on my roof, I received insight from the Lord that I feel I must share with you:

1. The only true and lasting plan for world peace is bacon.

Ever since the days of Isaac and Ishmael, Judaism and Islam have been at war. I mean, you try living in the sun-beaten desert for 6,000 years and you tell me how much you like your illegitimate half-brother who’s always out to get you, and who’s living right on top of you.

The bacon-free diets of our Jewish and Muslim friends have clouded their judgments. But just one bacon-wrapped hors d’Ã…“uvre and you’d see those suicide bombers finally find something to live for.

2. Bacon is a New Testament blessing.

Much like the visitation of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, when God said to Peter, “Arise, kill and eat,” lifting the dietary restrictions, Heaven opened over earth.

God, in His wisdom, not only knew that if the Jews ate pork, they’d get Trichinosis and die, but also that they’d gladly do it for just a taste of the tastiest of all meats — bacon.

When Noah saved two of every animal on the ark, even the unclean, it was for the New Testament church to harvest his bounty.

Hamburger is good, cheeseburger is better, bacon cheeseburger is best.

Praise the Lord and pass the bacon.

I must say I was somewhat excited about this Clash, and I’m not ashamed to say it was at my suggestion that it is even here for your Clashmusement. I also should say that I am a fan of the Pirates movies, but the question here before you today is who makes a better hero? Bruce Willis and Die Hard’s John McClane? Or Johnny Depp and Pirates’ Captain Jack Sparrow? I submit that when the rubber hits the road, there is no contest! The only real hero — the only real man — is John McClane.

Let do some straight up comparisons shall we? John McClane is a man. Jack Sparrow? Let’s just go with flaming sissy boy. You can tell by the amount of hair on their heads and the way they walk. Okay, you might not like bald, but at least you don’t have to worry about what might be crawling in it.

John McClane’s role model? I’d guess John Wayne. Jack Sparrow — we all know it’s a drunken druggy rocker from the Rolling Stones named Keith Richards.

Motive? John McClane is always out to save his wife, family, or country. Jack Sparrow? Someone else’s ship, treasure, or rum. Two out of three of those are definite vices — and the third is iffy.

John McClane fights terrorists. You know who the bad guys are. In Pirates the bad guys change at least three times. It’s the British:except for the two funny soldiers. And the officer that wants to marry what’s her name. Except at the end — then he’s a good guy! Arghh! Pirates change all the rules. Dead’s not dead anymore. You can’t count on anything! I need order! Give me a simple story with a simple man who can drive a simple car into a helicopter when it’s absolutely called for!

In summation: John is a mind-your-own-business reluctant hero kind of man, a police officer just trying to do his job and earn his pension. Not unlike you and me? Somehow along the way though, he has managed to save the greater San Francisco Bay area, Washington’s Dulles Airport, most of New York City, and now the entire US economy as we know it. He always makes us laugh along the way, too, WHILE eliminating the bad guy(s).

John’s just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Jack Sparrow, on the other hand, is just plain wrong! A drunken, strange-toothed, boot-jingling, sashaying sissy with an eyeliner bill that must demand some serious doubloons, a man who somehow has us rooting for the vortex to win.

Bottom line — who would you rather walk down a dark alley with after midnight? If you don’t know, watch both movies. See, they take off their shirts. Bruce/John: buffness. Johnny/Jack? Well, a she-crow could carry him off for lunch for her babies.

CAW!!!

(David Maxon may have contributed to this report)

Hmm. What Connie says is true. Sparrow is not, by any means, buff. He does not typically blow things up. And he certainly hasn’t saved the greater San Francisco Bay area, Washington’s Dulles Airport, most of NYC, or the economy. So I will address each of these issues in order.

Looks
Jack Sparrow already has a one-up on McClane simply because he has hair. What’s more, I’d like to see you put eye liner on McClane without him looking like a drag queen. Sparrow, on the other hand, looks flippin’ hot! There is only one woman in the movies (Maria) who can resist his undeniable charm and allure. And that’s just in the movies! I’ve never once heard a woman say, “Oh, that John McClane is so dreamy!” But there is no number high enough to count the times women have told me, “I wish Jack Sparrow were real!” Even men want him to be real, and they try to make that possible by dressing up like him for Halloween, International Talk Like a Pirate Day (September 19 — mark your calendars!), and any other possible excuse. There is no John McClane costume, no “Talk Like The Guy From ‘Die Hard'” Day, and no signature John McClane swagger.

Method of Combat
Sparrow is mad with a cutlass, guns, cannons, rigging, even the ship itself as a weapon! But let’s not compare physical weapons; we’re talking about two different centuries. Instead, let’s look at those things that transcend the ages — fire and brains. I’ve heard it say that a good ruler must be a chess champion because it’s the paramount game of strategy, crucial to triumphs in war and politics. If Sparrow’s remarkable ability to manipulate situations is any indication, he would excel at chess. McClane would blow the pieces up and mutter a four-letter word under his breath.

Accomplishments
Captain Jack Sparrow did not save entire cities from destruction, it’s true. Instead, through guile and swashbuckling skill, he saved the entire planet! And he did it through a selfless act — handing immortality over to the infinitely noble and responsible William Turner. In his pursuit of immortality, Captain Sparrow vanquished the heartless (literally) Davy Jones, and by replacing him with Turner, he ensured that not only would the seas forever be protected by the kindest and most merciful of captains, but also the dead would not be abused and neglected, as they had been in Jones’ reign. McClane never really did much for anyone’s eternal soul, did he?

So let’s tally up. Sparrow is much hotter and more manly (as proven by his ability to wear eyeliner, yet still sweep a girl off her feet).

He’s got intellect, while McClane stops at brawn.

And Sparrow saved both the world and the afterworld, while McClane is ethnocentric.

Who’s the better hero, then?

In the late 1700’s and early 1800’s, John Chapman became “Johnny Appleseed,” by traveling throughout the Midwest planting apple seeds ahead of most pioneers. This choice was neither coincidental nor capricious. There was no Johnny Orangeseed.

Why apples?

I’m sure you’ve heard that “an apple a day keeps the doctor away.” While I don’t recommend apples as your only source of medical attention, their health and nutritional value is significant.

Apples are an excellent source of both fiber and flavonoids, lessening risk of heart disease, stroke, and asthma. And they have no fat, cholesterol, or sodium.

Apples are also extremely practical and versatile. They can be baked, fried, mashed, or turned into a variety of drinks, and they keep longer than almost any other fruit.

Even better, they taste delicious. With dozens of varieties ranging from sweet to tart, crisp to tender, there’s an apple for every taste and season. And it is undeniable that they make the best pies and blowpop flavor.

With its taste, durability, flexibility and health benefits, apple is king.

The first thing that strikes me about oranges would have to be the many varieties available: apricot; atomic tangerine; bittersweet; burnt orange; macaroni and cheese; neon carrot; outrageous orange; peach; red orange; sunglow; sunset orange; vivid tangerine; yellow orange!

Orange, you see, is possibly the boldest and most vibrant color. It can be used as an appetite stimulant or a mosquito repellent. Wearing orange shows confidence and individuality.

Because it is so easily identifiable it provides safety for hunters who wear it on their vests and caps, and for children by clearly marking their guns as toys. Its high visibility also increases safety on our roadways, marking cones and barrels, as well as the vests of crossing guards. Let’s see apples do any of that!

When paired with its complementary blue, it produces a combination that is both aesthetically supernal and athletically superior. Consider the uniforms of the Florida Gators, winners of the last two NCAA men’s basketball championships sandwiched around the last BCS Championship football game. And of course there’s the 2003 basketball champs, the tastefully named Syracuse Orange.

Taken as a whole, orange provides a look and image apple could never hope to match.

If only they were included in those annual surveys of whom Americans trust, drug dealers might manage to bump car salesmen and lawyers out of the basement of public esteem. Typified in the collective mind as a shady, unshaven man with sunken eyes slinking around a playground at dusk in a bulky trenchcoat, the drug dealer is universally reviled as a corrupter of youth and an exploiter of human weakness.

But while we readily identify the local dope seller as an odious blight on society, we happily make peace with his ideological cousins at Starbucks, who peddle a product no less addictive or mind-altering.

Caffeine is the world’s most popular psychoactive drug, and its honored place in our society should not cause us to overlook its very real effects on the mind. A Johns Hopkins study found that as little as “one small cup of coffee daily” can produce caffeine addiction, a malady that may be included in the latest edition of the diagnostic manual for psychologists as a full-fledged mental disorder. When I read the list of caffeine withdrawal symptoms, it helped me understand why many Starbucks defenders are so rabid. Nausea, fatigue, and pounding headaches might be enough to keep me coming back for my daily fix as well.

But even if you accept the popularity of this mind-altering drug as a necessary evil in our sleep-deprived, results- obsessed society, there are plenty of reasons not to seek your dose from the ubiquitous mermaid:

– Starbucks charges far too much. It’s bad enough that a regular coffee is nearly two dollars, but those specialty drinks really get you. A mid-sized latte or frappuccino (words I freely admit I do not understand) costs more than a gallon of milk; large versions of these drinks approach five dollars. Drink two a week for 20 years and you’ve slurped down a cool $10k — before interest.

– Starbucks coffee apparently isn’t that good. I don’t drink coffee, but people who do, from the well-respected Consumer Reports magazine, ranked Starbucks coffee below McDonald’s in a blind taste test. I’m lovin’ that.

– And Starbucks stores just feel insincere. The whole shtick seems so calculated, a slick attempt to bottle a hip atmosphere and re-create it on a national scale, through generous doses of shallow philosophy, mood lighting, and second-rate classical guitar. It certainly seems successful, but that doesn’t make it any less creepy or manipulative.

I won’t claim any unfair business practices or exploitation, and I sincerely don’t mind that they’ve spread like kudzu across the country, or put other coffee shops out of business. That’s the American way; competition is the heart of capitalism, and they’ve succeeded admirably. They deserve some credit.

But I do hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t throw myself behind a behemoth corporation that fakes ambiance and overcharges its customers for an addictive psychoactive drug. As a future lawyer, I’d like someone to look down on in those surveys.

I was furious when I heard that Starbucks was opening not one but four stores in my hometown. I knew what would happen: The Shed, Café Rush, Java Junkie and all my other favorite hangouts would be obliterated. To me, as to many others, Starbucks was to coffee shops as Wal-Mart was to grocery stores. Namely, it was the end of them. When Wal-Mart came to town, only one other grocery store survived. I didn’t want that to happen to my coffee shops.

Starbucks didn’t kill any of my hangouts, though. They’re going strong, their eclectic, homey styles still beating out the corporation, mainly because of the music scene and the fact that everyone knows all the people in the pictures decorating the walls. The people in my hometown go to Starbucks, but that’s just when they’re in a hurry. They go to the little places for the people, because let’s face it — the coffee just isn’t that great.

I’m not saying this is the situation in all cities. I know about all those sad stories about the mom and pop cafes being booted out thanks to the monster mermaid. Yes, Starbucks has the cheesy “third place” thing going on, even though the atmosphere isn’t that great, and pales in comparison to the coffee shop your best friend decided to open rather than going to college.

But Starbucks Coffee isn’t all about the coffee it sells or the atmosphere it projects (but the coffee is good and the atmosphere not half bad). It’s about the prices, the sky-rocketing $1.55-cup-of-joe. Yes, the exorbitant charge is important, and in a good way.

There’s a reason Starbucks is so pricey. It’s called fair trade. Fair trade is a certification on coffee and other crops that ensures fair price and labor conditions, direct trade, democratic and transparent organizations, community development, and environmental sustainability. Starbucks buys about 10% of the world’s fair trade coffee, more than any other single coffee buyer in the United States.

What usually happens with trading in developing countries is that the trader will provide loans for the farmer to sustain the crops. The loans come with conditions that ensure the trader’s complete control over the crop, the prices, and the farmer. The trader will often buy the crop at cost or just above, so the farmer doesn’t make enough money to survive, let alone plant next year’s crop, which means he has to go back to the trader for more loans.

But Starbucks buys coffee high above the cost where most other coffee buyers do, which naturally pushes their prices up to what looks like an unreasonable fee to us. In 2003, Arabica coffee was selling at $0.55-$0.70 a pound. Starbucks paid $1.20 per pound, twice the amount that Folgers or Maxwell House paid.

Yes, Starbucks is expensive. But if we could just stop demanding low prices at the expense of the lives of coffee farmers all over the world, maybe we’d realize a $1.55 coffee is so completely worth it.

A miracle is, by definition, a very special thing. Whether the word is ascribed to the birth of a baby, the parting of the Red Sea, or a game winning 3-point shot at the buzzer that brings to an end to the deplorable savagery known as basketball, when something is genuinely described as miraculous you know to expect something wonderful.

Fish, my friends, are miraculous.

Their health benefits are many, but a cheap way of defending their honor. Rich in the good fats which keep us healthy, and poor in those that rob us of vigor, fish have innumerable benefits to either the modern lifestyle or the scrambling of the third world.

Flavorwise, I’ll admit fish is a complex mistress. An unsophisticated palate cannot always appreciate the individual tastes and scents that give fish its allure. I don’t feel indignation toward those who are unable to enjoy it; rather a sense of pity tinged with an obligation to try to show them another way. But those who despite my ministrations choose to overlook a slice of grilled salmon or broiled trout in favor of a mound of blasé mashed potatoes soaked with butter and clotted with salt find themselves at the business end of my disfavor.

However, the mark of a good meat is not merely its flavor. Texture plays a key role in the determination of an excellent piece of edible flesh. There, fish more than surpasses its land-based brethren. From the melt-in-your mouth flakiness of fried tilapia, to the delightfully soft but firm salmon sashimi, fish is a delight for more senses than merely taste and smell.

Relatively few foods can stake their claim as being mentioned in the Bible. Even fewer can claim to have been part of a genuine miracle. Fish, on the other hand, can claim both titles. When Jesus needed to feed the multitudes, He didn’t fry up a slew of goat. When the people, exhausted from having walked miles to hear the words of G-d directly from his lips, cried out for sustenance, He did not barbeque some beef or pork, or toss a salad brimming with the fruits of the ground.

No. He took the glorious fish from the hand of a boy, blessed it, and broke it. And it fed them all.

I’m a man of sometimes strong opinions, but I’m not altogether unreasonable. I recognize there are times and places when eating fish might be necessary. Times like day 19 after an oceanic shipwreck. Places like an underground bunker beneath the rubble of World War III.

But for everyone outside the plots of Waterworld and Mad Max, there is no reason to willingly eat these torpedo-shaped nausea makers. Fish oil may prevent heart disease and depression, but why torture yourself at the table when you can get the same benefit from a pill?

I know some people live where fish are the only real source of nutritious food. I feel awful for them, and I don’t wish to upset the precarious brainwashing they’ve had to put themselves through simply to survive. To those poor souls, I can send only my sympathy and a brochure for real estate in the American Southwest.

The rest of you are without excuse.

“You know what’s really good on fish?,” comedian Jim Gaffigan asks. “Anything that kills the taste of fish!” And it’s true! What’s the classic fish-eater’s claim? “Oh, it tastes just like chicken!” Even if this were true (it’s NOT), it wouldn’t help. Food, especially meat, should be appealing by itself! It shouldn’t have to rely on culinary subterfuge or taste deception, designed to hijack goodwill from a wholly unrelated meat to sneak its scaly flesh past our wise and knowing tongues. Food should stand on its own two feet!

But then, fish don’t have feet, do they? There you go.

You know what fish are good for? Metaphors. You can “flounder” or “flop around” like a “fish out of water.” You can “get a nibble” or “get off the hook,” then choose to “fish or cut bait.” You bemoan the “fish that got away” till you remember there are “plenty of fish in the sea.” You might be a “fisher of men” or you may “shoot fish in a barrel,” “teach a man to fish,” or go on a “fishing expedition” — but remember houseguests, “like fish, stink after three days.” Linguistically, fish do it all! Their contribution to our literary lexicon is unquestioned.

So let’s keep fish on our pages and off our plates.

I am very much not a father. I am very much not a female. But I do think it is somewhat possible that I might someday father a female and I can guarantee you no government is going to mandatorily vaccinate my adolescent daughter for any sort of sexually transmitted disease, such as the Human Papillomavirus.

The implication is disgusting. While the vaccine appears to be very effective, thorough and well-tested (albeit costly), and while I’m definitely not saying all Gardasil doses should be destroyed and the recipe burned, the notion that the government should go to
such brash, expensive, and heavy-handed means to “vaccinate” poor parenting is audacious, invasive and infuriating.

Currently only one state, Texas, has taken the steps to make such vaccinations mandatory. While the issues raised about Merck’s campaign donations to Gov. Rick Perry are tough to build an argument around, his use of an executive order in favor of legislation requiring all girls entering sixth grade to be vaccinated does show a feeling that public dialogue may not go his way. And when the Texan legislature overruled his order, it further showed that apprehension about such invasion is most certainly there.

I think a far better tack to take would be allowing some competition to ferment, to make HPV vaccines cheaper and more readily acceptable, perhaps even easier and less expensive than pap smears.

What is more, understanding the disease, the manner in which it’s spread and the way it affects the physiology and psychology of women is of far greater benefit to our society than allowing the government to come in and sweep the problem under the rug.

Issues as personal as sexuality and children should always be handled delicately and with broad dialogue — never with executive orders that imply an urgency that suspects parents don’t already worry enough. Offer the vaccines, sure. Mandate them?

Over my dead body.

This shouldn’t be a debate over the actual use of the HPV vaccine. Its spread might be linked to the grinning, busted-up specter of promiscuity enjoying belle-of-the-ball status throughout most of the western “romantic” world, but few would say nothing should be done to stop the single largest cause of cervical cancer. Instead, my focus is bringing the vaccine into the standard arsenal of vaccinations.

Should a child get a vaccine their parents don’t want? There’s a difference between “standard” and “mandatory” vaccination. Your child won’t be denied access to preschool because she wasn’t immunized against HPV. Then there’s Job’s position — it should be available on request, but not suggested as a matter of course. When was the last time your co-worker was out for a few weeks with a nasty case of measles, mumps, or polio? Never — because of the vaccines that have rendered most individuals immune to them. They don’t merely keep individuals from getting sick, but prevent disease from spreading throughout a population. Since HPV is often asymptomatic in men, this makes it more important for women to be immunized, as a matter of course if the parents do not object.

There are moral implications to women getting these vaccinations before puberty. But when you travel to the third world, you don’t start vaccinations when you’re hip-deep in mosquitos. You get the shots well before you need them, to develop a sufficient immune response. Vaccines are useless for someone already infected, so it’s best to give the shots when they have the best chance to be effective. Will it make the country more promiscuous? How could it get any worse? And how many kids know what MMR or DTaP (two current vaccines) stand for? All the kid has to know is she’s getting a shot to keep her from getting sick, and if she’s good, she’ll get a lollipop.

HPV has been strongly linked to cervical cancer; even in women who approach sex the right way, its widespread nature makes it a threat — from rape, a husband’s past, or infidelity. We owe it to ourselves and our children’s children to try to stop it.

The question of which platform is superior between PC and Macintosh is not a trivial matter. Thousands of lines of text in forums decry one, exalt the other, each citing a myriad of reasons their chosen platform is the best. Although the question of platformital superiority can be approached from a number of avenues, many of them are simply unimportant.

For example, one completely irrelevant way the platforms can be compared is the breadth of the software libraries available to each. What difference does it make that (as of press time) popular freeware/shareware website C-net.com listed a staggering 55,822 titles under “All Windows Software,” and just a paltry 4,603 listings for “All Mac Software”? What difference does it make that twelve times as many downloads were available on this popular and influential e-hemoth?

Another boneheaded way to compare operating systems is by looking at their popularity, relative to each other. Who on earth would think it relevant in any way to a real, honest debate about platforms that Apple had a paltry 2.4% of the market share in 2006 — in terms of real, worldwide shipments — versus a combined 50.6% for just the top 5 PC manufacturers? What do we care who the world trusts for its computing needs?

Likewise unimportant is the ability to customize your computer whenever you want. No one cares about upgrading a computer without replacing it, or performing system repairs on your own, or being taken seriously by friends, relatives, and co-workers.

No, the computer debate is about one thing — trust. Do you trust your children’s computing lives to a bunch of rag-tag, animating, photo-editing, long-haired, music-sharing hippie freaks?

Or do you trust the welcoming, all-encompassing embrace of Windows and its industrial brotherhood, the PC manufacturers?

PC. People Caring.

Failure reading drive C:
[A]bort, [I]gnore, [R]etry, or [F]ail?
r
Failure reading drive C:
[A]bort, [I]gnore, [R]etry, or [F]ail?
i
Failure reading drive C:
[A]bort, [I]gnore, [R]etry, or [F]ail?
a

Oh, hello there! I was just spending some time getting to know the zeroes and ones, first strung together in the 80s, that still form the foundation of the average Windows PC. While Microsoft prides itself on polishing its rubbish to a sheen gloss, mimicking the refined, elegant lines and textures of Mac OS X, what lies beneath is the same slathering of spaghetti code Bill Gates cooked up when Carter was in office.

Until recently, a head-to-head comparison of Mac to PC compared apples to oranges. But with Apple’s recent switch from IBM’s Power PC processors to Intel’s x86 architecture, direct comparisons can be made. Will I make them? No! I’m not a ‘Mac Evangelist.’ If you’re looking for one of those, check your local community college art department.

What I will tell you is this — Macs are more reliable because you have one source for a Mac: Apple. You can buy a Dell, an HP, an IBM, or you could build your own PC capable of running Windows. All those vendors and their configurations add lines of code to Windows’ OS, each zero and every one cutting into your performance. Apple has limited its hardware support to keep your Mac running smoothly every time you turn it on. And Mac OS X is based on the rock-solid UNIX operating system, so you’ll never have to see one of Bill Gates’ famous ‘Blue Screens of Death.’

Even if you ignore pro-Mac arguments like ease of use, lack of viruses, reliability, stability, power, and originality, you could still use Apple’s Boot Camp software, allowing you to run Windows on your Apple. Purchasing an Apple computer literally can give you the best of both worlds.

Now if you’ll excuse me…..

Failure reading drive C:
[A]bort, [I]gnore, [R]etry, or [F]ail?

Sit down, Billy. The Holy Father is about to educate your behind.

Seriously, let’s think about this, people. In one corner, you have a backwoods preacher from the American South. Quite a dandy in his early days, Billy donned the white bucks and powder blue sportcoats for Youth for Christ rallies as far back as the 1940s. Two whole generations of evangelical women cursed Ruth Bell under their breath for shattering their dreams and taking Billy off the market. Even today, women admire him and men want to be him; pianists want to play for him, and even Michael W. Smith and dcTalk knew they had hit the big time when Billy Graham asked them to play for a “youth night” in a late ’90s California crusade.

All of this makes Graham a beloved figure, a bona-fide American religious folk hero.

It does not make for a worthy battle.

Because in the other corner, resplendent in papal garb, his robes billowing proudly behind him, his miter defiantly piercing the sky, is Pope Benedict XVI, born Joseph Alois Ratzinger.

He’s not a folk hero. He’s a junkyard dog.

He was known universally as the Vatican’s “doctrinal watchdog” prior to his selection as the 265th pope of the Catholic Church. And as if his international reputation were not enough, the Catholics that knew him best, the ones from his native Germany, referred to him as Der Panzer Kardinal — “the Tank Cardinal.” Why? Because he’s such a ruthless defender of the faith.

But you don’t have to take my word for it! Ask the late Father Jacques Dupuis (if you could), or Sri Lankan theologian Tissa Balasuriya. The former had the temerity to suggest that God was active in non-Christian religious traditions, the latter the unmitigated gall to refuse to sign a Vatican-approved statement of faith. Dupuis wound up trashed in a document Ratzinger wrote; Balasuriya was excommunicated, before the ever-gentlemanly Pope John Paul II restored him to the church.

You can mess with a guy named Billy. You cannot mess with a Ratzinger. You wind up trashed, excommunicated…or worse.

The man’s first papal encyclical was entitled Deus Caritas Est — “God is love.” Notably absent was any statement of Benedict’s own feelings. The obvious message: God is love, and Benedict ain’t.

The man is a flat-out papal bull.

The very notion that Pope Benedict could somehow best Billy Graham is so ludicrous I almost asked to be recused. No chance in heaven! Benny’s only advantage is that if he gouged Graham’s eyes or hit below the belt, he could absolve himself on the spot while the Rev. filed all that messy Grace paperwork.

But I still don’t see it. Graham didn’t win prominence by an ancient tradition of selection by peers; he received it by the eons-old tradition of selection by God. And Graham’s a natural fighter; whether Nixon or Parkinson’s, he handles his problems personally with sleeves rolled up and pride rolled down. So l’approvazione, papa, lo porta! Let’s go to the arena floor…

In this corner, at a holy 210 — the man who put “I can” in Vatican, the Stonin’ Roman…Germany’s own Joseph A. Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI!!!

And in this corner, weighing in at a lanky 205 — The Master Pastor, The Great Wheaton Beatin’…Charlotte’s own Rev. William F. Graham, Jr.!!!

*ding ding ding*

“Look at Graham charge from his corner! I haven’t seen anything like this since Joel Osteen fought the Dalai Lama in that New Delhi kick-boxing match last June! The Pope is on the ropes, medallions flying everywhere!!”

“Bob, this is tough to watch. I think Ratzinger forgot to drink his holy water, and he’s gonna need a miracle.”

“Graham continues his crusade! An uppercut to the the Father’s midsection and a roundhouse to the nose!!!”

“Bob, it appears the Rev. is nailing all 95 theses to Ratzinger’s chin tonight! I’ll bet the Pope wishes he were still a Cardinal so he could fly far, far away!”

“Good call, Gary. Ooh, a stiff right hook from Graham, and the Pope falls to his knees in exhaustion — or is it prayer to Joseph? Patron saint of lost causes?!”

“Pope Benedict XV felt that one!”

“Hold the chariot, Gary, the Pontiff is up and he’s going after Graham with fury in his eyes!!! The Catholics here are yelling ‘inquisition, inquisition,’ as Benedict rains blow after blow on Graham’s head and body.”

“Wow, Bob! Nothing apocryphal about that last punch! But it’s amazing how Graham’s hair stays right in place!”

“Is that LA Looks he’s got in there?”

“If I gambled, I’d go with Dep, Bob.”

“Golly Gee! Now the Protestants are up as Graham delivers punishing blows to the caretaker Pope!! Everyone’s a Calvinist tonight; this is pure destiny!! The Pope is down for the count!!!!”

*ding ding ding*

“And it’s over — Graham by knockout!”

So I did all this research for this Clash, 23 pages worth, and it thoroughly convinced me I was right in calling soda (pop) the drink from hell, and then I realized none of you care and you’re going to drink soda anyway.

Well, that’s okay. Rot your teeth. Get fat. Develop osteoporosis. See if I care.

That didn’t come out right. I do care. I also care if you develop cancer (from the benzene) or just keel over because you left your diet soda out in the heat and it turned into formaldehyde. Um, ew? The proof that I care is right here, this Clash. Soda just isn’t that healthy. (I’m thinking about pulling the “Your body is a temple of God” card, but I feel bad doing that unless I stop drinking high-fat coffee and eating potato chips.)

Soda also causes great strife. Whole families have been ripped down the middle by the soda v. pop debate. It’s tragic! How can we allow such a minute detail to break down the family unit? Why do we let this satanic drink rule our lives?

Soda facilitates drug use. Because people hear Coca-Cola used to have cocaine in it, they think that’s cool, and so they put cocaine in their soda. It also makes your ears turn green.

Soda makes you burp. Therefore, it facilitates bad manners and makes you look like a hick. An obese hick, with bendable bones and no teeth. Well, the bendable bones thing is cool, and you could make a lot of money at a carnival with that — except that you’re a hick, and no one wants to watch a hick bend his bones.

Soda is bubbly, which a lot of people like (it’s like your drink is spitting in your face; haven’t you realized that yet?), but when you think about it, it actually leads to drinking problems! See, people drink soda, get bored with the whole bubbly without the buzz thing, and look for something more potent. They find themselves at beer, and we all know that beer is a drink from hell. See? Drinking problems!

Soda leads to car accidents. How many times have you gotten that Yeti Gulp (100 ounces!!!) and found it didn’t fit in your miniscule drink holder? So you nestle it in the passenger seat, hoping the seatbelt will do the trick. Then it spills, you swear (another sign of the devil), and lean down to clean up the mess — then slam into the patrol car you didn’t see. Yeah, that was the soda’s fault.

Did I already mention that when you drink a soda, it’s actually spitting in your face?

I know, I know, many sound arguments can be raised against soda. It’s bad for your teeth, and your gums and probably rots your soul too. My worthy opponent will no doubt raise these and other points and build a sound case.

Against this, I can only ask: have you ever had a cold, really cold, just-barely-frozen Coca-Cola in a frosted mug with a twist of lime? If you have, you know that those sound arguments fade away into the background, along with all troubles and cares. There is, bar none, no better way to spend 140 calories. But if you have not, there is nothing I can do except insist that you go out and try it before casting your vote in this Clash. If you do, I’m certain your vote will be for me; if you do not, your poor benighted soul will vote against me.

We all know soda addicts: the jittery lass at the office who downs 12 Diet Cokes a day; the hefty fellow at the Chinese buffet who can’t settle for four pounds of fried wontons but has to wash them down with subpar root beer; the trucker who nurses a 64-ounce Double Big Gulp from Tulsa to Waco. This is not responsible soda consumption, taking a veritable nectar of the gods and turning it into a cheap drug, a stabilizing crutch for emotional problems.

You don’t have to drink soda at every meal; heck, you don’t even have to drink it every day! But tell me with a straight face that an excellent pizza doesn’t deserve a good Dr. Pepper. Tell me a hot-off-the-grill cheeseburger doesn’t deserve a cold Cherry Coke. Tell me 3rd Shen would have been anything without lukewarm Caffeine-Free Diet Coke the Salvation Army couldn’t give away. Tell me there’s anything as good as slightly flat ginger ale when you’re a little sick to your stomach. You cannot tell me these things! Your little health-conscious PC soul wishes to, but you cannot, because you know soda is an essential part of these slices of life.

Without soda, a root beer float is just a lump of boring vanilla. Without soda, church-reception punch is just cranberry juice. Without soda, burritos, bratwursts, pizzas and yes, even some breakfast cereals (Count Chocula, anyone?), are widowed, crying out for their mates who were created for them from the dawn of time.

Don’t deny them the companionship they so richly deserve. And don’t deny yourself one of life’s tingly pleasures–soda.

Vickie Lynn Hogan. Norma Jean Dougherty. Two lovely young women. Two talented young women. But two beloved American icons? Not without a little something extra. A little something I like to call Vitamin B – Blonde!

Long before tragedy tore these blindingly brilliant bombshells from the frantic grasp of the collective adoration of their public, the common thread woven through the lives of Anna Nicole Smith and Marilyn Monroe was just that – commonality. But with a little luck, some old-fashioned gumption, and a bottle of peroxide, two legends were made, not born.

Is this only a statistical anomaly? Success based on hair color alone? One merely has to look at the culture beyond Hollywood to find the answer. Blonde hair is described as golden, historically a metal highly prized for its hue and sheen. Even the “cheapest” of artificially blonde hair is called platinum, a metal even more highly valued than gold. For third place in the Hair Olympics, blonde comes along yet again, with silver. The best a brunette can hope for is a little bit of red somewhere in her hair’s muddled tone, so she can settle for the ‘honor’ of “coppery” tresses.

Throughout history, blonde hair has been the most highly valued hair color. Evelyn de Morgan’s classic depiction of the legendary Helen of Troy does not find her lamenting her mousy, tangled locks. No, a veritable halo of spun sunlight cascades down her back. She even lifts a delicate handful of golden curls as if to say, “My sisters! This, this is the hair that launched a thousand ships!”

While it is true that natural blond hair is a natural rarity, that scarcity is part of its charm. After all, a young lady presented with a floral incarnation of her paramour’s affection might scoff if it takes the form of the common daisy. But a man who presents his beloved with an edelweiss plucked from a barren cliff face miles from civilization will find a much warmer reception. Scarcity is the mother of demand.

Much like a speech impediment, it can come from pure genetics, or it can come from a bottle. Only her stylist knows for sure. Either way, it’s indisputable: blondes have more fun.

When I first took this assignment, I didn’t stop to think about the potential pitfalls of making this argument: my blonde friends, the blondes I’ve dated (well, there’s only been one, but still), even my blonde sister. I’m sorry, ladies. You’re all beautiful, but I’m sticking to my guns.

I’m all about the brunettes. My first crush was a brunette, as was my first girlfriend. Any time I enter a situation that involves meeting new women, it is invariably a brunette that catches my eye.

The fact is, Tom is actually in danger of offending innumerably more women (as is to be expected). I don’t have any exact figures, but brunettes certainly outnumber blondes by a wide margin. Brunettes are akin to the largest high schools that dominate athletics because they have the widest talent pools from which to draw performers. You just have better odds of finding a gorgeous brunette — brown hair is the dominant trait. In addition, because dark hair is so common, you’re in no danger of finding one of those ladies who acts like she is better than you, simply because of the color of her hair.

I’m not alone in my preference. A recent national survey reveals that 75% of men would choose to marry a brunette, and 80% would rather bring a brunette home to meet dear old mom. Even more amazing, I didn’t just make up those stats.

A less skilled or inspired commentator might resort to a few blonde jokes, or cracks about their collective intelligence. I won’t stoop to that level, but I will say that I certainly find intelligence very attractive. Anyway, I change my light bulbs by myself.

Brunettes are natural, mysterious, and offer a wide array of cultural traits. But for all the wonderful things I could say, for me, the entire debate about the appeal of brunettes and blondes comes down to one simple quote:

“Every decade has an iconic blonde like Marilyn Monroe or Princess Diana, and right now I’m that icon.” — Paris Hilton

What?? I don’t understand why the offer went down. I think the offer should be higher than that, but I don’t know.

Dad, what do you think?

You know, that is a lot of money, but it’s still too low. That’s not what I came here for. I came here to make my dreams come true and you know something, Howie? My dreams are bigger than that! Right?? That just isn’t going to make it! I’ve come too far! I’ve come too far!

The banker has to know I mean business. There’s still a case with a big amount out there. If I open just one more case… I’m thinking maybe one more case. Yeah. One more.

Mom, what’s your opinion? Yeah?

Oh, boy, that is a lot of money, Howie. Yeah, I know I don’t have a safety net. Oh boy… Honey? What should I do?

I just have a good feeling about my case. I’ve got a good feeling with this one. It’s lucky. It’s the number of my great-aunt’s wedding anniversary with her second husband.

I can do this! I can do this! It takes guts to win this game! Let’s do it! Who does the banker think he’s dealing with? I didn’t come here to go home with that amount! I came here for the big money! He can’t intimidate me! I’m not taking a lowball offer!

I came here with nothing, so I have nothing to lose. We’re going all the way, Howie!

No Deal!

Well, let’s think about this logically for just a minute. Sure, there’s a case worth $400,000 still available, but realistically, my best-case scenario is going home with half of that, since if I ever got it down to that case and one of the remaining low amounts, there’s no way I’d pass up a guaranteed $200,000 for a fifty-fifty shot at $400,000.

Furthermore, with five cases remaining, the odds are against me getting down to two without knocking the $400,000 out of play. Even if I dodge the $400,000 this time, the offer won’t increase that significantly with just one more case gone.

And with each case opened, I’m increasing that risk for a potential reward that is actually smaller than it appears, since again, I won’t go home with any more than $200,000.

Oh, and also, the highest amount among the other remaining four cases is $300 — so if I lose the $400,000, I’m basically going home with nothing. That seems to me like it would be a rather disappointing result to my game show experience, regardless of my financial status beforehand.

Certainly more disappointing than “settling” for tens of thousands instead of a million.

I’d love to go home with more, but that doesn’t change the facts. Models might lie, Howie, but numbers don’t.

Deal.

I am 46 and I’ve been a salesman nearly all of my adult life. I don’t know everything, but I know some things. Globalization, outsourcing, whatever else you want to complain about, it’s all inevitable.

Without getting deep into all the economic theory, this one is a no-brainer. People want to pay the lowest possible price for the product or service they need, and if there is a way to make that happen, someone, somewhere, will do it. And the market will either flock to them or find an even cheaper way. If that means using factories in Mexico to produce clothing, our clothes will come from south of the border. If it means locating a call center in India because they can hire five people for the price of one here, then our calls will be handled in India. Inevitable.

I personally believe our main barrier to accepting this globalization is our American mindset — after all, we are Americans and we have rights. We want to pick up the phone, call the number and have our billing problem solved in 30 seconds. We are the fast food generation. We microwave TV dinners because waiting 20 minutes for the oven is too slow. “Dang it, solve my problem now Rajiv, or we’ll bomb you back to the stone age! And learn English!!!”

The other half is that as patriotic Americans, we are threatened by any loss of jobs here. We enjoy a privileged existence in the richest nation in the world, and we don’t want anyone to screw it up. “Let the rest of the world starve, we don’t care! Don’t take our jobs!!!” We are a far cry from Moses, who “when he was of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter . . . esteeming the riches of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt.”

An unknown second-century writer penned a letter to a certain Diognetus, describing Christians thusly: “The Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. They display to us, nevertheless, a wonderful and confessedly striking manner of life. They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens they share all things with others, and yet endure all things as foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers . . . they pass their days on earth but they are citizens of heaven.”

I remember feeling the weight of this the first time I took a missionary trip to Haiti. I looked around the bus as we rode through this foreign land, watching the Haitian translators sitting quietly in their seats as we made fun of their food, their roads, their hygiene and their language. Meanwhile, we were on our way to a meeting to preach the Gospel to them.

Globalization is just part of the issue. We need to understand we are not citizens of earth, we’re citizens of heaven. Once we settle that, I think we may be able to shed some of our hatred for immigrants, outsourcing and anything else that threatens our privileged life here in America.

I would like to introduce you to a family by the name of Gutierrez. They have three children: 11-year-old Marie, 16-year-old Diego, and 19-year-old Manuel. Mr. and Mrs. Gutierrez work in the factories, called maquiladoras, making parts for American cars. Marie is in fifth grade. Diego and Manuel quit school at fifteen to work in the lead factory; ends weren’t meeting.

The Gutierrez family brings in 1650 pesos a week ($153), the mother making 100 pesos less than her husband and sons. This covers their housing, transportation to and from work, and usually food (the cost of living in Juarez is about 80% of El Paso). Their wages don’t always cover gas or water, and only covers new clothes every 18 months or so. The boys are forced to constantly wear clothes that have been exposed to lead.

The Gutierrez family lives in a 2-room hovel in a dump on the border, where most maquiladoras are. The family is lucky enough to have wooden walls and a tin roof. The rent is exorbitant on their wages and they sometimes have trouble keeping up. When they can’t afford to pay the gas bill, they light a fire. When they can’t afford water, they take it from the river and drink mercury, lead, and traces of arsenic, dumped in the river by the unregulated maquiladoras.

Mr. Gutierrez has had knee pain for several years now, and when it gets cold, he can barely walk. It won’t be long before he can’t work anymore. Mrs. Gutierrez found a lump in her breast a few months ago but hasn’t mentioned it to anyone because she can’t afford to go to the doctor and she doesn’t want anyone to worry. Though the boys aren’t aware of it yet, they are slowly dying of lead poisoning because there is no one to enforce the feeble laws on lead manufacture. Maria is malnourished and has trouble concentrating in school. In four years, she’ll give up on education and take to the streets, where she’ll earn her living until she too becomes a drone in the maquiladoras.

If you were to ask the Gutierrez family how they were doing, they would reply with a tired shrug that they were surviving. They wouldn’t tell you that their very livelihood, what is supposed to be the highest-paid job for an unskilled worker in Mexico, is killing them.

I know, outsourcing is great for our country’s economy. People want the lowest possible price and they don’t want to hear about the sacrifice someone is making to provide it. The fact is, the Gutierrez family is just a natural byproduct of the endeavor for a new and better low-price America. But dare I say it?

It isn’t worth it.

(The Gutierrez family is fictional, comprised of several reports on conditions in the maquiladoras and interviews with workers.)

It’s good to be the king.

The Tyrant King of the Lizards, that is.

T. rex is the epitome of dinosaur. Weighing four to six tons, 40 feet long, 20 feet tall, and with a four-foot jaw filled with razor-sharp teeth upwards of 12 inches, T. rex was not built for play dates. He was a killing machine that ate meat.

The image of dinosaur conjured up in every mind is of an enormous Tyrannosaurus, standing over the body of a lame dinosaur like a Triceratops, Stegosaurus, or an Apatosaurus, roaring in delight. Oh, I’m sorry, did I say Apatosaurus? Perhaps I meant Brontosaurus.

While the incorrectly named Brontosaurus would passively graze, staring around with its vacant, cow-like eyes and walnut-sized brain, Tyrannosaurus stalked the primordial jungles of Laurasia, with a brain over twice the size of herbivorous dinos. That’s right, Laurasia, or present-day America. If America were a dinosaur, it would totally be T. rex.

Broadly speaking, the only lame thing about the T. rex is the disproportionate size of its teeny forearms. But recent discoveries show that the arms, while small, were incredibly muscular, designed to hold its prey in place while it was devoured.

So who’s it going to be? The Tyrant Lizard King, with his gigantic brain, or the dim-witted, hopelessly lame, salad-eating “thunder lizard”?

Today is “July 4th Eve,” the day before we celebrate the birth of our wonderful nation. The story involves a small group of poorly-armed militiamen successfully fighting off the forces of a terrible king and rising to become a mighty colossus. It would be nigh on sacrilegious if, on today of all days, the readers of Bweinh! selected a tyrant as their favorite dinosaur.

Once you get past the hype surrounding the T-Rex, what is it? For what does it use its kingship over the other dinosaurs? According to Calvin and Hobbes (a reliable source if there ever was one), T-Rex was either a fearsome predator or a loathsome scavenger. Regardless of Calvin’s answer, we should be unwilling, as Americans or Christians, to accept a dinosaur fitting either description as our favorite. There are better paths than predator or scavenger.

Enter the brontosaurus. Simple- minded and simple-living? Probably. Defenseless? Hardly. Strength has always been a prerequisite to peace and the brontosaurus is built to last. No teeth or claws to speak of: just pure size and a willingness to group together with others when necessary. Its name means “thunder lizard,” and it is indeed mighty, a force of nature — at least 23 metric tons to the T-Rex’s 6.8.

With this in mind, the brontosaurus now seems more like the mighty United States (its fossils have also been found here). And the T-Rex is placed squarely with the North Koreas and Irans of the world: noisy and fussed over for weaponry, but in the end unable to match the sheer size and power of its mighty adversary in a fair fight.

Do not reject America’s proud heritage of reluctant heroism and unmatched power in exchange for tyranny and a set of shiny teeth.

Felix, I am very, very disappointed in you. It seems like we’ve had this discussion over and over again, and you say you’re listening, but I’m just not seeing the changes in behavior that would show me you’re paying any attention at all.

Your father and I have discussed it, as well as your grandparents, nursery- school teacher, your therapist, my guru, and your father’s attorney, and we’ve come to the conclusion that the next step is going to have to be a spanking.

I hate to have to do this, and I’m so very sorry we’ve come to this point, but remember — this hurts me more than it hurts you.

No, no, there’s no use trying to convince me otherwise — I mean it, little mister. I’m telling you the truth. When I see my only son, my little prince, behaving the way you do, throwing Mr. Whiskers at your sister while she’s sleeping and hiding Mommy’s “special” pill bottle under the porcelain Buddha, well, it just breaks my heart, Felix. And it only makes it harder on me when I’m forced to punish you physically, because I’m your mommy, and that’s a really special thing, and a mommy doesn’t want to ever cause her little boy pain and, and —

Do you see this, Felix? Do you see what this is doing to your Mommy?

Oh sweet Krishna, I need a drink.

*sigh*

Where was I?

The pain! The pain, Felix, the pain I feel when you feel pain, or when I make you feel pain, well, that pain, it feels worse than any pain you feel at the same time. Because at that time, I feel both pains. Your pain *and* my pain.

It hurts me.

Inside.

Do you see?

Oh, forget it, just assume the position already.

Ouch! This really, really hurts! I mean, we both knew going into this that it wouldn’t be a walk in the park, but seriously! I’m sure you have the best motives, and I know you’re not enjoying the whole corporal punishment thing, but I honestly don’t think you understand how much this hurts!

What’s that you’ve got there, a willow switch? I didn’t even think they still MADE those! And have you been working out? That vacuuming/laundry gig you’ve got going must really work the shoulders and arms, because things are starting to get a little hazy.

Dude, are you winding up? You’re really getting the wrist into it, I can tell you’ve done this before.

Judging from the lack of obvious exertion, your cardio conditioning can’t be too shabby either. I’ve been considering going to a Capoeira class with a couple guys from playgroup, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to take myself seriously afterwards. I mean, dance-fighting? That scene’s a little too West Side Story for this cat — Great Caesar’s Ghost, that one really brought me back! I admire your technique, but no amount of psychic disappointment in my behavior or regret at the steps you’re taking to correct it can compare to the excruciating physical pain I’m experiencing.

It’s bad enough you had to give me this freaking name, now you rake me over the coals in the name of societal norming?

Could we possibly take a break? I could really use an ice-pack, or maybe a children’s aspirin? Heck, with the sound drubbing you’re doling out back there, I might even need something a little stronger! Bring on the extra- strength Tylenol, while I still have the muscle control to swallow it! What with the levels of agony you’re inflicting, I’m on the verge of unconsciousness. The room is spinning, and: what? You’re done? That was it? Well of all the wimpy — I mean, that was, bar none, the worst experience of my entire life! And I assure you, whatever I was supposed to be learning through this process, it’s all in there. Peace.

Today, Syracuse will swelter. It’s the hottest day of the year. The high will be 95; combined with tropical humidity, this will make it nearly unbearable outside. Last week, I spent 7 days in New Mexico, Satan’s sauna, where highs reached triple digits every day.

What a perfect time to extol the joys of cooler weather!

I’ve worked outside in temperatures that ranged from 25 below to 95 above, and I’ll take the colder end anytime. Most of the worst jobs in America face extreme heat, including cowboys, ironworkers, longshoremen and roofers. Horses and hot tar don’t give you a 6-hour break at high noon!

It’s true people are more comfortable in warm-weather attire, but let’s think about extremes. If you’re too cold, you can always put on warmer clothing, or more of it. But when it’s hot outside, there’s a pretty strict legal limit on how high you can, uh, let your freak flag fly. Even if you can get nekkid, there’s no guarantee that unfortunate decision will cool you down enough to be comfortable.

Plus they say freezing to death is one of the least objectionable ways to die. Your extremities slowly go numb, which sounds like bliss compared to the searing pain of heatstroke pounding your head into seizure, hallucination and coma.

Maybe the best reason to like cold weather is its effect on relationships. When it’s hot like today, unless you’re submerged in a body of water, you don’t want to be near anyone. Tempers shorten, fuses blow, and even a platonic hug exchanges more fluid than a blood transfusion.

But not only do you want to be around other people when it’s cold, it’s practically necessary to conserve heat! Cuddling up on the couch with someone special isn’t an unpleasant, sweaty chore like in July — in the winter, it keeps up both morale and body temperature.

Hot weather is for individuals — sweaty, uncomfortable, and alone — but cool weather? Cool weather brings us together.

Imagine yourself, eight years old, waking up one morning and noticing the air is unusually crisp and muted. As you tumble out of bed, heart racing, breath quickening, you know that — yes, out the window — SNOW!

You run screaming down the hall, smack into your mother’s knees. “Not without these!,” she chirps, pointing to the mountain of snow gear she will soon inflict on your person.

By the time she finishes protecting your cute little extremities from frostbite, you have to pee, you couldn’t play in the snow if your life depended on it (or get up if you fell down), and the radio has announced the roads are plowed, so school is not canceled.

This would not happen if it were hot. For one thing, you can easily move in the attire required for a hot day, which is next to nothing. More importantly, school can’t be canceled in the heat because there is no school! That means days filled with tans, swimming pools, water fights, picnics, sports, and siestas.

Oh, yes, siestas. It’s a physical impossibility to work when it’s 105 degrees out, ladies and gentlemen. That means you quit at 1:00 and don’t start up again until 6:00, if at all!

Still not convinced? Let’s not forget these other important points:

• Ice will kill you on the road. Hot asphalt will not, unless you’re stupid and walk barefoot on it, and then it’s your own fault.

• Heat makes all the scary things go away, like snakes, big things with teeth, and children.

• Heat stroke is temporary, but another good reason not to work. Frostbite is forever, like diamonds, but without the jewel or the finger to put it on.

• Water parks, ice cream, barbecues, parades. Have you ever tried to have a parade in below-zero weather?

If you still prefer the cold, I’ll pull the patriotic card. As Americans, we stand for liberty, and if shorts, tank tops and flip flops aren’t liberating, I don’t know what is. Certainly not your snow pants.

The case for mandatory helmet and seatbelt laws is simple — they save lives and money, with minimal invasion of individual privacy.

My distinguished opponent wears his seatbelt every time he gets in a car; I know because I’ve ridden with him scores of times. So I feel no compunction at all in saying that if you, the reader, don’t wear your seat belt in a car, or a helmet on a motorcycle, you are a moron. And if you actually think you might be better off in a crash without those items, you just might be a “9-11 was an inside job,” “Hooray, the wife wants to go on Springer,” “Let’s head to Vegas and spend a day feeding the slots”-level moron.

That’s not what we’re debating. Rational people accept that wearing a helmet or seat belt makes you safer, but should the government mandate such safety? Stupidity — even dangerous stupidity — is not enough reason (by itself) to outlaw something, which accounts for the continued legality of cigarettes, Ginsu knives, and high-speed Japanese motorcycles. The real question is when the state should step in and prevent idiots from doing things that are likely to endanger their well-being. These regulations differ from most others in that they appear to affect only the individual — but that’s misleading.

Injuries and deaths from the failure to wear seat belts and helmets harm society in at least two ways. First is the direct cost to society — hospital bills, etc. But the second is even more important — the senseless loss of a valuable citizen. If you crash a car and die for lack of a seat belt, you have deprived us all of the production and enjoyment from your life. You are unique and you simply CANNOT be replaced without hurting society — not to mention your family. The social contract that governs our actions in the civilized world trumps the me-first individualism libertarian intellectuals cook up with black lights and bongs, and feeble-minded imbeciles use to justify how their feeling the wind in their hair is more important than my seeing their brains all over my mailbox.

Of course this is potentially dangerous; government could theoretically extend ‘protections’ into every area of our lives, stripping us of the freedom to make any decisions. All the more reason to keep government smaller and more accountable to the people! Seat belt and helmet laws don’t come from a desire for government control over individual rights. They are rightly derived from the proper understanding of everyone’s obligation to society to refrain from harming it, by taking unnecessary risks.

This might sound a bit inconsistent coming from the guy who beat the drum for more government-enforced smoking bans, but I actually prefer a government that butts out of many of our decisions. And seatbelt and helmet laws are one area where I think they need to.

Let me start by conceding that failure to wear a seatbelt is foolish. Steve is right — I always wear mine, even for trips around the block, and when I’ve been in accidents, I have been glad for it. Failure to wear a helmet on a motorcycle, on the other hand, is stupid enough to convince me that damage to that particular head might not be that much of a loss. And I fully support such laws for minors, since anything less is tantamount to child endangerment.

Everyone ought to wear helmets and seatbelts because it’s sensible. When traveling at high speeds, I want to wear anything that decreases my chances of death and dismemberment.

But I don’t want my government telling me what I need to do for me, and I certainly don’t want a ticket on those occasions when I either can’t wear a seatbelt, perhaps for medical reasons, or when I decide that it is more to my personal benefit to not wear one.

That determination should still be mine to make in areas such as these where my own well being is the only thing at risk. I personally wear a seatbelt, but there are plenty of things I do that endanger my health. I eat fatty foods. I don’t get as much cardiovascular exercise as I should. Is the government going to start dictating my diet and assigning me PT?

Obviously those things don’t present the immediate threat that an unrestrained accident could, but where do we draw the line? Can we rock climb, sky dive, or surf? For that matter, can we even ride motorcycles at all?

Hopefully, with every Clash I submit, it becomes increasingly obvious that I’m a staunch moderate on most issues. Gun control is no exception.

First of all, many who oppose gun control would cite the “liberty” argument: our Constitution is special tells the government things it may not do, then reserves further rights to the people. Among the rights protected by the Constitution is the right to bear arms, presumably with the goal of protecting our ability to rise up and throw off the chains of oppression if the government evolves into a second reign of King George III. This is certainly an important point, but I harbor no illusions about my ability to protect myself with any amount of personal firepower if the officers of the United States military decide they want to turn the country into their own private hunting grounds.

My primary disagreement with gun control stems from my practicality and my willingness to accept the assumption that criminals can get guns if they want them. As the world becomes more globalized (which is not redundant, if you think about it), I believe that this assumption becomes increasingly true. The short version of my line of thought goes a little something like this: we can’t stop criminals from getting guns and bringing them to a variety of places, but criminals don’t generally want to die (or be injured) in the process of committing a crime.

Therefore, we should increase risks to criminals to the point at which, even though guns can be obtained quickly and easily, there is not an incredible amount of benefit to obtaining them. We can do this by increasing the police force, which is ideal for certain types of people (generally the people who could wind up on either side of the criminal-victim equation), but carries inefficiently high costs for stable people who are very, very unlikely to become criminals. For these, guns are a low-cost protection solution.

Of course, tests are needed to determine who should carry guns; it is here that my moderate side shines through and forces me to concede that there should be standards about who can carry guns. If the requirements start getting too strict and Orwellian, I suspect an average citizen would be more likely to buy an illicit gun anyway, and a revolutionary scenario would play out.

However, once a person meets these standards, most types of non-military weapon should be available to him or her, and they should be able to carry guns virtually anywhere. Think about it: where do massacres happen? The ones that have captured media attention in recent years have happened mostly in schools, where students, teachers and faculty have no means by which to defend themselves, so one gun sneaking in can be deadly.

Young people shouldn’t be allowed to have guns until they prove themselves responsible, but imagine the number of school massacres that might have played out differently if just one principal or faculty member had carried a gun to school on the day of the massacre.

Are mutually assured destruction scenarios like this unnerving? You bet. Unfortunately, for the moment it appears that the “no guns” and “no guns of a certain type” options are not available to us, and in a world of limited choices, the next-best option is for many generally rational people to have guns wherever it could potentially save lives.

Past School Shootings

Feb. 2, 1996, Moses Lake, WA — 2 students and 1 teacher killed, 1 wounded.

Feb. 19, 1997, Bethel, AK — Principal and 1 student killed, 2 wounded

Oct. 1, 1997, Pearl, MS — 2 students killed, 7 wounded

Dec. 1, 1997, West Paducah, KY — 3 students killed, 5 wounded

Dec. 15, 1997, Stamps, AR — 2 students wounded.

March 24, 1998, Jonesboro, AR — 4 students and 1 teacher killed, 10 wounded

April 24, 1998, Edinboro, PA — 1 teacher killed, 2 students wounded

May 19, 1998, Fayetteville, TN — 1 student killed

May 21, 1998, Springfield, OR — 2 students killed, 22 wounded

June 15, 1998, Richmond, VA — 1 teacher and 1 guidance counselor wounded

April 20, 1999, Littleton, CO — 14 students and 1 teacher killed, 23 wounded

May 20, 1999, Conyers, GA — 6 students injured

Nov. 19, 1999, Deming, NM — 1 student killed

Dec. 6, 1999, Fort Gibson, Okla. — 4 students wounded

Feb. 29, 2000, Mount Morris Township, MI — 1 killed (shooter and victim both 6 years old)

March 10, 2000, Savannah, GA — 2 students killed

May 26, 2000, Lake Worth, FL — 1 teacher killed

Sept. 26, 2000, New Orleans, LA — 2 students wounded

Jan. 17, 2001, Baltimore, MD — 1 student killed

March 5, 2001, Santee, CA — 2 killed, 13 wounded

March 7, 2001, Williamsport, PA — 1 wounded

March 22, 2001, Granite Hills, CA — 1 teacher and 3 students wounded.

March 30, 2001, Gary, IN — 1 student killed

Nov. 12, 2001, Caro, MI — 1 student killed

Jan. 15, 2002, New York, NY — 2 students wounded

October 28, 2002, Tucson, AZ — 4 killed

April 14, 2003, New Orleans, LA — 1 killed, 3 wounded

April 24, 2003, Red Lion, PA — 2 killed

Sept. 24, 2003, Cold Spring, MN — 2 students killed

March 21, 2005, Red Lake, MN — 10 killed

Nov. 8, 2005, Jacksboro, TN — 1 killed, 2 wounded

Aug. 24, 2006, Essex, VT — 3 killed

Sept. 26, 2006, Bailey, CO — 2 killed

Sept. 29, 2006, Cazenovia, WI — 1 killed

Oct. 3, 2006, Nickel Mines, PA — 6 killed, 5 wounded

Jan. 3, 2007, Tacoma, WA — 1 killed

April 16, 2007, Blacksburg, VA — 33 killed, 15 wounded

This list came from here and was amended to eliminate all but the number of casualties, and to remove all incidents outside the United States.

Barry Bonds is the greatest baseball player of his generation, the best player I’ve ever seen and may ever see. To say he’s a Hall of Fame talent gives too much credit to many of those currently enshrined.

Some will argue his alleged steroid use has cast a black mark on the game sufficient enough to warrant his exclusion from the Hall. First, let me start by saying I have no intention of arguing that maybe he didn’t use steroids, or that it wasn’t horribly disappointing to learn of this use. He did and it was. But he still belongs.

The sheer mountain of career stats he’s amassed is nearly undeniable in its own right, but there’s more to it than that. First off, all the evidence we have, both statistical and testimonial, indicates that Bonds started using steroids at the very end of the 1990’s. By that point, he had already put together a Hall of Fame career, including being the only man in the history of the game to amass over 400 homeruns and 400 stolen bases. With the possible exception of Ken Griffey Jr., Bonds was already the best player in the game for a decade, including three MVP awards. Some players under suspicion, notably Rafael Palmeiro and Mark McGuire, may have had their careers completely and fraudulently boosted by steroids. Barry Bonds is not one of them.

But it goes even further than that. Raw numbers ultimately prove inadequate at comparing players across generations. For this reason, players are pooled into eras defined by the statistical trends predominant when they played. There are any number of factors that contribute to the development of these statistical trends, and players’ numbers will always be judged first against those who played at the same time and under the same conditions. Like it or not, this has been the Steroids Era, and Barry Bonds has completely dominated this era. Plenty of players we know were taking steroids couldn’t come close to him when he was clean, and when he leveled the playing field by juicing himself, he absolutely leveled the playing field, putting up arguably the best offensive seasons ever against pitchers who were juicing themselves.

I hope baseball cleans up steroid use. But the fact remains that everyone, from the commissioner to the bleacher bum, has been complicit in what the sport of baseball became. Let’s not make Bonds the scapegoat just because he’s the defining player of the era.

Barry Bonds is a 13-time All-Star. He has earned eight Gold Gloves, has the highest On Base Percentage, On Base Plus Slugging, Plate Appearances, Games Played, Runs, Total Bases, Home Runs, RBI, Bases on Balls, Runs Created, Extra-Base Hits, Times on Base, Intentional Walks, Power/Speed Number, and At Bats per Home Run of any active baseball player. He has earned an estimated $172.7 Million Dollars in his career. He holds the record for most home runs hit in one season — 73. Barry Bonds is also no longer human.

Examine this picture. At the beginning of his career, Bonds was first and foremost a base-stealer. During the 90s, however, Bonds hulked himself out on not completely un-illegal steroids.

In his first 12 seasons, Barry averaged 37 stolen bases per season. After he BALCOed up, he earned a scant 7 and a half. In fact, over his last 5 seasons, beginning at age 35, BALCO Bonds averaged 52 homers, slugged over .700, and had a batting average in the mid .300s. Men pushing 40 do not hit .300. After hitting age 35, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron lost their touch, declining in every statistic. Through the miracle of low-down, dirty-dog cheating, Barry Bonds did nothing but explode upwards.

And surprise! After the league started cracking down on steroid use, his numbers have declined again. Then-commissioner Fay Vincent wrote a memo in 1991 that read: “The possession, sale or use of any illegal drug or controlled substance by Major League players and personnel is strictly prohibited … [and those players involved] are subject to discipline by the Commissioner and risk permanent expulsion from the game… This prohibition applies to all illegal drugs and controlled substances, including steroids:”

Barry, ignorance of the law is not an acceptable defense. How absolutely stupid do you think I am? A representative from a laboratory brings you a cream and a liquid for you to rub on yourself and you think this is fair play?

As kids, Steve and I rented Super Baseball 2020 for the Super Nintendo. It stank. Why? Because the players were super-powerful robots. Barry Bonds broke both the letter of the commissioner’s rules and the spirit of the game, and for that, he and his ever-increasing head should be barred from Cooperstown.

And God willing, when the robots start playing baseball, they’ll be banned as well.

I was mildly coerced into getting a personal MySpace page and I regret the decision to this day.

It’s not that I think I’m too good for personal networking websites; I love the Facebook and I was using sites like the long-since-obsolete Quickdot when most of today’s MySpace users were still stuffing crayons up their noses and putting anything that wasn’t nailed down into their mouths.

What’s that? They still . . . Okay, that’s a bad example. But the fact remains I was annoying other people through telnet way back before many of you modern MySpacers were even born.

I just hate MySpace.

I hate its clunky, horrifying design, strips of blue flanking unreadable text links and unending advertisements for insurance, movies, and ladies’ underwear. I hate Tom.

I hate the terrible things people do to their own pages; I hate when someone’s lousy taste in music is automatically inflicted on me; I hate the uniformly awful attempts at changing the default layout.

I hate that I can spend an hour ranking my ‘top friends,’ and I hate the way (mostly) girls use their profile pictures to draw attention to all the wrong things for all the wrong reasons.

And I hate, more than anything, how every time I go on the blasted site, I have to clear out solicitations from seminude women, advertisements for natural male enhancement, and spam comments full of broken images and Trojan horses.

As Job says, it’s YourSpace, honey child. Not Mine. And as I toss and turn my way to fitful sleep tonight, haunted by the constant fear that I might have missed the chance at a lower rate on my second mortgage, with every labored breath, I’ll wish I’d held out.

I pray you have the strength I did not.

Or, if you don’t, that you’ll at least add me and our band!

Hey Steve.

How’s it goin? I just moved to the NEW YORK,United States area and I wanna meet a nice guy around here :-). I moved here to NEW YORK,United States a couple of weeks ago for work and now that I’m here I have nobody to hang out with! I read your profile… You’re cute and I liked what you had to say :-).

DO you know whats on most girl’s minds but they won’t tell you or will they. I am telling you this because it is the honest truth, look I should know…

Anyway you won’t believe this. that day I just filled my zip and my address in a form. A few days later I got a Visa Gift Card worth $500,and was told it can be used at any store!!! It really worked when I trying to buy an iPod!! Cost me nothing! LOL….

**~PERSONAL questions~**
Do you think I’m a good person?

Would you let me sleep with you (in the same bed)?

Would you let anything happen in that bed?

If you could change anything about me — would you?

Our lenders are ready to give you a loan! Approval process will take 1 minute!

Plus I’m just graduated college and I’m lookin for a guy who is a little bit older or more mature than me. You say you’re 26 and you’re cute so I guess you’re qualified :-)

if u don’t like out of the box thinkers that leave me alone!noo i’m just kidding really…lol..

And If you weren’t there FRIDAY NIGHT i lost that bet with ryan, so i made those SPECIALpictures available for ONE WEEK ONLY!! rember to stop by my webcam anytime!!

Discussing the superiority of one gender is like cleaning your bathroom floor with a cup of store brand bleach and a drinking straw. It’s dangerous, you leave with a bad taste in your mouth, and it takes a long time to do it right. But out of a sense of obligation to my worthy opponent and our reader, I’ll stick to only three important areas of life where girls “stick it to the man.”

Aesthetically speaking, womankind could not be further ahead of men. As car designers know, the human eye is naturally drawn to smooth lines rather than blocks and angles. Simply examine the contrasting silhouettes of a man and a woman. The inherent beauty of a cascading series of smooth lines and subtle curves? Or the clunky, utilitarian kludge of stark lines and sharp angles? And aesthetics go beyond mere looks. Think about the last time the passing effluvium of a passing stranger made you gag, then remember the gender of that person. Ignoring every sense but smell, would you rather be in an elevator with a man or a woman? An exhaustive staff poll revealed a near-unanimous preference for the woman. In terms of sheer aesthetics, the foundation of personal interaction, women take the cake every time.

Nature too seems to have an innate sense of the superiority of women. Were it not so, surely we would all start off as male from conception, but in fact, the opposite is true. Until testosterone has time to work its corruption on a developing fetus, we’re all ladies. In fact, science itself has come to the point where, if all men were to drop off the face of the earth, humanity would go on. The dizzying concept of human cloning is even now a realistic mode of procreation. The miracle within a miracle that makes cloning possible? A female. Nature and science themselves heap the lioness’ share of their acclaim at the feet of woman.

The societal aspects of female superiority are difficult to perceive on the surface. After all, the direct, visceral impact of women at the reins of power has only been felt in the last few generations, after centuries of seemingly trifling forays into improving society. The true power of women is that, though men comprise the vast majority of decision makers and power brokers, almost every advance has been designed to impress women. Without women, men would have no reason to earn a lot of money, fix up their house, wear clean clothes, or even stop living in caves. “Eh, I’d build a house, or at least put some skins on the floor, but the game is on!” Women civilize society in general; in areas of former East Germany, men outnumber women 100 to 80, so now the men devoid of a reason to raise themselves are reforming into a fascist political element akin to the infamous Nazi party. Left to their own devices, without the muses of civility, men devolve into shiftless, warmongering malcontents.

Despite my having held the Bweinh.com Frederick Nietzsche Chair of Misogyny since its inception in June 1996, I cannot argue with aesthetics, nature, or society. You go, girls.

Allow me to present to you two situations, both entirely probable:

Situation One

Meet Joe. He plays football. In the last game, Joe dropped the ball five feet from the touchdown line and lost the game.

Meet Bill. He’s Joe’s teammate. After the game Bill complained to several other players that he had told Coach from the beginning that Joe shouldn’t be allowed on the team because he wasn’t a good enough player. He completely blames Joe for the loss and makes a few comments about Joe’s mother to prove his point.

Situation Two

Meet Jill. She plays volleyball. In the last game, Jill made a bad serve, losing the championship game.

Meet Brenda. She’s Jill’s teammate. After the game Jill complained to several other players that she had told everyone that Jill never should have been on the team because she didn’t care enough about volleyball. She completely blames Jill for the loss, and
makes a few comments about the size of Jill’s thighs to prove her point. She also calls her a whore.

Let us examine these two entirely probable situations. What do you think will happen?

Joe will push by Bill in the locker room the next day. Bill will say, “Watch where you’re going, butterfingers!” To which Joe will reply, “You watch it!” And then he will commence pounding Bill’s face in with his fist.

There will be a scuffle, a little blood, and a visit to the principal’s office. They will be threatened with expulsion from the team, but it won’t really matter anyway because they already lost the championship. They will later laugh about their shared peril and high-five each other in the halls.

Jill will talk to her friends about what Brenda said, and say a few things herself. Soon there will be a rumor that Brenda is a drug pusher and that Jill is sleeping with the gym teacher. They will hate each other with venom and never cease thinking up vicious lies about each other to spread around.

Before their ten-year reunion, they will join dieting programs, trade in their beer-bellied husbands for pool boys and buy extravagant diamond rings, to prove to the other that they were not any of the things the other called them. They will speak politely with each other at the reunion, then turn around and tell their old friends that the other is a terrible word that would be a disgrace to print on Bweinh.com.

That is why boys are so much better than girls.

Those of you who know me as being perhaps on the theologically liberal end of the spectrum of Bweinh!tributors may be surprised to find out that I am essentially politically conservative.

This is something that has developed in recent years, probably as I have grown older and responsible for running a household with my wife Jill. During our first year of marriage especially, we were not making much money. “How are we going to pay for it?” became a consistent refrain — when thinking of buying a car, new furniture or even a pizza for dinner.

So while I hear and am genuinely moved by pleas for universal health care or raising the minimum wage, the question still pops up: “How are we going to pay for it?” Eventually, the answer comes to me: “You are . . . you and the rest of the tax base.” And while I ought to be ready and generous to give to worthy causes, I would just as soon not take the US government’s word for it in deciding what a worthy cause is.

Just on the off chance that the US government decided something immoral was a worthy cause (perish the thought!), I would rather not have the mechanism already in place to force me to pay for it. We need the government to protect citizens from trampling each others’ rights; we don’t need a government determining right and wrong for individuals when that behavior has no impact on the lives of others.

It is the same sort of logic that informs my position that marijuana should be legalized. I’ve never used marijuana; and not like Bill Clinton never used marijuana either. I’ve never used it, period. And I can’t imagine why someone would. But you know what? The threat posed to society at large by marijuana usage is minimal at most. It poses no undue risk to the general populace; it does not rob anyone else of their rights. Marijuana does not threaten to kill or injure anyone besides the user. And if people want to do things harmful to themselves, tobacco is already legal and shows no signs of becoming illegal.

As far as I can see, the main reason for keeping marijuana illegal is that our government wants to send a message that it is abhorrent and dangerous behavior. I don’t condone marijuana usage. But neither do I want our government exploiting its power to determine what is abhorrent and dangerous. Remember, orthodox Christianity isn’t always pretty in the eyes of our government either, but it’s protected belief and behavior . . . for now.

I guess I’m counted among the social conservatives of the world. Jonah Goldberg once described social conservatism (to me and my peers at SLU) as erring on the side of keeping things the same when change is proposed. He illustrated his point vividly — during the 1960’s, a significant number of hippie communes began suffering from terrible diseases no American doctor had ever seen. To make a long story short, it turns out the age-old traditions of bathing and personal hygiene were not just “the man’s” hang-ups after all.

People are good judges of what is beneficial for them often enough that most decisions are safe in their hands; personal choice is one of the greatest tenets underlying philosophical liberalism and democracy. However, these also generally assume people are self-interested, and what’s good for me is not always good for you. Sometimes I can even be fooled into making a decision that’s good for me in the short run, but hurts in the long run. It’s a real shame that we don’t have a natural experiment to show what happens if otherwise responsible adults spend too much on expensive, addictive habits and not enough on their health, family, education, etc.

But of course, we do. We could examine the effects of cigarettes, which cause cancer and eat up resources that could be used more productively. However, aside from addictiveness, tobacco does not have many of marijuana’s characteristics (no mind- altering experience, man!), so it’s probably better to compare marijuana to alcohol, a much more sobering comparison (pardon the pun). Both drugs produce an altered state of mind and can transform you into someone that you are not. Legalizing marijuana doesn’t just put it into the hands of homesick Europeans and responsible folks like you and me. It could also put psychoactive drugs into the hands of a welfare recipient who should be out looking for work or caring for his/her children, or a person getting behind the wheel of a car. Granted, there are still DUI/DWI laws, but think about what an unbridled success those have been and you’ll understand my desire to keep pot illegal. Such regulations barely deter anyway; few believe the risk of getting caught is significant.

Finally, though I may be guilty of employing the slippery slope fallacy, it’s not a particularly good argument for legalizing marijuana. Why make anything illegal at all if the government cannot make moral judgments? Even protecting me from my neighbor implies my life is worth more than what’s spent on protection. Like most arguments, the argument about legalizing marijuana comes down to a matter of degree — to what degree will we let the government determine what Americans shouldn’t put into their bodies? I have no disdain for people who draw the line elsewhere, nor do they lack in morals, but I sincerely believe some people are not responsible enough to limit their detrimental behavior, so marijuana should remain illegal.

Diet Coke kilt my Pa. Don’t try and tell me he didn’t, eder, cuz I seen it wid my own eyes, I didz. I wuz down by da barn ‘n Coke Classic come ridin’ in wid his gang. Sprite was dere, dat Meller Yeller feller, Barq’s, Vault, and of course Coke’s boy Diet Coke.

Dat’s da one dat kilt my Pa, like he wud a lab rat drinkin’ a sample of Diet Coke, which has been blamed by some medical professionals for causing serious illnesses like brain tumors, brain lesions, and lymphoma. I done hid behind a bush, I didz. I didn’t want me no brain lesions.

“Dis is refreshment!” Diet Coke said as he done sauntered over ta da door. “Come on out! I know you’re in dere drinking Diet Pepsi, which has been around almost 20 years longer than me and is far more crisp and light, packing a powerful punch of persuasive flavor without leaving a depressing aftertaste like I do.”

My Pa done showed his face at dat time, smiling ear to ear. “Don’t smile so wide, Pa,” I muttered ta myselves ‘tween my teeth. But I knows he couldn’t help it. Diet Pepsi alwez made my Pa smile. Heck, it makes eve’yone smile, if’n they drink it.

“Youz wrong, son,” my Pa bravely sez. “I ain’t drinkin’ Diet Pepsi. I be drinkin’ Diet Pepsi wid a Twist — one of the many taste innovations Diet Pepsi introduces regularly to bring me the best in flavor, innovations you copy widdin 2 or 3 months of deir debut.”

Vault got real agitated-like den, and he threaten to blow his fizz. But my Pa was real cool, an’ he suggested Vault relax his li’l knock-off version down ‘fore Pa called Ol’ Mountain Dew to fix ‘im right proper. But dat seemed to make Vault even more worked up. “Just for the taste of it!,” Diet Coke sez. “This here’s a Coke valley. We either gon’ run yo’ kind out or learn you to take to drinkin’ from our trough, un’erstand?”

My Pa stop, he did, and looked hisself up and dern da valley. Den he brought da Diet Pepsi to his lips, took a big long draw off’n it, den held it out to Diet Coke and sez, “Want some?” Diet Coke’s eyes went ablaze en dare wuz a eerie quiet. Den Pa sez, “Don’t worry. I don’t backwash.” Dat’s when Coke Classic and his gang done went tru da roof. But my Pa wuz jest laughin. Then he sez, “Run along, you little girl of a cola, go cry into your Shasta. This here’s a Pepsi valley. My Pa drank Pepsi in this valley and my boy’ll do da same, long after I’m dead.”

Den da whole valley seem to shake with my Pa’s final thunderous words. “I’ll tell you one last time, you donatin-to-democrats son of a motherless goat: my family don’t drink your creekwater and we never will, hear? Kiss my Aspartame!”

Don’t tell me Diet Coke didn’t kill my Pa. I seen it wid my own two eyes.

Diet Coke is the number-one selling diet soda in the world, and the third-highest selling soda of any variety behind Coca Cola and Pepsi. In fact, last year, almost one out of every ten sodas sold in the United States was a Diet Coke. Diet Pepsi lags far behind Diet Coke in overall sales, and ranks sixth in a list of most popular sodas in the United States.

That is the basic substance of my argument. Simply put — more people drink Diet Coke than Diet Pepsi. They are sold in roughly the same number of countries, and enjoy roughly the same amount of shelf space, but Diet Coke consistently outsells its rival.

I would be foolish to say someone is wrong for enjoying a Diet Pepsi more than a Diet Coke. After all, a person’s tastes are their own. But a Diet Pepsi drinker must admit their minority status and concede the majority of diet beverage consumers prefer Diet Coke. That’s not debatable; it’s simple mathematics.

Now that we’ve established Diet Coke is the most preferred diet beverage, we must ask why. Why does Diet Coke outsell Diet Pepsi? I’m sure marketing strategies play into it, but I also believe Diet Coke is fundamentally a superior product. To an unpracticed palate, the difference between the two is negligible, but to a diet soda connoisseur like myself, there is a remarkable difference. Diet Coke has a subtle hint of cinnamon, as well as a sparkle and zing that is lacking in the bland Diet Pepsi.

There’s nothing like sitting outside a restaurant in the desert drinking Diet Coke with ice, or driving down the freeway with a Diet Coke in the cup holder. Diet Pepsi just isn’t the same. It lacks something.

Maybe flavor.

If you like Diet Pepsi, fine. I doubt I will change your mind, but at least admit you don’t represent the majority of consumers. Pepsi may be the choice of the next generation, but sure as heck isn’t preferred by this one. This generation prefers the real thing — it prefers Diet Coke.

“I don’t hate women. . . my mother was a woman!” — Mike Tyson

It would be wrong to suppose, just because I am on the opposing side of this issue, that I favor a ban on women in ministry. My first two pastors were women and I have nothing but the utmost respect for the role they played in my early development as a Christian.

I simply think there are unavoidable Biblical statements that must be incorporated into our understanding of what is and isn’t appropriate for how women function in the body of Christ.

In 1 Timothy 2:11-15 we find, to me, the most formidable barrier to a carte blanche approach to women in ministry. Paul mentions subjection, authority and Eve’s role in the Fall of man as all playing a role here. Unless we reject Paul’s words as Scripture, which Peter specifically warned us not to do in 2 Peter 3:15-16, calling them Scripture, I don’t see how we can ignore his statements.

He uses the word subjection (hupostassas), which is also noted in the relationship of men and women in Ephesians, 1 Peter and Colossians, and mainly connotes order as opposed to chaos within an organization. Any attempt to define the separate roles of men and women in the church and family has to take these Scriptures into account.

Is the woman less of a Christian? No. Does she have a different role to play in the church and family? Yes. A role that carries with it submission to male authority? Yes.

In this section Paul says, “I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over a man.” In the Greek the phrase “to teach” is not constructed as a one-time action; it refers to holding the position of “teacher.” The word “teacher” is interpreted elsewhere as “master” (rabboni), and refers to the person who ruled on doctrinal matters in the synagogue and was recognized as its final authority. Paul was not forbidding a women to preach or teach in his assemblies, in my opinion, but rather forbade them from holding that place of authority.

He links this, however uncomfortable it makes us, with the Fall, Adam being “first formed” and Eve being “deceived.” If we need further proof Paul believed there was a lingering judgment on Eve’s descendants, we need only read through verse 15, where he makes the statement, “Nevertheless she shall be saved in childbearing.” What was the punishment bestowed upon Eve for her place in the fall? Pain in childbirth. Paul notes that though there is a lingering judgment that has placed her in subjection to man, judgment will not overcome her. But the judgment still remains.

Paul also told the Galatians, “In Christ there is no male and female,” and this statement is not a contradiction. Man has no favor with God that woman does not have, no special gifts or perks. We just serve in different roles. My boss is not inherently better than me, but he is over me in authority, and I must respect that.

What should a woman do if she is called to preach? Preach with all her heart! Teach? Teach with all her heart! Sing? Sing with all her heart!

But should she be ordained? I do not believe so — but I willingly acknowledge another thread that runs through the Bible. God rejects those who reject him, and uses whomever is faithful, whether or not they meet the requirements of His own scriptural statements.

The culture of Christ’s day treated women as second-class citizens. Jews of that time were known to thank God for not making them “a dog, a Gentile, or a woman,” and almost all ancient men treated their wives, daughters and sisters as mere possessions. The famous trick question of the Sadducees, meant to attack the resurrection, was built on the concept that a woman’s existence — even in Heaven — was primarily defined by which man owned her.

And into that world came Jesus Christ, the living Word of God, who never treated women this way. He spoke, alone, to the Samaritan woman at the well (Jn 4), He visited Mary and Martha at their home, He allowed women to support Him financially (Lk 8), He was lavishly anointed by a woman at dinner (Lk 7). He did not allow a woman caught in adultery to be condemned while her male compatriot got off scot-free (Jn 8); when His disciples fled, the women in His life anointed Him for burial (Lk 23) and first witnessed His resurrection (Mt 28).

Similarly, throughout the Bible, women served in leadership and ministry roles. Deborah led the nation of Israel (Jdg 4-5). Miriam, for all her faults, was a prophetess (Ex 15:20). Priscilla taught and preached with her husband (Ac 18:26), and in Romans 16, Paul sent greetings to many women in the ministry, including deaconess Phoebe and apostle Junia.

Against this powerful model of Christ’s behavior and the normative example of Biblical ministry by women, we have — what? A passage in I Corinthians that, on its face, seems to demand absolute silence from the same women who were just given instructions on proper public prayer, and a passage in I Timothy written to those in Ephesus, a city known for false teachers and the female-dominated Artemis cult.

It is not that these passages are unscriptural, or somehow less important than any of the rest of the Bible. It’s precisely because none of these texts can be ignored that, one way or the other, we must reconcile the contradiction between the repeated use of women in public ministry throughout the Old and New Testaments, and the apparent stark prohibition of such behavior here.

Is it simply that God used women when men were not available? Not so of Miriam, who served with her brother, or Deborah, who ruled Israel alone, while married. It’s not true of the women Paul greeted in Romans, and there’s no suggestion of a divine or universal command in those churches to limit their ministry to certain roles, or to avoid making women the ultimate ‘teacher.’ The only places this is mentioned are Corinth and Ephesus.

Let’s look at those churches. Much of I Corinthians was devoted to order during worship, which (from context) likely had to do with largely uneducated women dressing provocatively and blabbing during church. And like I said, in Ephesus, local women were quite ‘liberated’ in their form of worship. Weighing the evidence from other churches against the history of these two, doesn’t it make more sense that Paul’s words were guidelines for specific situations, rather than universal, normative commands?

I do believe that in general, men and women are called to different roles in the family and church. But God has made us all unique, with different gifts. Not all women have the gift to encourage; not every man can teach. It would be improvident to suggest, based on two passages and the Fall, that we should limit the use — or even the context of the use — of some of God’s gifts to half of His people.

Honestly, let’s think this one through. A man who wears tight spandex, shoots webs, and has a “spidey sense” that “tingles” is no match for a man who wears tight spandex, shoots laser beams from his eyes, can fly, has super strength, and X-Ray vision.

The last son of Krypton, Kal-El, would literally tear Peter Parker a new cephalothorax.

For goodness sake, Spiderman doesn’t even wear a cape! And did you even watch Spiderman 3? I just about died laughing when ol’ Pete started crying like a cheerleader with a skinned knee.

“Mary Jane! Come back to me! I love you!” Boo hoo hoo. Try having your entire planet explode, then talk to somebody about how much it hurts to lose your loved ones.

Superman knows much about teamwork. As a founding member of the Justice League of America, he helped the League defeat giant space starfish Starro the Conqueror, among many other threats to national security. That’s right, nothing quite embodies America like Superman, what with his ongoing fight for Truth, Justice, and the American Way.

Superman received his superpowers, not at birth, but by his transportation to our planet. Here, powered by Earth’s Yellow Sun, his latent abilities as a Kryptonian become useful.

Josh, perhaps you’ve been bitten by one bug too many. If you’re waiting for those cockroaches to transform you into UltraRoach, or whatever you’re hoping, perhaps you should volunteer for the next trip to Beta Centauri. Perhaps the light of the Blue-White giant will enhance your ability to live for a month without your head.

Let’s find out.

Unless your spidey sense is tingling.

In which case, I’ll let you outside.

Just don’t tingle on the carpet again.

I lost the ability to take Superman seriously around the time that Five for Fighting released that terrible song, whining about how much it sucks to be able to fly.

I’m sure the song made a lot of money; it couldn’t possibly have been on the radio more often. But for me, it had the unintended consequence of cementing Superman’s status as the boring hero. He has no flaws. Since there’s nothing he can’t do, there can be no true drama. The only question in every single battle is whether the villain remembered to pack Kryptonite. How many times can we see that same story?

And trust me — I wear glasses. When I take them off, people still recognize me, even if I comb my hair.

Spiderman is the people’s champion. He’s one of us, thrust into the position of being a hero. He has an enviable set of powers — he can climb walls, jump great distances and has increased strength and balance, not to mention his Spidey sense. But he still has enough shortcomings to provide intrigue and require some brainwork, or even teamwork, to defeat his villains. He has to put in work to develop his skill and augment his arsenal. Spiderman has a brilliant and concealing costume and is perhaps the wittiest of all superheroes.

It’s also a far more credible proposition that I could one day be Spiderman. I’ve never been to another planet, but I’ve been bitten by plenty of bugs.

My favorite part about Spiderman is his motto — “with great power comes great responsibility.” Put another way, you might say that from those to whom much has been given, much will be required.

Spiderman learned the same lesson I had hammered into me growing up. I’m not here to jump over buildings, race bullets, or arm-wrestle trains. I’m just here to do my part to save the world.

I’m not a huge fan of Wal*Mart. When I go there, it’s crowded, I often can’t find what I’m looking for, and customer service is subpar. Their business practices aren’t beyond reproach either. But for all their failings, Wal*Mart is a very good thing for America and many, many people. The arguments in favor of Wal*Mart are straightforward: the corporation makes a great deal of money for its shareholders, while employing many and providing consumer goods at rock-bottom prices to those who may not otherwise be able to afford them. But do these benefits offset Wal*Mart’s drawbacks?

The first common criticism is that Wal*Mart shuts down small businesses. Most of the evidence of this phenomenon is anecdotal at best, but even if it really is significant, I question its importance. Most people choose to buy at Wal*Mart because of the prices, and because they see (rightfully so!) that there is nothing inherently more valuable or moral about a local sole proprietorship compared to a global corporation.

But don’t Wal*Mart’s employees have a right to unionize or get health insurance through their employer? At most other firms, the answer is a resounding “No!” Most low-wage service jobs, regardless of source, are unlikely to merit affordable health insurance or company-blessed unionization. Wal*Mart provides employees and stockholders with a choice, and the fact that people keep choosing Wal*Mart proves it’s better than some of the alternatives.

Finally, what about global sweatshop labor? Even here a choice is involved. Globalized agribusiness has made traditional farming unprofitable for many, and after a community is thus devastated, Wal*Mart enters it with promises of a reliable wage. Who wouldn’t jump at the chance? It’s a terrible situation, but it’s hard to say Wal*Mart is morally reprehensible; at worst, they are opportunistic, profiting from the evil globalization has wrought for many indigenous farmers.

Wal*Mart is simply an organization that’s taken the rules they’ve been given and followed them well; they’re on top because they’ve got a good formula. They should not be penalized or demonized, but rewarded as the system demands — if we want to change the rules by which Wal*Mart plays, it must spring from us (consumers and workers), not from inside corporate administration itself.

Can you live on $6 an hour? In a 35-hour job (since most jobs that pay that much don’t allow for anything more than part-time), you would make just under $11,000 before taxes, FICA, Worker’s Comp and health insurance. Before rent, the electricity bill, gas prices or bus fare. Before daycare, the daughter’s new shoes, and the son’s asthma medicine.

One of the strongest arguments for Wal*Mart is that it creates jobs, thus boosting the economy of an area. It’s true, Wal*Mart boasts 1 million workers nationwide. However, Wal*Mart’s wages are only enough to sustain teenagers and college students.

The most pessimistic wage for a regular Wal*Mart employee is $8700 a year; the most optimistic is $15,600 net pay, with no vacation time whatsoever. The U.S. Census Bureau reported in 2004 that “the average poverty threshold for a family of four in 2003 was $18,810; for a family of three, $14,680; for a family of two, $12,015; and for unrelated individuals, $9,393.”

Let’s be realistic. Who needs the jobs in the economically depressed areas Wal*Mart is fabled to help? Not teenagers and college students, but those with families, or the people over 25 trying to support themselves. Have you, assuming you are a single twentysomething, tried to live on $12,000 (my own calculated mean Wal*Mart salary) before expenses?

Let’s say you have a child, since it’s safe to assume some percentage of twenty-somethings working at Wal*Mart have at least one. You’re at the poverty line. Let’s say you have a bum boyfriend or girlfriend. Now you’ve made it under by a good $2,500. So what are you going to do when you can’t pay the bills or feed the kids?

You’re going to go on welfare, and welfare is paid for by everyone else’s taxes. Since you can’t afford Wal*Mart’s health care plan, which is only catastrophic coverage (and you’d be paying 35% of it anyway), you won’t be covered. If you’re over 19 and under 65, you will not be on state-provided health insurance either. You’ll just have to get sick and get over it, or let creditors ruin your credit and the hospital absorb the loss. Your one or two previously mentioned children will receive the school’s insurance, which is once again paid for by taxes.

But let’s not forget the core of the argument. Wal*Mart ‘helps’ the economy.

Let’s be honest and first admit that Wikipedia has its shortfalls. The accuracy of many articles is a concern, and it the format also has difficulty when the facts about a person are beyond question, but open to several different interpretations. My dissertation will be on revival evangelist Charles G. Finney.

His Wikipedia entry has a tag warning that the information provided may not be neutral. Why? The biographical facts of Finney’s life are unquestioned, and much of his writings survive. But Finney is a controversial character because people are not sure how to interpret his legacy. Was he a Calvinist? Was he not? Did he save American Christianity or kill it? Were his methods of evangelism a consistent mechanism for the Holy Spirit’s act or a clever substitute for the Spirit? Everyone who thinks about Finney has a stake in the answers to those questions and so his Wikipedia entry can be a battleground.

Yet let’s also be honest and confess that complete and total accuracy and neutrality is not the role that Wikipedia plays in our culture. It may well be true that Wikipedia is not completely accurate or neutral; it also is no doubt true that I don’t have four wheels and a horn. That’s because I’m not a car, nor should I apologize for not being one.

In the same way, Wikipedia is not a completely accurate or neutral source for information, nor should it apologize for not being one. The site itself even says so: on its “about” page, we are warned that especially newer articles may contain “significant misinformation, unencyclopedic content, or vandalism.”

No, you can’t cite Wikipedia authoritatively. But you can learn from it. When I needed a jumpstart for another paper on Finney, Wikipedia led me to a site with all of Finney’s works. The links also led me to a bit of interesting debate from varying perspectives on Finney, as well as the website of the church he founded. While I couldn’t cite anything directly from the site, I found it helpful in getting off the ground.

Wikipedia is also able to cover more arcane and interesting topics than a normal encyclopedia. Hitting the “random article” button five times gave me articles on HSY (a Korean fashion label), Tagin (an Indian people-group), ’70s Rock Must Die (a 2000 album by a group called “Lard”), Carson High School, and Kirkland House (one of the undergrad houses at Harvard). Who else would cover all of these things at all, even if their coverage wasn’t completely bias-free (as if any coverage ever is)?

You also can enjoy Wikipedia. Some people decry the vandalism and turf wars that go on — I sort of like it. It’s a case study in people being people — sort of like Survivor on the internet. If people want to waste their lives arguing on Wikipedia, isn’t it at least nice that we can be amused by their foolishness?

So instead of being disappointed that Wikipedia refuses to be respectable, let’s enjoy its strengths: it has potential to provide new information on esoteric topics and provide geek drama at the same time.

What’s not to like?

There’s a lot to like about Wikipedia, conceptually. There are millions of frequently enlightening articles, especially those on uncontroversial matters, ephemeral lists, and complex topics. Most of their guidelines and principles are wise and thoughtful, and no one denies it’s an educational and entertaining way to spend an hour.

But other than this article, I will never cite to it here.

Wikipedia often reminds me of feudal Europe in the Middle Ages — rule by the whims of the few. You know the party line — anyone can edit anything — but in truth, the site is like any other bloated bureaucracy, full of ardent protectors of power and self-interest.

If an article has a wise, benevolent ruler, or a good group of editors, it may be neutral and well-sourced. But in the frequent event there’s a turf war among users who each want it their way, it becomes part-faculty meeting, part- soap opera, a storm of endless bloviation about complex acronyms and ‘sockpuppets.’ Kissinger once said, “University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.” I think he used that example only because he wasn’t yet able to watch “Netscott” and “Radiant!” argue for days about whether discussions or surveys were better to “build consensus” on Islam and Slavery.

More than just the culture irks me. When researching our Council question about drugs, I read the Wikipedia article about the War on Drugs. It had a questionable claim that marijuana was America’s largest cash crop, and cited an article in a British newsletter, which in turn cited a report from something called the Bulletin of Cannabis Reform. Apparently, as long as information is cited, it can come from the most biased sources. In fact, most of that article reads like the platform of the Marijuana Reform Party, but good luck getting its defenders to let you change that. People, even those who should know better, frequently defend their work like it was their child, especially about politics.

Remember Richard Gere publicly kissing that actress in India? I looked her up, and the second result was Wikipedia, which called her an “AIDS sufferer.” That didn’t seem right, so I looked further — turned out she only PLAYED an AIDS sufferer in a movie; she was actually an AIDS activist. And “activist” was on Wikipedia for weeks, until someone changed it slyly. And there it stood, proud and unchallenged, for over a week, until I came along.

This is why I can’t and won’t cite Wikipedia — you can’t trust it. And you can’t count on anything to still be there in two minutes, let alone two weeks. For instance, “DanEdmonds” decided it was inappropriate to include “AIDS activist” in the article, so he removed it.

I went to the Wikipedia ‘drugs’ article as I wrote this, and its first sentence read: “Drugs are good for you.” I changed it back immediately; the sentence had only been up an hour. But in the past 24 hours, there have been 19 similar attacks by vandals — it’s almost all that’s done to change the page. What a waste of time!

You know quite well how many morons and troublemakers there are in the world. If you still want to trust a vast random sampling of humanity to be authoritative about any subject, be my guest. I’ll stick to using it to find Sir Mix-A-Lot trivia. Did you know politics are “important” to him?

I hail from the Advent Christian denomination, the Millennium Falcon of Protestants — old and small. Two main tenets from our statement of faith create the most distance between us and the Empire.

First, we believe in “soul sleep” — a person doesn’t immediately ascend or descend to heaven or hell but remains, well, dead (1 Thessalonians 4:16) until Christ’s return and the subsequent judgment. Second, we don’t believe hell lasts forever, as some might imagine. We believe that when Matthew writes that “these (the wicked) will go away into eternal punishment,” he means eternal destruction (not necessarily torment) and separation from God.

Let me clarify that point. My opposition would seem to read that verse to mean the wicked will go away into an eternal life of punishment; I read it to say the end of their lives is the punishment. While neither of these Adventist points pertain to salvation and are best summed up as “splitting hairs,” they are, nevertheless, important for Christians to discuss because of the way the world has begun to paint our views. This point can lead to the larger and more relevant debate — how else is our faith colored by things other than Scripture?

Be it Gary Larson’s Far Side or the iconic film It’s a Wonderful Life, we — and the world — have begun to view both heaven and hell through the filter of modern fiction, lore and whimsy. The idea of the torment one might receive eternally in hell or the bliss awaiting in heaven is largely produced by our “Mind’s Eye.” Lava, steam, wailing, pitchforks? Clouds, togas, gold, pearly gates? With this as our tapestry of thought, our theology tends to coordinate itself with it. I don’t think anyone would argue accuracy has been the foremost concern of Christianity over the past few centuries.

But rather than deferring to Dante, I note instead the words of the Apostle Paul in his second letter to the Thessalonians (1:8-10) — “He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord, and from the majesty of His power on the day He comes to be glorified in His holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed.”

While I can find a duality of thought in some verses, this one is far too straightforward to be renegotiated per the notion that the damned are due the déjà  vu of recurrent scorched skin. Paul infers nothing but a totality of dismissal from consciousness. I think the word “everlasting” is employed here and elsewhere concerning the afterlife because of the pagan religious thinking that Thessalonica and other locations were prone to. The idea of a soul as a cockroach, able to scurry under the fridge of malleable consequences, was one Paul was urgent to dispel. And it’s making a comeback.

While I have already noted that our main concern should be what happens here in the fourth quarter, not in the locker room after the game, take it from Chewbacca — things are not always as you’ve always thought them to be.

“There is no doctrine I would more willingly remove from Christianity than [hell], if it lay in my power…”
C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

In 1793 William Blake published The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Although he confessed ambiguity over Blake’s meaning, C.S. Lewis intended and entitled The Great Divorce as a response of sorts; in his view, the inhabitants of Heaven and hell could never be reconciled, for they are ever growing further apart, not closer. It’s a salient point in whether hell is eternal — if hell is temporary, we must assume that either its inhabitants are, in some fashion, being reformed, with an eye toward reuniting them with the inhabitants of Heaven — or their immortal soul has to be destroyed, allowing it to escape eternal damnation through annihilation. Is there some hint in the Bible of a place where such reconciliation could be accomplished? Is there evidence for annihilation to render Hell temporary?

First let me make clear that my belief in eternal hell is not based on Lewis’s work or personal preference, but the authority of the Bible. It is stated clearly in Matthew 25:46 that “these [the wicked] will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” The word eternal, used twice, is the same word in the Greek and carries the same meaning in both phrases. The punishments of hell are just as eternal for the wicked as eternal life is for the righteous, whether we consider purgatory or annihilation. Other references, including Mark 9:42-48, Luke 16:19-31, 2 Thess. 1:8,9, Jude 7-13, and Rev. 14:9-11, affirm that Hell and its attendant punishments are eternal.

The only Christian doctrine to support a temporary rehabilitation arrangement after death is purgatory. This is a doctrine of the Catholic Church whereby God takes people at death and holds them in torment until someone ransoms them. Originally this could be accomplished through prayers and good deeds on their behalf, but during fundraising for St. Peter’s Basilica, the church shifted its preference to cash.

Any attempt to make hell less than permanent on the basis of reforming the wicked completely removes the belief in hell, leaving us with Heaven and purgatory. But this would be purgatory even the Catholic Church does not believe in, for in their doctrine, purgatory is purification the believer undergoes in preparation for Heaven. It’s never portrayed as a place the wicked can go. In Catholic doctrine, no one escapes Hell; only the Christian sees purgatory, then Heaven.

Annihilation is a more modern achievement that rests on two arguments. The first is that God can’t punish finite sins with an infinite Hell, for this would be unfair and disproportionate. But how then can we expect God to reward finite obedience to the Gospel with an infinite Heaven? Each position is taught in equality in Matthew 25; what applies to one certainly would apply to the other.

The second argument is that the Bible doesn’t say all men possess immortality, only God and the righteous. This would mean men would eventually perish and hell would cease to exist. There is more evidence for this, as Scripture does not seem to make any explicit statement that all men possess an immortal soul. But the enormous weight of passages presenting hell as eternal gives sufficient reason to believe it is taught by inference.

I know what you’re thinking. “Europe? I’m not voting for Europe!” But please put aside your ethnocentrism — voting for Europe does not make you a bad American. In fact, many Americans prefer Europe, not because it’s better than the US, but because it’s older. Europe has millennia on us, which makes their history a lot more interesting. Starting with the Greeks and Romans and moving to the Goths and Visigoths, Picts and Celts, Germans and Gauls, you’ve got it all — intellectualism, art, ancient architecture, mysteries, magic, and intrigue. I’m not talking a couple hundred years, either; Europe goes all the way back to Julius Caesar. And speaking of Caesar, Europe also has Shakespeare. That’s about a thousand bonus points right there.

If that doesn’t convince you, I’m going to guess that you’re still sticking to your patriotism, and good for you! Patriotism is great, but like I said before, voting for Europe is not unpatriotic. You will not be arrested for treason, I think. I could be wrong. If I am, you can take it up with Steve. He’s a lawyer.

But if that doesn’t convince you, I’ll appeal to the higher good. Europe has the church fathers. Aquinas, Ignatius, Augustine, Tertullian, Francis, Claire, Catherine, Wesley, Teresa: Open any book of church teachings and you’ll find Europeans. America has Joseph Smith and the Westboro Baptist Church.

Plus, Djere is right. Europe invented America. In fact, Europe invented our democratic system! Locke and Smith were English, Hume was Scottish, and Tocqueville and Montesquieu were French. Without Europe, where would America be? Well, it wouldn’t.

Also, there’s the Beatles.

My last point is short and simple, and for the women. Have you ever tried European chocolate?

Europe versus the United States? Please. In this post-9/11 age, I don’t even have to write anything, just post a sparkly animated GIF of the American flag. But I’m a traditionalist, and since the founding of this country, we’ve been beating Europe, so why stop now?

First, as a gesture of good will, let’s go over some of what ol’ Europe has going for it. For starters, Europeans invented America.

Second…ummmm, second… Oh! Second, Swiss Army Knives. And third, Scotland.

Now that the niceties are out of the way, let’s get to business. Europe is an aging, decrepit, socialist cesspool full of arrogant, bigoted Europeans. But not for long. Soon it will be full of dead, arrogant, bigoted Europeans and angry, disaffected Muslim youth.

America is great because of Americans like Ronald Reagan. Europe is terrible because of Europeans like Stalin, Hitler, Chirac, the anti-Christ, and “Lord of the Dance” Michael Flatley.

Man, this is like batting practice. Europeans are godless, they invented communism, legalized drugs and prostitution, their athletes can’t get half as many Olympic medals as ours, and you know the North American All-Stars are *sooo* much better than the “World” All-Stars in the NHL.

Sure, we’ve made our mistakes, but there’s time for us to change. Europe? We’d be better off burning it down and rebuilding America II from scratch.

‘Boom!,’ goes London, ‘Boom!’ Paris! More room for you, and more room for me…

Cheers, mates.

I still remember a time when nearly all restaurants went through the charade of designating separate “sections” for smoking, separated from nonsmokers by nothing more than the air the smoke wafted right through. I had more than a few meals ruined, so I can’t for a moment say I regret the move away from allowing smoking in certain public places. While I readily acknowledge my bias as a nonsmoker, I say bring on the bans.

I’m not suggesting banning smoking outright. I understand that for many this is about having the freedom to make personal lifestyle choices, no matter how unhealthy or ill-advised they may be. Most of us engage in activities that shorten our probable lifespan because they increase our enjoyment, convenience or manageability of life. We should be free to make these choices — but only insofar as they do not interfere with others’ rights.

Secondhand smoke was once considered little more than a distasteful annoyance, but there is now increasing evidence that it poses serious health risks to others. Exposure to secondhand smoke increases the likelihood of both lung cancer and heart disease, and children in particular are very susceptible to these effects. Estimates vary, but most studies attribute tens of thousands of deaths annually to secondhand smoke exposure. The bottom line is that the Surgeon General has determined there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke.

Smokers have the right to make the choice for their bodies, but not the right to expose others to harm. As we learn more about the dangers of secondhand smoke and the ways we are exposed to it, we must be prepared to take the necessary measures to safeguard our general health. Prospective bans will not deprive anyone of anything necessary, or even beneficial. They will simply ensure that those who wish to destroy themselves do so without collateral damage.

Banning smoking in public, outdoor places doesn’t seem like a good idea.

I am not a smoker. I believe in the right to breathe relatively clean air, but I also believe in the right to pollute your personal air with cigars, cigarettes, or pipes to your heart’s content. At this point, in New York State, smoking is banned in government offices, restaurants, bars, and can be banned on private property, at the owner’s discretion. Take away sidewalks, streets and parks and what’s left? The home (depending on your lease) and the car. Until a mandate from the people makes tobacco illegal, it’s not prudent to force a large section of our population to have to act as if it was.

When making a decision with the stated intent of keeping people healthier, I find it easiest to think how it will affect the children. I close with an analysis of the most important situations where children would be harmed by banning public smoking.

Scenario I:
A frazzled single mother strives to keep food on the table and a roof over her child’s head. She has but two vices: her stories and the after-dinner pipe. She knows she shouldn’t smoke in her child’s home, but as an apartment- dweller, she has no yard or porch from whence to take her nicotine break. Does she risk a fine, or put her baby’s health in jeopardy?

Scenario II:
Drive past any elementary school in America, and you might see legions of educators wearing a path to the street corner judged far enough away from the school to allow unmolested smoking there. Take away this simple relief from the pressure of molding dozens of young minds, and what do you have? An army of angry middle-aged women who (without nicotine) can’t manage the stress of a 7-hour a day, 9-month a year vocation whose main requirement is outsmarting a fourth-grader. I don’t think that’s a situation anyone wants; keep the paddles, but let them have their sidewalk cigarettes.

Like almost everything in the Constitution, the electoral college is brilliant. It is not an outdated relic that keeps power from the people, it is a better way. Its abolition would be tragic.

National Perspective
Anyone who wins the presidency now must have a wide-ranging base of support. A George Wallace-type candidate, with tremendous regional popularity but no national appeal, can never gain the necessary electoral votes — but in a pure democracy, he could win with a vast majority in only his home area.

And if only total votes mattered, no candidate would EVER visit Idaho, Delaware, Vermont, New Hampshire, Kansas, or any state outside the top eight in population. Don’t California and Texas think highly enough of themselves as it is? The current system forces candidates to concentrate on our most closely divided states — which happen to be the ones most like the country as a whole.

Moderate Candidates
Our president has always come from the middle of the road, because success in our system requires substantial support from moderates. Compare that to a place like France — in 2002, a real live fascist made it to the finals of their two-step process. Eliminating the College could splinter the presidential race, making the winner more likely to come from the fringes. Pure democracies encourage balkanization, not compromise. But third-party candidates aren’t automatically excluded under our current system either! If H. Ross Perot hadn’t bizarrely abandoned the 1992 race, he might have won — remember, he actually LED some national polls in June.

Federalism
We are, after all, the United STATES. Congress has already stolen a lot from the governments closest to the people; let’s not make it worse by eliminating their most important national function. And issues that matter in South Carolina aren’t always vital in New Mexico; Alaska and Alabama face different challenges. Lumping all these perspectives together marginalizes the states — each deserves their own voice in electing the leader of the union they joined as equal partners.

Plus, if you thought the Florida recount was bad, imagine that horrific sideshow 50 times over. Fraud would be likely to increase too, if only because of the larger stakes involved.

Criticisms? Electors might vote for the wrong candidate, but most electors are party politicians or large contributors now anyway, so it’s not much of a danger. No majority in the College sends the election to the House, but they’re all elected at the same time as the president, so they’re as fair a way as any to break the tie.

Does the College reflect the strict will of the people? No — and that’s its best quality! Rather than permitting the danger of simple “majority rule,” our republic is set up specifically to protect our liberty from the power of pure democracy. As Founding Father James Madison wrote in Federalist 10, “democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”

Amen. Let’s leave well enough alone.

It’s not terrorism, social security, or even ethanol; it’s the Electoral College, an issue whose importance pales in comparison to many serious issues we face. Reforming the Electoral College isn’t so urgent, but it will make America more democratic and preserve the will of the people.

The best reason to replace the Electoral College with direct election? It’s more democratic. In 1800, 1824, 1876 and 2000, we didn’t elect the candidate for whom most voters cast their ballot — the candidate who received the most electors won. But maybe this is a good thing. After all, we want candidates who win the national election to have broad support from across the country, not support focused in a few populous areas.

Of course, the 2000 electoral map (the most recent election where the popular vote winner was not elected) doesn’t show a broad, national consensus for either leader. It shows a contest pitting the Pacific Coast, New England, the Mid-Atlantic, and the Rust Belt against the South and the Midwest. I’m not an expert on 19th-century electoral politics, but the 2000 example reveals the Electoral College does not necessarily lead to national consensus, but is capable of encouraging state-based regionalism.

Similarly, the Electoral College alone does not make politicians consider state-based interests, or even pay them lip service. This conclusion is borne out by statistical analysis — according to a study by George C. Edwards III, only 2 Gore speeches from June to October 2000 focused on particularly state-based interests (a senior drug plan in Florida and the estate tax in Iowa). Bush’s only state-focused speech during that time was in Washington on environmental protection. Since Washington has a greater number of electoral votes (11) than all but 14 others, it hardly fulfills the classic case of a small state that needs protecting against a tyrannical majority. The lack of recent focus on state interests reveals that our current system does not fulfill the ends to which it aspires, regardless of whether these ends are good.

As a side note, the idea that states need to be protected through the Electoral College at all is dubious. Small, low-population states still have many other ways to ensure their voices are heard and that their constituents are considered in passing legislation.

Even if the Electoral College made state interests more prominent, we might not benefit. Our government is consecrated to serve the people’s interests, rather than its own. Historically, one key vehicle to fulfill and preserve this relationship has been the use of states to aggregate the people’s interests. However, electing the President directly is more logistically feasible today than ever before. To claim states should maintain control in federal elections is to misrepresent the reasons the state was created in the first place: to protect the people from the federal government and ensure their will is represented there.

Since states have significantly limited value outside of this role, because the Electoral College has failed to elect the people’s choice in the past, and because the logistical possibility now exists to devolve more power to the people themselves, it would be beneficial to replace the Electoral College system with direct elections.

Hey, I have an idea.

You know hockey? That sport with the small base of rabid fans?

What a sport it is! Such speed, as players fly down the ice; such grace, as the best players weave in and out and around defenders on their way to the net; such precision, as the best shooters pick their spot and put it in the one area the goalie can’t reach; such power, as the best shooters wind up for 100 MPH slapshots that nearly tear the back of the net.

Which brings me to my idea. Let’s clog the ice with goons!

Let’s take that sport, with such a unique combination of athleticism and grace, and let’s make sure every team has at least one guy whose job it is to go out and fight the other team’s one guy. Let’s make sure that the fast, exciting guys (many of whom are from another culture) cower in fear that they might get knocked in the head while Western fans nod appreciatively at the Russian getting his due at long last! Let’s be sure that head shots stay legal and that at least once every game there is a fight with at least one player caught in the flattering “jersey-stuck-over-my-face” pose!

Why would anyone want to watch Sergei Federov or Simon Gagne or Sidney Crosby or Daniel Briere, with their crisp passing and deadly accurate shooting, when we could watch Todd Fedoruk or Colton Orr mangle each other for a while?

Further, let’s make fighting part of an “unwritten code” so that it’s cloaked in romanticism! A near-apocalypse would happen if a dozen (coincidentally?) mostly black NBA players cleared the benches and brawled; lengthy suspensions would result and white America would cluck their tongues at how bad the NBA’s getting. But if we have a “code” for mostly white players to live by, with consequences like getting your teeth knocked out, then suddenly it’s quaint! We can say it’s just part of the game, always has been, and always should be. Hey — Hammurabi had a code! So should we.

What would hockey be without the fighting? Speed, agility, grace, precision, drama? Who would ever watch that?

I am here to defend the use of Goons in hockey. If you don’t know what a Goon is, let me explain. He’s the guy who lumbers off the bench and pulverizes the opponent who dares to initiate, or even attempt to initiate, some type of painful contact with a hockey team’s “skilled” players. A skilled player, of course, has a Russian, Swedish or Finnish name and the same size uniform and skates as the Goon wore in Pee Wee hockey.

I know that the usual tack would be for me to cite the Code, that unwritten (yet often written about) set of laws that serve as the rules of engagement for Goons. I would explain to you that skilled players are valuable assets who need protection and explain how deterrence necessitates fisticuffs — like a safety leveling a wide receiver who catches a pass across the middle, you do it so they think twice the next time they think about doing something they shouldn’t.

But I’m going in a different direction — economic concern. For the Goons.

Here’s the question to consider — what else can these guys do for a living? These are not, as one athlete has said, “the brightest tools in the shed.” These people have struggled to learn human speech and have even found a meaningful way to contribute to society that (usually) doesn’t involve violent crime. Why turn them out?

And Goons are entertaining! During a tense playoff game several years ago between the Flyers and Devils, noted Goon Claude Lemieux (my spell check offers lummox here) was trash talking Flyers captain Eric Desjardins. After a particular rush ended with a Desjardins shot rather than a pass, Lemieux taunted him with the remark, “You always think about yourself first! What does that ‘C’ on your shirt stand for? SELFISH?” And then we have Bernie “Boom-Boom” Geoffrion’s now-famous words of wisdom to his Montréal teammates before a big game: “Three things we must do tonight, and that is shoot and pass.”

Where else can the world use men like this? Burger King? Wal*Mart? Sure, but these places seem to have enough imbeciles already, and if they were also huge and muscular, I couldn’t make fun of them anymore. We need to keep fighting in the NHL — to keep Goons employed and off the streets.

I am very much not a father. I am very much not a female. But I do think it is somewhat possible that I might someday father a female and I can guarantee you no government is going to mandatorily vaccinate my adolescent daughter for any sort of sexually transmitted disease, such as the Human Papillomavirus.

The implication is disgusting. While the vaccine appears to be very effective, thorough and well-tested (albeit costly), and while I’m definitely not saying all Gardasil doses should be destroyed and the recipe burned, the notion that the government should go to
such brash, expensive, and heavy-handed means to “vaccinate” poor parenting is audacious, invasive and infuriating.

Currently only one state, Texas, has taken the steps to make such vaccinations mandatory. While the issues raised about Merck’s campaign donations to Gov. Rick Perry are tough to build an argument around, his use of an executive order in favor of legislation requiring all girls entering sixth grade to be vaccinated does show a feeling that public dialogue may not go his way. And when the Texan legislature overruled his order, it further showed that apprehension about such invasion is most certainly there.

I think a far better tack to take would be allowing some competition to ferment, to make HPV vaccines cheaper and more readily acceptable, perhaps even easier and less expensive than pap smears.

What is more, understanding the disease, the manner in which it’s spread and the way it affects the physiology and psychology of women is of far greater benefit to our society than allowing the government to come in and sweep the problem under the rug.

Issues as personal as sexuality and children should always be handled delicately and with broad dialogue — never with executive orders that imply an urgency that suspects parents don’t already worry enough. Offer the vaccines, sure. Mandate them?

Over my dead body.

This shouldn’t be a debate over the actual use of the HPV vaccine. Its spread might be linked to the grinning, busted-up specter of promiscuity enjoying belle-of-the-ball status throughout most of the western “romantic” world, but few would say nothing should be done to stop the single largest cause of cervical cancer. Instead, my focus is bringing the vaccine into the standard arsenal of vaccinations.

Should a child get a vaccine their parents don’t want? There’s a difference between “standard” and “mandatory” vaccination. Your child won’t be denied access to preschool because she wasn’t immunized against HPV. Then there’s Job’s position — it should be available on request, but not suggested as a matter of course. When was the last time your co-worker was out for a few weeks with a nasty case of measles, mumps, or polio? Never — because of the vaccines that have rendered most individuals immune to them. They don’t merely keep individuals from getting sick, but prevent disease from spreading throughout a population. Since HPV is often asymptomatic in men, this makes it more important for women to be immunized, as a matter of course if the parents do not object.

There are moral implications to women getting these vaccinations before puberty. But when you travel to the third world, you don’t start vaccinations when you’re hip-deep in mosquitos. You get the shots well before you need them, to develop a sufficient immune response. Vaccines are useless for someone already infected, so it’s best to give the shots when they have the best chance to be effective. Will it make the country more promiscuous? How could it get any worse? And how many kids know what MMR or DTaP (two current vaccines) stand for? All the kid has to know is she’s getting a shot to keep her from getting sick, and if she’s good, she’ll get a lollipop.

HPV has been strongly linked to cervical cancer; even in women who approach sex the right way, its widespread nature makes it a threat — from rape, a husband’s past, or infidelity. We owe it to ourselves and our children’s children to try to stop it.

“The trouble with Scotland is that it’s full of Scots.” – Edward Longshanks, Braveheart

I don’t have anything against the Scots. Really, I don’t. In fact, I’m part Scottish myself. But when considering their contributions to society, all that comes to mind are dudes wearing skirts and bagpipe “music.” The former is indefensible, while the latter is actually a thing of beauty when done well. Of course, too often it’s not done well, and it sounds like a cow in the fourth hour of labor.

And so I proudly embrace my Irish heritage. First off, there are few things in this world more useful than being able to say “Kiss me, I’m Irish!” I’ve never actually had occasion to use it, but it’s still a great ace in the hole if necessary.

Ireland has given us the Blarney Stone, perhaps the greatest trick ever played on tourists. We have Ireland to thank for leprechauns, sitting at the end of rainbows guarding their bowls of Lucky Charms. And you have to love St. Patrick’s Day, where millions of non-Irish still choose to wear green in tribute.

In third grade, my teacher took a large chunk of St Patrick’s Day to teach us charming Irish tunes. I still remember Molly Malone and another one about McGuiness and McCarthy:

Oh, McGuiness was dead
and McCarthy didn’t know it,
McCarthy was dead
and McGuiness didn’t know it,
The both of them there
in the very same bed,
And neither of them knew
that the other was dead.

That’s just good clean fun, and one of the few things I remember learning, so many years later.

So I’m proud to have the luck of the Irish. They say it’s better to be lucky than good, but we Irish don’t have to choose.

It’s a real pity that when St. Patrick drove the snakes from Ireland, he left behind a country full of rats. You can keep your cesspool of religious and political instability; I’ll take Scotland. I’ll be brief so the Irish can keep up.

–Scots are tougher–
Look, you may have the Boondock Saints, but that’s complete fiction. It’s a fine movie, but Braveheart and Rob Roy were better and more historically accurate. While the Scots were busy beating off Roman assaults, roughing it in the Highlands, and tossing cabers for fun, the Irish were field-dancing, Maypole-prancing, virgin-sacrificing Celtic pagans. After engaging the Scots in battle, Hadrian decided they were too brutal to conquer, so he built a wall to keep them out… or hide behind. Scottish warriors showed up for battle covered in the national flower of Scotland — the thistle. What’s the national flower of Ireland, hops?

–Scots are smarter–
Most of the richest, best and brightest minds in the modern world were Scots: Andrew Carnegie, Adam Smith, Sean Connery. After all, there are 2 ways to get rich — Protestant work ethic or the luck of the Irish. What’s Ireland produced other than 8 million short- tempered bartenders, a marshmallow- pushing midget, and the questionably- oriented self-proclaimed “Lord of the Dance”? Oh, and relying completely on the potato as a food source? Good call.

St. Patrick’s Day is overrated. Every time March rolls around, you hear the same thing from every frat boy you meet. “What’s the matter, buddy? Everybody’s Irish on St. Patrick’s Day!! Whooo!” Wrong. I know you’re searching for identity, little fratling, but I already found mine, and it’s much better than beer pong, shamrocks and leprechauns. Not everyone is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day, not even St. Patrick! The Irish had to kidnap him!

Frankly, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the mark of the beast were a clover.

P.S. — As there is no Jew or Greek in Christ, so there is no Scot nor Irish. :-D
So Karen, babe, stop ignoring my phone calls!

If only they were included in those annual surveys of whom Americans trust, drug dealers might manage to bump car salesmen and lawyers out of the basement of public esteem. Typified in the collective mind as a shady, unshaven man with sunken eyes slinking around a playground at dusk in a bulky trenchcoat, the drug dealer is universally reviled as a corrupter of youth and an exploiter of human weakness.

But while we readily identify the local dope seller as an odious blight on society, we happily make peace with his ideological cousins at Starbucks, who peddle a product no less addictive or mind-altering.

Caffeine is the world’s most popular psychoactive drug, and its honored place in our society should not cause us to overlook its very real effects on the mind. A Johns Hopkins study found that as little as “one small cup of coffee daily” can produce caffeine addiction, a malady that may be included in the latest edition of the diagnostic manual for psychologists as a full-fledged mental disorder. When I read the list of caffeine withdrawal symptoms, it helped me understand why many Starbucks defenders are so rabid. Nausea, fatigue, and pounding headaches might be enough to keep me coming back for my daily fix as well.

But even if you accept the popularity of this mind-altering drug as a necessary evil in our sleep-deprived, results- obsessed society, there are plenty of reasons not to seek your dose from the ubiquitous mermaid:

– Starbucks charges far too much. It’s bad enough that a regular coffee is nearly two dollars, but those specialty drinks really get you. A mid-sized latte or frappuccino (words I freely admit I do not understand) costs more than a gallon of milk; large versions of these drinks approach five dollars. Drink two a week for 20 years and you’ve slurped down a cool $10k — before interest.

– Starbucks coffee apparently isn’t that good. I don’t drink coffee, but people who do, from the well-respected Consumer Reports magazine, ranked Starbucks coffee below McDonald’s in a blind taste test. I’m lovin’ that.

– And Starbucks stores just feel insincere. The whole shtick seems so calculated, a slick attempt to bottle a hip atmosphere and re-create it on a national scale, through generous doses of shallow philosophy, mood lighting, and second-rate classical guitar. It certainly seems successful, but that doesn’t make it any less creepy or manipulative.

I won’t claim any unfair business practices or exploitation, and I sincerely don’t mind that they’ve spread like kudzu across the country, or put other coffee shops out of business. That’s the American way; competition is the heart of capitalism, and they’ve succeeded admirably. They deserve some credit.

But I do hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t throw myself behind a behemoth corporation that fakes ambiance and overcharges its customers for an addictive psychoactive drug. As a future lawyer, I’d like someone to look down on in those surveys.

I was furious when I heard that Starbucks was opening not one but four stores in my hometown. I knew what would happen: The Shed, Café Rush, Java Junkie and all my other favorite hangouts would be obliterated. To me, as to many others, Starbucks was to coffee shops as Wal-Mart was to grocery stores. Namely, it was the end of them. When Wal-Mart came to town, only one other grocery store survived. I didn’t want that to happen to my coffee shops.

Starbucks didn’t kill any of my hangouts, though. They’re going strong, their eclectic, homey styles still beating out the corporation, mainly because of the music scene and the fact that everyone knows all the people in the pictures decorating the walls. The people in my hometown go to Starbucks, but that’s just when they’re in a hurry. They go to the little places for the people, because let’s face it — the coffee just isn’t that great.

I’m not saying this is the situation in all cities. I know about all those sad stories about the mom and pop cafes being booted out thanks to the monster mermaid. Yes, Starbucks has the cheesy “third place” thing going on, even though the atmosphere isn’t that great, and pales in comparison to the coffee shop your best friend decided to open rather than going to college.

But Starbucks Coffee isn’t all about the coffee it sells or the atmosphere it projects (but the coffee is good and the atmosphere not half bad). It’s about the prices, the sky-rocketing $1.55-cup-of-joe. Yes, the exorbitant charge is important, and in a good way.

There’s a reason Starbucks is so pricey. It’s called fair trade. Fair trade is a certification on coffee and other crops that ensures fair price and labor conditions, direct trade, democratic and transparent organizations, community development, and environmental sustainability. Starbucks buys about 10% of the world’s fair trade coffee, more than any other single coffee buyer in the United States.

What usually happens with trading in developing countries is that the trader will provide loans for the farmer to sustain the crops. The loans come with conditions that ensure the trader’s complete control over the crop, the prices, and the farmer. The trader will often buy the crop at cost or just above, so the farmer doesn’t make enough money to survive, let alone plant next year’s crop, which means he has to go back to the trader for more loans.

But Starbucks buys coffee high above the cost where most other coffee buyers do, which naturally pushes their prices up to what looks like an unreasonable fee to us. In 2003, Arabica coffee was selling at $0.55-$0.70 a pound. Starbucks paid $1.20 per pound, twice the amount that Folgers or Maxwell House paid.

Yes, Starbucks is expensive. But if we could just stop demanding low prices at the expense of the lives of coffee farmers all over the world, maybe we’d realize a $1.55 coffee is so completely worth it.

As a people, Americans have always paid our collective independence more than its share of lip service. We claim to be a land of freedom, say we have thrown off the bonds of tyranny that yoked our nation in her infancy, and present ourselves to the world as a paragon of liberty. Yet we persist in using a system of weights and measures based not on any semblance of sense, but on the whims and physical characteristics of the despotic few who governed the monarchies of antiquity.

The standard system ruled the roost of world business for centuries, growing comfortably fat off the toil of our brows and calculating machines. Wide rolls of strange numerical conversions began to hang from its jowls as it glutted itself at the table of commerce. Was this monster decimal? Octal? Dodecahedral? Who could afford to question? Time was better spent trying to determine the number of ounces in a hogshead, or inches in a furlong. But a new wind was about to blow.

Amid the tumult of the last time the French showed any collective semblance of bravery, a few daring souls decided to forge a universal system of measure. Rather than the length of a king’s thumb, or the volume of your average sheep bladder, they selected a length they would use for a base, a length of the people. The world was changing! The king was dead; he could no longer force the people to memorize numbers like 12, 16, 1160, or 5280! Instead, they counted their fingers, counted their toes, averaged the result and arrived at the number 10. That’s right, the same number upon which our entire system of numbers is based.

Not only can you convert between a nanometer and a kilometer just by moving a decimal place, you can even move between two and three dimensions without straining. Without measuring someone’s anatomy. Without consulting a council of bearded elders, table of ciphers or magician’s grimoire. When was the last time a child was able to proudly tell his teacher the number of cubic inches in a gallon? But any precocious tot can be instructed that a thousand independent little cubic centimeters together become a proud, powerful liter.

In a time of increasing foreign tension, should we really be raising the next generation to measure the world in a way foreign to the others who call it home? Is it worth enduring the confusion and inconsistency of the standard system, just so our grandchildren will measure their ice cream in the manner of our fathers? Just look into your heart, and count your toes.

I think you’ll find they hold the answer.

I pastor a church in a threatened part of the world. Chester County, Pennsylvania, just east of Lancaster, is a county of rolling hills and mushroom farms, and is a traditional home to horse trainers. You can still pass an idyllic Saturday in the southern part of the county watching the county as it used to be.

But the town where I pastor, Exton, has long been under threat. Every chain restaurant in the world, it seems, has moved in. I live about twenty minutes away, in Coatesville; a mere ten-minute drive from our church or home could take you to five McDonald’s, three Wendy’s, two Friendly’s, three Applebee’s, and countless other familiar restaurants that have conspired to all but destroy local cuisine.

We don’t need more themed chain restaurants beating the individuality out of us, and we sure don’t need a metric system forcing us all into a mold, even if it is a perfectly square, perfectly sensible, extremely user-friendly mold.

Do you really prefer the meter to the yard? We know how the meter came into being: it was a product of the “pure reason” so popular (and so stunningly bloody) in the French Revolution. Indeed, in 1799, the French stored away the originals of the meter and the other metric units, adorning the metric system with the motto, “For all men, for all time.”

On the contrary, we don’t know precisely where the yard comes from, only that its origin lies in charmed tradition. The girth of a person’s waist? The distance from Henry VIII’s nose to the tip of his outstretched thumb? No one knows for sure–all we know is that it’s a much better story than a bunch of progress-minded revolutionaries laying off the bloodshed long enough to standardize something random, then attempting to force the rest of the world to use it.

And they have tried to force the metric system. Don’t believe me? Ask the “Metric Martyrs,” a group of five English grocers who were fined for failing to measure their produce in metric units. Ask any Canadian you want. Their government went to the trouble of creating a logo to demonstrate their allegiance to metric’s new world order, pushing imperial users into underground quietness. Like Narnians, they must patiently await their chance to again enjoy their nation as it used to be.

So, go ahead, vote for the metric system. And while you’re homogenizing the world, would you also cast a ballot for eradicating local accents, closing the family-owned hardware store, and creating a list of state-approved songs for worship?

Thanks so much.

Fire as a survival tool? Yeah, whatever. Fire? You’re dead to me…

I understand that when man first left the Garden, fire may have played a very important role in the survival and perpetuation of our species. Whether it was used for cooking bacteria out of meat or as an agent of warmth, I’m sure fire proved priceless to our ancestors.

But I believe we need to ask ourselves, “Fire, what have you done for me lately?”

If my little single-engine plane crashed in Alaska, leaving my bush pilot dead and me miraculously alive, you best believe I ain’t wastin’ none of my precious time or energy runnin’ around like JoJo the Idiot Circus Clown, trying to make fire. What’s it gonna do, really? Warm my extremities? Cook the snow rabbit I’ll never catch? I’m sure that’s how most search and rescue people find their targets — hunched over some feeble kindling and moss, the face of their watch frozen in their hand, telling the tale of their futile and desperate efforts to refract sunshine into flame.

Me? They’ll find me back at base camp, ripping through some MREs, reading the newspaper, and telling them where I left the bush pilot. Wanna know why? I didn’t stay put and waste my time on combustion; I sucked it up and com-busted my way right outta there!

Okay, I can hear you now. “Job, you’re an idiot!” “Job, you’re gonna die.” “No, Job, seriously, you’re an idiot.” But perhaps I’m just forward-thinking. For centuries people thought Earth was flat, and as a result, tethered themselves to familiar ports, afraid to sail off the edge of the world. Similarly, for centuries, people in survival situations have trusted Fire to save their sorry selves, and they’ve stayed tethered to their locations, rubbing sticks together and acting like they actually know what flint is, SOSing themselves crazy.

But me? I’m a latter-day Columbus, willing to thumb my nose at accepted science and Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria myself to new frontiers.

Fire might be a luxury, but when it comes to survival, it is SO overrated.

Of all the survival tips, tools, and tricks, fire is the American Express: don’t leave home without it.

Any storied mercenary, mountaineer, or adventurer such as myself will tell you that when it comes to surviving the chilling cold winter winds of Siberia, the torrential monsoons of Southeast Asia, or a hostile desert crawling with wildlife, without fire, you will die.

You. Will. Die.

The benefits of fire are obvious and threefold.

First, heat. When the sun goes down, Earth loses its heat source. When the planet loses its heat source, so do you. And a survival situation is more than just the discomfort you face while jogging six blocks down the street to Starbucks to get warm, Job. When base camp is hundreds of miles away, when there are no straight lines to gauge direction and distance, when you’re injured and you can’t just follow your nose back to your Froot Loops, what will you do? When hypothermia sets in, there’s only one way to stave off the cold that permeates, debilitates, and suffocates. Fire will save your life.

Second, protection. Most of the predators that will attack a human in the wild are both nocturnal and opportunistic. Wolves, jackals, jihadists, dingos, and ROUSes all attack under the cover of darkness. Light from a fire will reveal your enemy and, in a pinch, make for an effective weapon. Use of tools separates the higher primates from the lower primates; use of fire separates us from the higher primates. Every other creature is instinctively afraid of the very tool some would so callously cast aside — fire will save your life.

Third, morale. The greatest obstacle to survival is not nature, predators, or enemy combatants. It’s human nature. Fear and hopelessness will debilitate you more effectively than any RPG: from the inside out. If your survival depends on others, keeping morale high will increase your chances immensely. In the cold and dark, fear creeps in, and though light and heat may seem like creature comforts, they’ll keep you sane. Fire will save your life.

As a luxury item, fire is overrated. But as a survival tool, it’s next to none.

Fire will save your life.

I’d like to start the case for plantains by getting my personal biases out of the way. When I was an infant, and my mother took me to the doctor for a checkup, he told her I was ready for bananas and cereal. He meant bananas as an example of the fruit I could eat, but I was her first child, so Mom was determined to follow the doctor’s orders precisely. This meant I got straight bananas until my next checkup.

So maybe I’m just a little bit tired of bananas, but I think it’s past time for a change.

It’s time for plantains.

A yes to plantains is a yes to diversity. Choosing plantains shows you’re open-minded, cultured, and maybe even a little exotic. What is a plantain, after all, but a banana’s more intriguing foreign cousin?

Plantains also bring the bonus that they are often served fried. Fried fruit is one of the most brilliant ideas I’ve ever heard of. It’s fruit, so it’s good for you — but it’s fried, so it tastes fantastic too. And we have plantains to thank for all this.

While we’re here, this seems like a good time to dock bananas for those stringy things that stick to the sides after you peel them, and then gag you. Plantains may have them too, for all I know, but I’ve never eaten one raw, so advantage: plantain.

Plantains have real range as a food. They can be prepared before they’re ripe if you want a starchy potato-like quality, or when they’re overripe for use in desserts. In addition to being fried, they can also be baked into chips, ground into flour, or even brewed into a stiff drink if you like that sort of thing.

But perhaps the strongest case for plantains — or rather against bananas — surfaced just last month. Chiquita, the international face of the banana, pled guilty to financially supporting a terrorist organization. Where is your fruit money going? And what is that Chiquita lady hiding under that crazy fruit basket of a hat?

Ladies and gentlemen, if you vote for bananas, the terrorists have already won.

One year ago, perhaps to this very day, a professor of mine opened my eyes to the banana’s significance in our culture and the world! What could make the banana so important?

One word — infrastructure.

The revered doctor of philosophy explained that the fruit, notorious for its short period of ripeness, must be picked, shipped, sold and eaten in a period of mere days — two weeks at most. The fact that a banana can endure this entire process in much less than two weeks while being distributed worldwide is, in a word, remarkable. This, ladies and gentlemen, is infrastructure, and whenever you look at a banana, I want you to see how it represents — even created! — a worldwide food market, where farmers can sell all their crops and one farm feeds thousands. It’s a beautiful thing, a network of simple yellow fruit that sustains millions.

But that’s not the only reason bananas are far superior to plantains —

1. Have you ever tasted a plantain, let alone a fried plantain? Imagine a potato. Subtract the good taste, double the starch, squish it into the least attractive stature on the face of the earth, then realize your taste buds are numb. That is a fried plantain. I know, I had one about two weeks ago.

2. Bananas can do all those neat little tricks plantains can do. They can be fried, baked, steamed, dried for chips, blended as smoothies, added to bread, cereal, and ice cream…

3. Banana leaves can be used for umbrellas, and juice from banana corms can be extracted to create a poultice used to combat jaundice.

4. Bananas have been used in various forms of art, including a Deep Purple album, a Woody Allen film, and Giorgio de Chirico’s stunning painting, The Uncertainty of the Poet.

5. The banana split. And plus, “banana” is just a great word. There’s no way around it.

Don’t be blinded by the shameless appeal to patriotism — the fruit must not be confused with the sin! Bananas aren’t used for terrorism. All they would ever harm is cancer, heart disease, and stroke!

Maybe it’s time to thank your mom, Josh.

The gentleman Romeo, if he can even be called such, has besmirched my family’s honor for the last time, and for this, he must pay with his life.

Romeo must die.

Please know that I have not reached this decision lightly or without provocation. I was willing to forgive Romeo the many insults he had brandished, but even one as kind and forgiving as I has a breaking point, a terrible moment when even the very heart within us cries out, “Enough! Enough! Surely this vile, unholy tide of offense must ere long wane!”

But it did not!

It did not wane!

The scornful laughter, the queer and sideways looks, yea, even his forbidden romance with my young and innocent cousin — all these I have sought to handle with the subtle grace befitting my status. I am not fool enough to believe that my noblesse should enoculate me from such slings and arrows, borne as I know they are out of the petty jealousy of lesser men.

But friends, there comes a time when even a gentleman of my exalted station and breeding, faced with provocation so foul that I dare not speak of its substance, must repay the ultimate insult with the ultimate punishment.

Prithee, what? You beg me speak of its substance?

I shall not! I must not.

Very well.

Know ye now that his exalted list of topmost friends, upon which my name was once surpassed only by that of Founder Tom, was stripped of all its reference to my humble person! I wish with all my heart it were not true, but it is so!

Cry treachery! Cry havoc!

Romeo must die!

To be honest, I’m not quite sure what all the fuss is about. Unholy tides of offense? Queer and sideways looks? For heaven’s sake, death?? Come on!

Romeo’s not such a bad guy, once you get to know him.

The other day, for instance, Romeo and I were chillin’ out by the market and he started telling me about this girl he had a thing for. Ol’ Romes wanted her bad, but she was gonna be a nun, so I was all like, “Dude, forget about her — there are plenty of other hotties out there, right?” Then we went to this crazy party, and instead of moping around all night in his creepy robes mumbling about insults like some other guys, he got back on the pony!

Figuratively, of course.

That’s how my man Romeo rolls!

Again figuratively.

He’s also really good at lots of stuff, like that rhyming game Andre the Giant liked in The Princess Bride, and fencing, and also needlepoint. But he’s not so good at needlepoint that he makes you feel stupid for not having the basketweave stitch down, you know? I hate those guys.

Anyway, who’s this other guy kidding with his talk of “exalted station” and “subtle grace”? Just the other day, I was stopping this fight when he came flying in like a madman, waving some big ol’ sword around, talking about how he “hated peace” as much as he “hated hell, and me!” Weird!

I’m starting to think death is this guy’s answer to everything.

But back to Romeo — I mean, sure, he can get a little emotional, and I wish that party girl had been older than 14, but you can’t have everything! He’s a good guy, and I wish my opponent could see that. Maybe Mercutio can help me arrange a meeting.

Romeo’s not that bad!

Sit down, Billy. The Holy Father is about to educate your behind.

Seriously, let’s think about this, people. In one corner, you have a backwoods preacher from the American South. Quite a dandy in his early days, Billy donned the white bucks and powder blue sportcoats for Youth for Christ rallies as far back as the 1940s. Two whole generations of evangelical women cursed Ruth Bell under their breath for shattering their dreams and taking Billy off the market. Even today, women admire him and men want to be him; pianists want to play for him, and even Michael W. Smith and dcTalk knew they had hit the big time when Billy Graham asked them to play for a “youth night” in a late ’90s California crusade.

All of this makes Graham a beloved figure, a bona-fide American religious folk hero.

It does not make for a worthy battle.

Because in the other corner, resplendent in papal garb, his robes billowing proudly behind him, his miter defiantly piercing the sky, is Pope Benedict XVI, born Joseph Alois Ratzinger.

He’s not a folk hero. He’s a junkyard dog.

He was known universally as the Vatican’s “doctrinal watchdog” prior to his selection as the 265th pope of the Catholic Church. And as if his international reputation were not enough, the Catholics that knew him best, the ones from his native Germany, referred to him as Der Panzer Kardinal — “the Tank Cardinal.” Why? Because he’s such a ruthless defender of the faith.

But you don’t have to take my word for it! Ask the late Father Jacques Dupuis (if you could), or Sri Lankan theologian Tissa Balasuriya. The former had the temerity to suggest that God was active in non-Christian religious traditions, the latter the unmitigated gall to refuse to sign a Vatican-approved statement of faith. Dupuis wound up trashed in a document Ratzinger wrote; Balasuriya was excommunicated, before the ever-gentlemanly Pope John Paul II restored him to the church.

You can mess with a guy named Billy. You cannot mess with a Ratzinger. You wind up trashed, excommunicated…or worse.

The man’s first papal encyclical was entitled Deus Caritas Est — “God is love.” Notably absent was any statement of Benedict’s own feelings. The obvious message: God is love, and Benedict ain’t.

The man is a flat-out papal bull.

The very notion that Pope Benedict could somehow best Billy Graham is so ludicrous I almost asked to be recused. No chance in heaven! Benny’s only advantage is that if he gouged Graham’s eyes or hit below the belt, he could absolve himself on the spot while the Rev. filed all that messy Grace paperwork.

But I still don’t see it. Graham didn’t win prominence by an ancient tradition of selection by peers; he received it by the eons-old tradition of selection by God. And Graham’s a natural fighter; whether Nixon or Parkinson’s, he handles his problems personally with sleeves rolled up and pride rolled down. So l’approvazione, papa, lo porta! Let’s go to the arena floor…

In this corner, at a holy 210 — the man who put “I can” in Vatican, the Stonin’ Roman…Germany’s own Joseph A. Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI!!!

And in this corner, weighing in at a lanky 205 — The Master Pastor, The Great Wheaton Beatin’…Charlotte’s own Rev. William F. Graham, Jr.!!!

*ding ding ding*

“Look at Graham charge from his corner! I haven’t seen anything like this since Joel Osteen fought the Dalai Lama in that New Delhi kick-boxing match last June! The Pope is on the ropes, medallions flying everywhere!!”

“Bob, this is tough to watch. I think Ratzinger forgot to drink his holy water, and he’s gonna need a miracle.”

“Graham continues his crusade! An uppercut to the Father’s midsection and a roundhouse to the nose!!!”

“Bob, it appears the Rev. is nailing all 95 theses to Ratzinger’s chin tonight! I’ll bet the Pope wishes he were still a Cardinal so he could fly far, far away!”

“Good call, Gary. Ooh, a stiff right hook from Graham, and the Pope falls to his knees in exhaustion — or is it prayer to Joseph? Patron saint of lost causes?!”

“Pope Benedict XV felt that one!”

“Hold the chariot, Gary, the Pontiff is up and he’s going after Graham with fury in his eyes!!! The Catholics here are yelling ‘inquisition, inquisition,’ as Benedict rains blow after blow on Graham’s head and body.”

“Wow, Bob! Nothing apocryphal about that last punch! But it’s amazing how Graham’s hair stays right in place!”

“Is that LA Looks he’s got in there?”

“If I gambled, I’d go with Dep, Bob.”

“Golly Gee! Now the Protestants are up as Graham delivers punishing blows to the caretaker Pope!! Everyone’s a Calvinist tonight; this is pure destiny!! The Pope is down for the count!!!!”

*ding ding ding*

“And it’s over — Graham by knockout!”

There are many good reasons to support the nurture theory, though I can only outline two here. The first reason is the Flynn Effect, named for the psychologist who pinpointed the phenomenon. The second has to do with individual socioeconomic status.

The Flynn Effect is the overwhelming worldwide IQ increase over the last several decades. In 1932, the average IQ was 100; 110 was considered intelligent. By 1997, however, the average IQ had climbed to 120, with 130 classified as intelligent. If we know anything about evolution, micro- or macro-, we know that it takes a very long time for such a drastic change to occur. It shouldn’t happen in 65 years.

What caused this jump in IQ, if not nature? Why, it must be nurture! In the past century, the boom of knowledge about healthy eating, child rights and education has revolutionized the way we treat children. No longer do our sons and daughters work in factories or fields instead of going to school. No longer do our tots go days without eating. And thank goodness, no longer do our spawn eat potatoes meal after meal after grueling meal. Today’s kids study till 18, eat all types of vegetables, and beg money from Mom and Dad rather than working. The environment in which today’s children are raised has improved drastically. They’ve been given the tools (green beans, a pencil and a law against working before 16) to go further than any child before them. And where does nature come into this? Well — it doesn’t.

The second reason nurture is the more vital developmental process is socioeconomic. I’ll focus on America, though this could be applied across the globe. There are three major classes — upper, middle, and lower. The majority of the upper class attends your Harvards, most of the middle class goes to your Houghtons, and the lower class is lucky to mix a GED in with the criminal records. A sweeping generalization, but bear with me.

Now look at the genetic makeup of each class. A large portion (81%) of the upper class is…you guessed it — white! The middle class has nearly the same percentage of all races as the population, but the lower class has higher percentages of blacks (21%) and Hispanics (13%). According to the nature argument, these groups are in their position because genes determined their intelligence. That stinks of eugenics to me. Not all proponents of nature are eugenicists, but the implications about race and intelligence are frightening.

How can the classes be explained by nurture? Many members of the lower classes have been oppressed in myriad ways, like being displaced into vastly different cultures, and their environment has done little to help them reach their greatest potential. The middle class has not faced such opposition; if individual members have, they’ve overcome it. Meanwhile, their environment allows the upper class to devote more time to studies, politics, the arts, etc. Their surroundings — nice homes, private schools, country clubs — make it remarkably easy to reach their full intellectual potential.

Silver spoons, ladies and gentlemen, have nothing to do with DNA.

Any and every human being is a complex, miraculous creation. As any dating-site spokesperson will tell you, there are innumerable aspects to any person’s personality, all of which can be adequately expressed by a picture and a short paragraph.

This complexity develops from a dizzying array of factors, both internal and external, the interaction of which eventually weaves the tapestry of a human life. While it would be absolute folly to ignore the input of external, artificial affects, the fact remains that the natural aspects of a person’s constitution are the more important.

In order to explore the dominance of nature over nurture, it’s vital to consider where to draw the line between the two. For the sake of this argument, nurture’s realm can only extend to the arena of the senses. In other words, we’ll consider a human being to be like a computer. In this example, the “nurture” component would be the programming. Education, beliefs, language, television, radio — these are what make up the realm of nurture. The hardware itself, and the electricity that causes it to run and function properly, is nature.

The human machine is admirable on a number of levels. However, which aspect of humanity has been most lauded in story and song historically? Our plasticity. Call it whatever you’d like — mastery over the elements, triumph in the face of adversity, what have you. Evolutionary theory has classically been based on the ability of an organism to adapt to its surroundings, but man has been the world’s only creation able to bend that rule back upon itself on a large scale, drastically changing his environment to suit himself.

Given the enormity of cultural differences among societies that have accomplished amazing feats individually and collectively, we clearly cannot consider mere cultural programming the key to unlocking the secrets of humanity’s greatest accomplishments. The Middle Eastern cultures that brought into being the Great Pyramids differed a great deal from those who constructed the equally Great Wall of China. The society which oversaw the manifest destiny of the United States resembled only in passing the same nation that first landed men on the moon.

All these people were different in culture, were different in color, and were different in education, beliefs, and values. The only concrete similarity shared among these vastly disparate peoples is the 1.2% of their genomes that differs from that of a chimpanzee.

The soul. The breath of G-d. Self-actualization. Whatever it is that makes us think, “What if?”

It is that aspect of humanity which has birthed the cultures, societies and ideas that have so radically changed the world over the past six millennia.

Not the other way around.

I’ve been stomping n00bs like Steve for years now. They’re all the same — whiny, liberal, gun-controlling, solitaire players who want to limit our choice in video games.

I submit there is only one option: violence.

Much like there can be no salvation without complete submission to the pope, in the same way Hot Topic couldn’t exist without teeming throngs of unwashed emo kids, and just like you can’t dominate an Enemy Territory server without being prepared to pistol-whip each and every member of the opposing clan — there can be no gaming without violence.

But you know this already. Did you ask, the first time you tried to rescue the princess, why it was that Bowser had to die? Or did you roll up your sleeves, loosen up your thumbs, and do what desperately needed doing? You didn’t sit him down with the UN Security Council, allow him to retain most of the land he had invaded, impose heavy economic sanctions on the Mushroom Kingdom, then provide the Li’l Goombas and Bullet Bills with airlifted food drops?

Did you?

No.

You didn’t.

You waited for him to throw his hammers, and then — and only then — while he was triumphantly jumping in the air, you dashed underneath him, released the lever that supported his brick bridge, and then watched him flail and fall, screaming all the way, into a terrible grave of red-hot, unforgiving lava.

How about when those ghosts came chasing after Pac-Man? You didn’t cower in fear, right?

No! You chomped your way over to the power pellets and you digested the ectoplasm out of those spectral fiends, then you followed it up with a nice cherry for dessert.

And when Dig Dug started pumping those monsters full of whatever bizarre radiation he pumped into them, you didn’t cringe! No, you did your best to beat the high score!

If we weren’t decrying violent games, we’d be decrying violent TV; if not TV, then violent literature. If we follow the trail back far enough, pwned fools like Steve would be trying to outlaw the very history of our nation and our world — even the Bible.

Humans are violent creatures, and in moderation, venting that violent urge allows for healthy expression of our natural instinct to fight.

There are only two types of non-violent video games — the card game and the simulator. And if it comes to the point where the only social interaction you maintain throughout your week is among your Sims, not only do you need a few friends, but there’s probably a whole lot more wrong with you than with the average Medal of Honor player.

I proudly support pixel-on-pixel violence.

Now where did I leave that Tanooki suit?

What you see and do changes you.

I have a bit of an addictive personality. When I start playing a game, like gin rummy, I play it a lot. Once I play it enough, maybe a day or two, I see it when I go to sleep. The more time I spend on it, the more I train my mind, and the better I get. What I choose to experience sticks in my brain.

But as I drift off to sleep tonight, debating which club to discard, I’ll pause to wonder what’s sending others off to dreamland.

According to the New Scientist, those who play violent video games show diminished brain response to images of real-life violence. Other researchers scanned the brains of kids who played a violent video game and found increases in emotional arousal and a corresponding brain activity decrease in areas of self-control, inhibition and attention. And an APA-published study found students in the study who played a violent video game behaved more aggressively than those who played a non-violent game.

“Violent video games provide a forum for learning and practicing aggressive solutions to conflict situations,” said Dr. Craig Anderson. “In the short run, playing a violent video game appears to affect aggression by priming aggressive thoughts.”

What you see and do changes you.

I could parrot back scores of studies, but I don’t need to. You understand on a fundamental level — what we experience changes how we think and look at the world. Movies, TV shows, video games — all are growing more violent. It’s obvious that those who consume them will change, especially when the most impressionable experience the increase via an intensely personal method.

Please be very sure you understand my point. I blame video games for nothing and I don’t wish to see them banned or regulated. They are only a reflection of our desensitization to all types of sin. I also know correlation does not imply causation, so exposure to violence — even repeated, continual exposure to gratuitous violence — does not guarantee any behavior. Thank God. But high levels of violent video game exposure among youth have been linked to delinquency, fighting at school, and violent criminal behavior. Why encourage that?

Meanwhile, the industry quotes hilarious statistics (the mean age of video game players or buyers couldn’t be more meaningless) and funds its own studies, which (surprise!) fail to see the link to violence, but helpfully point out benefits of violent video games, like “identity construction,” improved reaction time, and “fantasy validation.” Who needs well-behaved, self-controlled kids when the alternative is rejecting inhibition and validating every blood-drenched fantasy? Put the computer in their room and they might never again interrupt your “me” time with pesky ‘conversation!’

Out of the heart come evil thoughts and murder, Christ said; it’s what’s in the heart makes a man unclean. And how’s it get in there? “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also . . . If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.” (Matthew 6:19-24)

What you see and do changes you.

Telling other Christians you don’t like youth ministry is like slipping up and implying to a woman that she should lose some weight; shocked disbelief melts quickly into scorn. Fortunately, my disregard for such is an orbital blessing of having zero tact — you just get used to people’s disgust.

I’ll preface this harangue by saying souls have been won via youth ministry and that is, truly, the end of the argument. We count such as joy. People have been called to it, some are genuinely and admirably good at it, and much of the unbelieving or disbelieving world is moved by it. And the people I know who do youth ministry are the some of the best believers in my Rolodex. Should any of those souls read this — you know who you are — I trust you won’t see it as a personal attack. I would test your food for you or check under your beds for intruders; I would gladly relinquish any pulpit to your greater gifts. And though I’ve been known to mock youth pastors, I regret that our subculture has lampooned them to a point where their enthusiasm and uniqueness are treated like the Kool-Aid pitcher crashing through your wall.

But I come at youth ministry from a comprehensive viewpoint. I see it as a huge financial expense that produces very little return, treated with special honor though it’s relatively new. In a country as morally orphaned as ours, the desire to tag in for parents incapable of teaching their kids about the gospel and moral living is intoxicating, I know. But this is impossible in the broad sense, a hacking at the leaves, not the root — especially when most youth pastors are emerging from their early twenties themselves. Still the Church throws millions of dollars at the institution because it seems so relevant, obvious and even sexy?

A major problem with youth ministry is that young people develop close personal relationships with their youth pastors, not with Christ. And by definition, this relationship ends, kicking the crutch out from under the teen. I’d be more comfortable with the ministry if pastors acted like shepherds, not buddies filling the hole of good influence for a time.

When I think of what we could do with the funds spent on youth ministry, I get excited. Churches could hire a prison pastor, a pastor for the elderly, a director for service projects. I’m uncomfortable with the fevered sense of inadequacy some bodies feel without a youth pastor, and the depth of our love for this template for success in the face of such a morass of spiritual needs. The preoccupation with youth ministry baffles me.

But in short, I’m a Christian fanboy; I love this faith to death and I’m already in line for the sequel. And youth ministry is my Jar Jar Binks. I don’t like seeing so much money and talent spent on a guild and culture that doesn’t produce the lasting belief or believers to account for all we pour into it.

I know, I know; I’m a pig. But that was a pretty big lunch she ordered.

Full disclosure — I’m what you might call a “professional Christian,” having made the entirety of my adult living working for the church, much of that with youth. But I also grew up exclusively in churches without a professional youth worker, and I believe very strongly in a full-Body approach to ministry.

In many ways, I agree with Job that the efficiency and effectiveness of youth ministry should be frequently evaluated, even scrutinized, just like every other effort of the church, to ensure we are doing what is right. But the idea that a church should not make a significant and concentrated investment in youth fails to measure up logically, Biblically, or even from Job’s preferred viewpoint, the “business model.”

Taking the coarsest argument first, from a business standpoint, it’s pretty much a given that developing product loyalty at an early age is sound business. Even if it involves an exorbitant present expense, hooking a customer early brings a payoff for the rest of his life. Just ask our friends at the tobacco companies (Oh, I forgot, they don’t advertise to minors anymore! *wink wink*). And if you don’t hook him early, someone else probably will, and you’ll have a much tougher time selling him later in life.

If Job wants to know where the urgency and insecurity comes from in churches without an intentional youth ministry, I have a theory — they don’t want their church to die off. Which is exactly what would happen to a group that failed to bring in new, young blood, and is, in fact, exactly what has happened or come close to happening in many churches.

“Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.”

In a world where more and more parents will not or cannot do this, the church must. Certainly every effort should be made to reach the whole family, but for those adults who choose to go their own way, yet send their young off to church, we must step into the gap. The church must stand up and give our youth the best possible opportunity to choose the Way, the Truth, and the Life. I know that I am the man I am today because of the lessons I learned when I was young. I was blessed to learn them in my home, and I take that blessing seriously enough to fight the uphill battle to teach them to kids whose homes contradict them daily.

Do we need to make sure we’re giving our kids the real thing? Absolutely. Do we need to be careful not to segregate the Body? Without a doubt.

But where there are failings in these or other areas, it’s an area for that church to improve, not an indictment of focusing on such a bountiful harvest.

I should first note that I’m not a husband or a father, with no immediate plans to become one. I understand, at least as much as one in my position can, that these life transitions alter your perspective and priorities. So there is sure to be some disconnect between me and the parents reading this; indeed, perhaps even between me now and in the future, should the Lord grace me with a family.

In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul wrote, “I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs — how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world — how he can please his wife — and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord’s affairs: her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world — how she can please her husband. I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord.”

In the same passage Paul shows that it’s not sinful or ungodly to marry. On the contrary, it’s part of God’s plan. But it seems clear to me that at least part of the reprioritizing that comes from having a family can detract from our service to the Lord. I don’t think having a family excuses us from the difficult callings, the dangerous callings. I look to the example of Abraham — when asked to sacrifice his son, he obeyed. He realized his son was God’s first, and he trusted God knew what was best, and could protect and provide for Isaac in ways that he never could. His concern was to follow God’s calling.

I believe God is calling more Christians to the city. Please understand, I’m not one to glorify urban ministry at the expense of others. Many are faithfully serving exactly where God has called them. But the sheer number of people in the city, the massive amount of needs — both physical and spiritual — cry out for more believers willing to serve. And I don’t think this job is one that can always be just a “day job.” Ministry is most effective when it’s relational and incarnational, when your neighborhood is their neighborhood and your concerns are their concerns; indeed, when there is no “you” and “them,” only “we.”

While I recognize the responsibility of parents to protect their children, I believe they do not only themselves but their children a disservice when they avoid a difficult calling. Part of training a child in the way he should go is teaching him to be mission-minded. Children learn first and foremost by example. If Christian parents’ only concern is saving their own children, those kids will grow up to do the same, and rather than winning the world for God, we’ll save only our own bloodlines.

But if we are out on the frontlines of battle, I believe God will honor that. I was raised to believe in a family approach to ministry, and rather than being neglected by my parents’ calling (full disclosure: not urban), I was encouraged to find my own calling within that context. And what I learned from that more than anything is this —

God is in control.

Josh J and I agree on a lot, generally — so much, in fact, that it was rather difficult to find a topic for today’s Clash. And as I read his defense of full-time residential urban ministry, I unsurprisingly find that I largely agree. America’s cities, poor and broken, ache for the life-changing ministry of the body of Christ. While a faithful few toil day after day, Josh is absolutely right that our cities cry out for more believers willing to sacrifice and become full-time urban missionaries to America, for ministry is indeed most powerful when it is relational and personal.

I will not question the difficult decisions made by those called to a task often thankless and seemingly insurmountable, and I dare not declare anyone should resist the leading of God on their lives, wherever He takes them. So my disagreement with Josh is really quite limited. I simply believe Paul’s declaration that marriage and family changes a man’s priorities necessarily implies that a husband and father has, in addition to the charge of the Great Commission, a steadfast duty to protect and serve his family. And so it follows that a calling to urban ministry need not always include a commitment to live in the city.

I have participated in short-term urban ministry in Syracuse, Utica and New York City, in some of the hardest neighborhoods those cities have to offer. If I felt called to a full-time vocation in any of those neighborhoods, I would not hesitate for fear, because I know the one who calls is faithful to keep. But I am a single man, with no wife, no child, and the life I would lead there alone is vastly different from what my hypothetical family would face. Children raised in the inner city learn by example, to be sure, but given the examples they face there, this is little comfort! They must grow up faster, their innocence is frequently corrupted, and they often face challenges that — to be honest — they should never have to face.

We know that in every circumstance, God is in control. But He’s in control when we drive, yet we still strap our children into car seats. He’s in control while we sleep, but most of us still lock our doors. The omnipotence and sovereignty of God should never serve as an excuse for reckless or dangerous choices. Although I would never suggest raising a family in an inner-city environment is necessarily a reckless decision, it is an unassailably dangerous one, and it comes with certain consequences that should neither be ignored nor overlooked.

There are couples, there are families, called to live and work in the inner-city, and I pray the grace of God keeps them there to thrive. But I believe that often when one is called to such a role, he (or she) is called as he is. Alone.

For such a person to marry one not likewise called, or to start a family in that place without clear leading, would be a clear example of why Paul was known to wish all were like him — the spirit is usually willing… but the flesh is frequently weak.

The question of which platform is superior between PC and Macintosh is not a trivial matter. Thousands of lines of text in forums decry one, exalt the other, each citing a myriad of reasons their chosen platform is the best. Although the question of platformital superiority can be approached from a number of avenues, many of them are simply unimportant.

For example, one completely irrelevant way the platforms can be compared is the breadth of the software libraries available to each. What difference does it make that (as of press time) popular freeware/shareware website C-net.com listed a staggering 55,822 titles under “All Windows Software,” and just a paltry 4,603 listings for “All Mac Software”? What difference does it make that twelve times as many downloads were available on this popular and influential e-hemoth?

Another boneheaded way to compare operating systems is by looking at their popularity, relative to each other. Who on earth would think it relevant in any way to a real, honest debate about platforms that Apple had a paltry 2.4% of the market share in 2006 — in terms of real, worldwide shipments — versus a combined 50.6% for just the top 5 PC manufacturers? What do we care who the world trusts for its computing needs?

Likewise unimportant is the ability to customize your computer whenever you want. No one cares about upgrading a computer without replacing it, or performing system repairs on your own, or being taken seriously by friends, relatives, and co-workers.

No, the computer debate is about one thing — trust. Do you trust your children’s computing lives to a bunch of rag-tag, animating, photo-editing, long-haired, music-sharing hippie freaks?

Or do you trust the welcoming, all-encompassing embrace of Windows and its industrial brotherhood, the PC manufacturers?

PC. People Caring.

Failure reading drive C:
[A]bort, [I]gnore, [R]etry, or [F]ail?
r
Failure reading drive C:
[A]bort, [I]gnore, [R]etry, or [F]ail?
i
Failure reading drive C:
[A]bort, [I]gnore, [R]etry, or [F]ail?
a

Oh, hello there! I was just spending some time getting to know the zeroes and ones, first strung together in the 80s, that still form the foundation of the average Windows PC. While Microsoft prides itself on polishing its rubbish to a sheen gloss, mimicking the refined, elegant lines and textures of Mac OS X, what lies beneath is the same slathering of spaghetti code Bill Gates cooked up when Carter was in office.

Until recently, a head-to-head comparison of Mac to PC compared apples to oranges. But with Apple’s recent switch from IBM’s Power PC processors to Intel’s x86 architecture, direct comparisons can be made. Will I make them? No! I’m not a ‘Mac Evangelist.’ If you’re looking for one of those, check your local community college art department.

What I will tell you is this — Macs are more reliable because you have one source for a Mac: Apple. You can buy a Dell, an HP, an IBM, or you could build your own PC capable of running Windows. All those vendors and their configurations add lines of code to Windows’ OS, each zero and every one cutting into your performance. Apple has limited its hardware support to keep your Mac running smoothly every time you turn it on. And Mac OS X is based on the rock-solid UNIX operating system, so you’ll never have to see one of Bill Gates’ famous ‘Blue Screens of Death.’

Even if you ignore pro-Mac arguments like ease of use, lack of viruses, reliability, stability, power, and originality, you could still use Apple’s Boot Camp software, allowing you to run Windows on your Apple. Purchasing an Apple computer literally can give you the best of both worlds.

Now if you’ll excuse me…..

Failure reading drive C:
[A]bort, [I]gnore, [R]etry, or [F]ail?

Diet Coke kilt my Pa. Don’t try and tell me he didn’t, eder, cuz I seen it wid my own eyes, I didz. I wuz down by da barn ‘n Coke Classic come ridin’ in wid his gang. Sprite was dere, dat Meller Yeller feller, Barq’s, Vault, and of course Coke’s boy Diet Coke.

Dat’s da one dat kilt my Pa, like he wud a lab rat drinkin’ a sample of Diet Coke, which has been blamed by some medical professionals for causing serious illnesses like brain tumors, brain lesions, and lymphoma. I done hid behind a bush, I didz. I didn’t want me no brain lesions.

“Dis is refreshment!” Diet Coke said as he done sauntered over ta da door. “Come on out! I know you’re in dere drinking Diet Pepsi, which has been around almost 20 years longer than me and is far more crisp and light, packing a powerful punch of persuasive flavor without leaving a depressing aftertaste like I do.”

My Pa done showed his face at dat time, smiling ear to ear. “Don’t smile so wide, Pa,” I muttered ta myselves ‘tween my teeth. But I knows he couldn’t help it. Diet Pepsi alwez made my Pa smile. Heck, it makes eve’yone smile, if’n they drink it.

“Youz wrong, son,” my Pa bravely sez. “I ain’t drinkin’ Diet Pepsi. I be drinkin’ Diet Pepsi wid a Twist — one of the many taste innovations Diet Pepsi introduces regularly to bring me the best in flavor, innovations you copy widdin 2 or 3 months of deir debut.”

Vault got real agitated-like den, and he threaten to blow his fizz. But my Pa was real cool, an’ he suggested Vault relax his li’l knock-off version down ‘fore Pa called Ol’ Mountain Dew to fix ‘im right proper. But dat seemed to make Vault even more worked up. “Just for the taste of it!,” Diet Coke sez. “This here’s a Coke valley. We either gon’ run yo’ kind out or learn you to take to drinkin’ from our trough, un’erstand?”

My Pa stop, he did, and looked hisself up and dern da valley. Den he brought da Diet Pepsi to his lips, took a big long draw off’n it, den held it out to Diet Coke and sez, “Want some?” Diet Coke’s eyes went ablaze en dare wuz a eerie quiet. Den Pa sez, “Don’t worry. I don’t backwash.” Dat’s when Coke Classic and his gang done went tru da roof. But my Pa wuz jest laughin. Then he sez, “Run along, you little girl of a cola, go cry into your Shasta. This here’s a Pepsi valley. My Pa drank Pepsi in this valley and my boy’ll do da same, long after I’m dead.”

Den da whole valley seem to shake with my Pa’s final thunderous words. “I’ll tell you one last time, you donatin-to-democrats son of a motherless goat: my family don’t drink your creekwater and we never will, hear? Kiss my Aspartame!”

Don’t tell me Diet Coke didn’t kill my Pa. I seen it wid my own two eyes.

Diet Coke is the number-one selling diet soda in the world, and the third-highest selling soda of any variety behind Coca Cola and Pepsi. In fact, last year, almost one out of every ten sodas sold in the United States was a Diet Coke. Diet Pepsi lags far behind Diet Coke in overall sales, and ranks sixth in a list of most popular sodas in the United States.

That is the basic substance of my argument. Simply put — more people drink Diet Coke than Diet Pepsi. They are sold in roughly the same number of countries, and enjoy roughly the same amount of shelf space, but Diet Coke consistently outsells its rival.

I would be foolish to say someone is wrong for enjoying a Diet Pepsi more than a Diet Coke. After all, a person’s tastes are their own. But a Diet Pepsi drinker must admit their minority status and concede the majority of diet beverage consumers prefer Diet Coke. That’s not debatable; it’s simple mathematics.

Now that we’ve established Diet Coke is the most preferred diet beverage, we must ask why. Why does Diet Coke outsell Diet Pepsi? I’m sure marketing strategies play into it, but I also believe Diet Coke is fundamentally a superior product. To an unpracticed palate, the difference between the two is negligible, but to a diet soda connoisseur like myself, there is a remarkable difference. Diet Coke has a subtle hint of cinnamon, as well as a sparkle and zing that is lacking in the bland Diet Pepsi.

There’s nothing like sitting outside a restaurant in the desert drinking Diet Coke with ice, or driving down the freeway with a Diet Coke in the cup holder. Diet Pepsi just isn’t the same. It lacks something.

Maybe flavor.

If you like Diet Pepsi, fine. I doubt I will change your mind, but at least admit you don’t represent the majority of consumers. Pepsi may be the choice of the next generation, but sure as heck isn’t preferred by this one. This generation prefers the real thing — it prefers Diet Coke.

“In the beginning you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you will endure; yes, they will all grow old like a garment; like a cloak you will change them, and they will be discarded.” Psalm 102:25-26

From the day Noah stepped off the ark until the birth of Christ, the earth’s population rose to 300 million. In the centuries after Christ, the population continued to rise until 1804, when the world’s population first topped one billion. Now improvements in technology, coupled with a higher standard of living and sanitary lifestyles, have brought about a surge in population growth. By 1927, the world’s population reached two billion, and today we have exceeded six billion. It took only twelve years to make the jump from five to six billion, and now 78 million people are added to the world’s population annually. That’s like adding a new France, Sweden and Greece each year, or a Philadelphia every week.

One-tenth of all the people who have ever walked the face of the earth are alive today, and the lusty inhabitants of our fair planet show no sign of letting up. Some scientists optimistically estimate our population will stabilize just shy of ten billion around 2080. But others pessimistically hint that even with decreased fertility rates, it may be too late by then. So what are we to do?

I have discovered a possible solution to what many perceive as an imminent overpopulation crisis. I will outline a clear and precise plan of action, which, if followed, will postpone any worries of overpopulation for generations to come. I propose nothing less than that we dwarf an entire generation, and continue to dwarf successive generations, through manipulation of the human growth hormone.

Read (much) more here!

Genesis 1:28 says, “And God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it [using all its vast resources in the service of God and man]; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and over every living creature that moves upon the earth.'”

From the beginning of time, our Father above has had an eternal plan for you and for me. And though sin entered the world through the seed of man, that plan has not changed. God desires for mankind to fill the earth. There are some biblical prophecies that are hotly contested: the Antichrist, Christ’s triumphant entrance into Jerusalem, the destruction of the temple… but this is nothing to squabble over. This is our future, our calling, and our destiny.

While I sincerely agree with the methods used by the A.P.D., their aim is all wrong. Rather than to shrink back from the blessed light of the Will of God, we should run towards it, arms open wide to embrace our calling as giants in the land of men.

Life in the Garden of Eden was as close to perfection as can be attained on earth. Genesis teaches us that after the fall of Adam and Eve, the “sons of God” married the “daughters of men,” creating who? The Giants of old, men of renown. As the Israelites entered the
Promised Land, they not only found those ‘giants of old,’ but enormous produce: grapes the size of cattle, etc.

Using the gifts and technology God has given us, restoring what was lost in the garden is not far off. We can already grow 200 pound watermelons and 1000 pound pumpkins. Our NBA stars routinely top 7 feet tall. We must press on, for the sky truly is the limit.

Our future in heaven will not be a short one; neither should our time on earth. As the Lord commanded, we must fill the earth and subdue it… by being as large, powerful, and tall as possible.

Vickie Lynn Hogan. Norma Jean Dougherty. Two lovely young women. Two talented young women. But two beloved American icons? Not without a little something extra. A little something I like to call Vitamin B – Blonde!

Long before tragedy tore these blindingly brilliant bombshells from the frantic grasp of the collective adoration of their public, the common thread woven through the lives of Anna Nicole Smith and Marilyn Monroe was just that – commonality. But with a little luck, some old-fashioned gumption, and a bottle of peroxide, two legends were made, not born.

Is this only a statistical anomaly? Success based on hair color alone? One merely has to look at the culture beyond Hollywood to find the answer. Blonde hair is described as golden, historically a metal highly prized for its hue and sheen. Even the “cheapest” of artificially blonde hair is called platinum, a metal even more highly valued than gold. For third place in the Hair Olympics, blonde comes along yet again, with silver. The best a brunette can hope for is a little bit of red somewhere in her hair’s muddled tone, so she can settle for the ‘honor’ of “coppery” tresses.

Throughout history, blonde hair has been the most highly valued hair color. Evelyn de Morgan’s classic depiction of the legendary Helen of Troy does not find her lamenting her mousy, tangled locks. No, a veritable halo of spun sunlight cascades down her back. She even lifts a delicate handful of golden curls as if to say, “My sisters! This, this is the hair that launched a thousand ships!”

While it is true that natural blond hair is a natural rarity, that scarcity is part of its charm. After all, a young lady presented with a floral incarnation of her paramour’s affection might scoff if it takes the form of the common daisy. But a man who presents his beloved with an edelweiss plucked from a barren cliff face miles from civilization will find a much warmer reception. Scarcity is the mother of demand.

Much like a speech impediment, it can come from pure genetics, or it can come from a bottle. Only her stylist knows for sure. Either way, it’s indisputable: blondes have more fun.

When I first took this assignment, I didn’t stop to think about the potential pitfalls of making this argument: my blonde friends, the blondes I’ve dated (well, there’s only been one, but still), even my blonde sister. I’m sorry, ladies. You’re all beautiful, but I’m sticking to my guns.

I’m all about the brunettes. My first crush was a brunette, as was my first girlfriend. Any time I enter a situation that involves meeting new women, it is invariably a brunette that catches my eye.

The fact is, Tom is actually in danger of offending innumerably more women (as is to be expected). I don’t have any exact figures, but brunettes certainly outnumber blondes by a wide margin. Brunettes are akin to the largest high schools that dominate athletics becuase they have the widest talent pools from which to draw performers. You just have better odds of finding a gorgeous brunette – brown hair is the dominant trait. In addition, because dark hair is so common, you’re in no danger of finding one of those ladies who acts like she is better than you, simply because of the color of her hair.

I’m not alone in my preference. A recent national survey reveals that 75% of men would choose to marry a brunette, and 80% would rather bring a brunette home to meet dear old mom. Even more amazing, I didn’t just make up those stats.

A less skilled or inspired commentator might resort to a few blonde jokes, or cracks about their collective intelligence. I won’t stoop to that level, but I will say that I certainly find intelligence very attractive. Anyway, I change my light bulbs by myself.

Brunettes are natural, mysterious, and offer a wide array of cultural traits. But for all the wonderful things I could say, for me, the entire debate about the appeal of brunettes and blondes comes down to one simple quote:

“Every decade has an iconic blonde like Marilyn Monroe or Princess Diana, and right now I’m that icon.” — Paris Hilton

I used to make a broader, all-encompassing argument against capital punishment, claiming that more than 10% of those put to death in this country are later proven innocent, or that the institution is a huge financial burden on the system. But I eventually decided arguing the point from a strictly faith-based view was the best defense of the souls on death row, and the best offense on the souls of those I might argue with.

Most Christians who support the death penalty (and I would guess this is the majority of believers) fall back to their Alamo of the “rule of law,” saying men have been left to govern themselves, silly rabbit, and that since America has this law, this punishment, it is almost beyond their control. This disgusts me; they offer some holy resignation to this fact while frothing the foam of contempt over abortion and gay marriage — institutions protected by the same rule of law that allows the premature death of hundreds.

My argument is a simple one: we are called to spread the gospel to all people and to be everything to everyone. And if the sin is that much more pungent and discouraging to engage on death row, I think, then, that is where we should be somewhat eager to go.

I find it unsettling that we work on one hand to save these souls, while lobbying on the other to snuff out their vehicles. We are a confused Body, planting the very bomb we so furiously work to defuse. And I’ll admit some resentment. How can we comprehensively prosecute this gospel message while tipping our hand so lowly, showing a weird and incongruous penchant for revenge? This is not a healing we seek, nor is it closure. It is the destruction of something we fear and refuse to try to understand.

I used to wish Christ had been more exact in discussing and perhaps condemning the death penalty; then I realized He would have been campaigning not to have to suffer that same penalty, the eventual path to the salvation I want to bring to any and all poor souls on death row.

But I do see how, hanging on the cross, the weight of the world very much on His shoulders, He did surge and bring salvation to the man enduring the same last minutes with Him on Calvary.

This is the most poignant argument for the value of a soul I see anywhere in the Good Book.

I often wonder if the Christian supporter of the death penalty can see that Jesus already died for the sin that is every murder has ever been and will ever be committed. Do they not see the redundancy of frying the killer when the blame already hung on Golgotha? Is a murder – serial, passionate, or premeditated – not as worthy of death as any number of the sins you’ve already committed today, reader?

The weakest point of my argument is how overwhelmingly idealistic it is — but, friends, in the light of Christ’s example, I think this same idealism might be its strongest instance.

I respect opposition to the death penalty. When I debate it, I don’t try to convert my opponent, because I’d hate to be responsible for weakening deep convictions about the value of life. But I too have deep convictions about the value of life, convictions that lead me elsewhere, and my respect for the position does not cause me to join it. Support for the death penalty, by Christians, by those who respect life, is not hypocrisy. The death penalty can be morally proper, because of — not in spite of — the value of life.

Every legitimate society must be based on a social contract, the consent of the governed. To live peacefully, we bind ourselves to certain duties and agree to meet certain responsibilities. The rights we acknowledge by these duties don’t exist because we say so; many, as our Declaration of Independence states, are divine and therefore inalienable. The specific choices about their implementation are left to us, how exactly to protect every person’s basic worth.

Genesis 9:6 (“whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed”), although it’s no longer a binding moral imperative, nonetheless shows capital punishment is within the authority of government. And on a strictly logical level, our society simply must protect the lives of the weak and innocent from those who would harm them — we have an absolute obligation to protect ourselves from those who simply cannot co-exist peacefully.

What is more, justice requires us to punish certain actions by removing their perpetrator from the planet. Not much falls into this category, only the most hideous, extreme conduct. Saddam Hussein personally oversaw and carried out tens of thousands of senseless, brutal murders. What possible punishment, short of death, could be fair in his case? What tortured definition of justice lets him live? When we sentence a Hussein, or, say, a serial child killer, to death, we send a powerful message: certain conduct is so totally reprehensible, so violative of that fundamental agreement underlying society, that one who lives among us, yet commits it, must and shall forfeit his life.

Allowing such a man to live devalues life, for in a very real sense, he proved himself no longer worthy of it.

Is the system flawed? Its cost is certainly obscene, and though the “10% innocent” figure is nonsense, even one condemned innocent is too many. I contend only that the death penalty can be used in a way that is morally right.

Three men were condemned to die on Golgotha. Two were rightly sentenced, by the law of the day; they witnessed the execution of the innocent third. One came to redemption as a result — imminent death does bring a certain soberness of mind. Yet he still died. Christ granted that thief forgiveness and entrance into paradise; he did not free him from the earthly consequences of his actions. Equating a lie and a murder eternally is only a game of theological hairsplitting; the differences in their results on this planet are so blindingly obvious as to defy response.

Nothing a murderer does decreases the value of his soul, and death row is a singularly appropriate place for the Gospel. God is the ultimate Judge.

But He doesn’t require us to reject justice and endanger society by keeping the most dangerous and despicable human beings alive.