Music by Bweinh! — Incorruptible

11/14/2008, 3:00 pm -- by David | No Comments

Listen to or download the song here (for a limited time)!

The voice said, “Cry out!”
And he said, “What shall I cry?”
“All flesh is grass,
And all its loveliness is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
Because the breath of the LORD blows upon it;
Surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
But the word of our God stands forever.”
Isaiah 40:6-8 (NKJV)

This is the section of Scripture I had been meditating on when I wrote the words for the poem that became “Incorruptible.” It was so different from anything else I had ever read. Isaiah relates it abruptly, in the third person, with no introduction — just an announcement about what the voice had said.

And “he” (whoever he is: Isaiah, John the Baptist…) answers, “What shall I cry?” and it struck me that the burden to preach preceded any thought of what might be said. I have preached like that many times and it has been the absolute best preaching I have ever done. I have no idea what I will say when I open my mouth, but suddenly the message appears, fresh and relevant.

The message given here is one of hopelessness. It uses images of grass and flowers to explore the frailty and transience of man, and his complete lack of hope to stand before an almighty God whose standards of holiness are inescapable. This theme is also explored in the New Testament, where it expands on the hope expressed in the last verse here. For all our frailty, as Peter says, we can be “born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever.”

Today’s Economic Forecast

11/10/2008, 12:00 pm -- by David | 1 Comment

More bad news out of the financial sector today, as Goldman Sachs reported that although orders of durable goods were up 3% over the last quarter, those orders, due to a filing error, were placed in a back room under a bag containing Pork Belly Futures — ruining the orders and causing a downturn in the short-term manufacturing market.

This news was especially troubling on the heels of an announcement that Sweet Light Crude Oil had risen $8.75 per barrel to close at $182.50 for spring delivery. Medium, Dark and Extra-Roast Sweet Crude have fallen in late trading today while Mocha Latte No-Foam Skinny-Boy Crude remained steady at $167 per barrel.

In other Wall Street news, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke found himself in an uncomfortable position today, when he announced another Â¼ point drop in the Fed’s major interest rate today, only to have reporters point out that the rate was at 3.25% in February and has been cut a total of 8.75 points since. An embarrassed Bernanke admitted that since the rate is used to determine the interest banks charge each other, and no bank is currently “stupid enough” to loan money to another bank, the rate is “at best, a theoretical exercise.”

When pressed to identify the actual status of the rate, Bernanke said, in effect, that since the average person in America has no idea what the heck happens on Wall Street, he simply makes sporadic announcements in the hope that they will somehow stimulate the economy.

Finally, Alan Greenspan appeared before Congress today and admitted that his policies over the past two decades were fatally flawed in ways that he is just now realizing.

“We thought that banks would police themselves when it came to subprime lending practices,” Greenspan said. “We never dreamed they would bow to federal regulations that required them to make bad loans, in bad neighborhoods, to people with no visible means to repay the debts.”

When asked about the wisdom of assuming that people could buy a house with no money down and no regular paycheck, then somehow pay the money back in a timely fashion, he quoted a line from the classic sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati: “As God is my witness — I thought turkeys could fly!”

I Five The Sandbox

11/7/2008, 1:50 pm -- by Steve | No Comments

Well, this is interesting. The history of gay marriage in California has been a contest of constant one-upsmanship, like that playground ‘game’ where you start by saying “I one the sandbox,” and proceed onward in an attempt to get your playmate to admit that he or she “eight the sandbox.”

You ate the sandbox?? Ewww! Why would you ever do that?!

This game started in 2000, when the voters of California voted by a 62-38 margin to codify “the union of a man and a woman” as the only valid form of marriage in the state. It took a few years, but soon enough, the state legislature took up the challenge, passing a bill in 2005 to legalize same-sex marriage. Ah, but beside the see-saw stood new Gov. Schwarzenegger. Ahnuuld vetoed the bill, calling it either unconstitutional or redundant, depending on how the courts eventually viewed the original vote.

The next stop was the intermediate court in California, which reversed a trial court ruling to find that the ban on gay marriage was non-discriminatory and based on a legitimate state interest. Now back to the legislature, which passed their bill yet again — and yet again found it blocked by the Governator, who said he wanted to know how the California Supreme Court felt on the issue. And they hopped onto the merry-go-round this past May, in a 4-3 ruling that constituted a breathtakingly broad expansion of precedent: finding sexual orientation to be a protected class like race and gender and subjecting any classification on its basis to “strict scrutiny.” These guys play for keeps!

But given the permissive nature of the California ballot, no one thought the game was over — and sure enough, the same tide that swept Obama into office this week also resulted in the narrow passage of a state constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, as nearly 70% of blacks voted “yes” on Prop. 8. The voters spoke, and you could see the words formed clearly on their lips: “We seven the sandbox.” Game, set, match?

Not quite. Now comes word of future court challenges, on the ground that the constitutional change might be best termed a “revision,” which would require a two-thirds vote in the legislature before a majority vote by Californians. What Carpenter writes makes sense: given that the CA Supreme Court has already held that the right to marry is a fundamental right not to be denied on the basis of the suspect class of sexual orientation, they may well take “the importance of the right declared and the suspect nature of the discrimination into account,” and overturn (yet again) the will of the people through judicial fiat.

I’m hardly rabid on this issue, but I found the court’s decision unreasonable. And since California law provides for constitutional amendments through direct election, the people ought to have some say in the matter when they think the judges screwed it up. The only question is whether California’s highest court will submit to the people — eat the sandbox, if you will — or just conjure up a new integer ‘twixt seven and eight.

Let Freedom Ring!

11/6/2008, 9:30 am -- by David | No Comments

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ”˜We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.\’ ”
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Whatever Barack Obama was on Monday, today he is my president. I know that many of us — and by “us,” I mean conservatives and Republicans — watched the results of the election with a sense of dread, borne either by the fear of what a liberal president might do to the “right to life” cause, or the terrifying shadows of campaign rhetoric that somehow Obama will turn out to be a Muslim extremist or an agent for socialist change in America. But I think America is bigger than the sum of all those fears, real and imagined.

We must not let our short-term political disappointments cloud our senses and rob us of what should be a time of great rejoicing. I read through the text of King’s “Dream” speech this morning, and I have to say it gave me cold chills. In a way, it set my heart rejoicing. He noted that he had been asked, “When will you (the devotees of civil rights) be satisfied?” His answer was to quote the book of Amos: when “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

It reminded me of Lincoln’s second inaugural address, when he wondered aloud if the horrible war they were fighting was God\’s judgment on slavery, and noted: “Fondly do we hope — fervently do we pray — that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 3000 years ago, so still it must be said: “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

I cannot help but rejoice at the setting to rights of this nation’s past history of injustice. Perhaps it is because I live in the South, where the wound still aches in the sneers and smart remarks of my fellow white companions. Perhaps it is because I still remember the day I used the “N-word” — a word I had heard from my father many times — on the lone black girl at State Street School in Watertown, NY.

I remember how she followed me all over the school yard, smoldering anger in her eyes as I ran away. She never caught me, but the janitor, Mr. Allen, did. And when he found out what I had said, he slammed me against the wall and told me to never use that word again.

He was a white man. It was the first time I had ever seen a white man stand up for a terrified and helpless black child. It was the first time I saw that what I was learning at home from my father might not be right.

I rejoice that hopefully today 250 years of slavery is answered — every lash, every drop of blood — and that indeed “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Obama Cancels Winter

11/5/2008, 9:33 am -- by Steve | 2 Comments

–CHICAGO, Ill.

“Winter,” a cold and lonely season of death that has plagued America for over 230 years, was outlawed yesterday, in the first official act of president-elect Barack Obama’s reign.

“And to those who still doubt that we have the power to turn back the icy hand of Jack Frost, to free this nation from the shackles of snow and ice and all manner of winter weather, to frolic together on the beaches of Lake Michigan at 10 pm on a balmy Christmas Eve — I say to you: yes! We! Can!” Obama told a crowd in Chicago’s Grant Park, formerly a scenic Christmas landmark.

As a result, all over the nation today, Americans awoke to discover bright sunshine and unseasonably warm temperatures, enlivening what was once simply another Wednesday in early November. Even the fierce and wintry town of Detroit, Mich. was not immune to the order; surprisingly comfortable breezes there were credited for a nearly 400% increase in the overnight murder rate.

“I knew we could do this,” said Toni Rogers, a bikini-clad administrative assistant from Springfield, Massachusetts. “Nonstop summer is change I can believe in! Next step: finding a way to make rainbows without all that rain.”

“If anyone can do it, it’s Barack Obama.”

“Old Man Winter,” the anthropomorphized mascot of the season, has reportedly been sent to a secure facility in Guantanamo Bay, where he is being treated as an enemy combatant and hot-waterboarded.

Obama noted that the ban on winter would not apply in Alaska.

Our Endorsement

10/31/2008, 12:00 am -- by Bweinh | 5 Comments

After an interminably long campaign season, the 2008 election is finally, blessedly, upon us. And as we vote, our nation faces immense challenges, from without and within: a gathering economic storm, two ongoing wars, and potential threats from Russia, China, and the Middle East. Our choice is not merely academic. We cannot afford a mistake. America must elect a leader with the experience to guide us safely through the next four years, the judgment to choose the best course through trouble, and the wisdom to make the difficult decisions.

Given the choices on the ballot, we have no trouble concluding: that leader is Senator John McCain.

Senator McCain has a long and storied record of serving this country with honor. He was shot down over Vietnam and tortured for over five years, enduring this suffering even after he was given the opportunity to be released before his fellow prisoners. He has been in the Senate for 22 years, where he is recognized by members of both parties as a pragmatic and independent leader, willing to hammer out a compromise when he believes it is in the best interest of the country, regardless of his party’s policies. He has long fought excessive spending and corruption in politics. His life tells a tale of accomplishments and action.

Contrast this record with his opponent’s. Senator Barack Obama has run an inspiring campaign that may well land him in the White House, but nothing in his history suggests that he is qualified for the job. From the Ivy League, he immediately entered the sleazy world of Chicago machine politics, where his ambition and gifts allowed him to quickly climb from local community organizer to U.S. Senator, with the help of several unseemly characters.

What has he done in that time? Precious little but run for higher office and vote “present” on controversial bills. What does he offer in support of his candidacy? Precious little but soaring rhetoric and vague promises of “hope” and “change” — welcome words in a time when so many believe the nation is on the wrong track, but ultimately, nothing more than hypnotic platitudes. He is simply a blank slate onto which his followers project their wildest political fantasies.

He has never — not once — taken a stance opposed to the wishes of his party.

He has never — not once — shown the courage to stand by an unpopular position.

On the issues, Sen. McCain outshines Sen. Obama, especially given the near-certainty of Democratic control in both the House and Senate. McCain’s tax plan focuses on relief for those who currently pay taxes; Obama would raise taxes on investors and confiscate money from some Americans to give to others. Obama has promised that one of his first actions in office would be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which purports to abolish all state restrictions on abortion. McCain is, and has always been, unapologetically pro-life. Obama’s responses to foreign crises, such as the Russian invasion of Georgia, have been unsurprisingly naive, while McCain speaks with the gravity of a man who has been deeply involved on the foreign stage for a generation.

While Obama has swayed with every gust of wind, McCain has been steadfast and right on Iraq and Afghanistan, promising that those countries will be secured and self-governing before we leave them. McCain would nominate Supreme Court judges who will free Congress and the states to make the law; Obama supports an unelected activist judiciary that would impose its policy preferences on the nation. McCain supports the continuation and expansion of free trade, which has been a tremendous boon to American industry. Obama would “renegotiate” the treaties, hamstringing our fragile economy even further.

John McCain is not a perfect man. He is anything but a perfect candidate. We disagree with him on several issues, and we need no help seeing his myriad flaws. But to choose a third-party candidate, as many have done, is no choice at all — not when the differences between the two major candidates are this stark, not when the stakes for our nation are so great. We have no time for foolish quibbles over irrelevant issues, the political equivalent of leaving a church over the color of the nursery carpet.

No, these are serious days for our nation and the world. We deserve, we need, more than a smooth-talking first-term senator who has never run anything larger than a law review office and a campaign. We deserve experienced leadership, a man who has been thoroughly tested and found worthy of the job and its tremendous responsibility. A man who respects the presidency, but does not lust for it.

Sen. Obama might inspire and uplift, but beneath the words, he is an unqualified man with one of the most extreme voting records in the Senate. Sen. McCain has a proven record of bipartisan accomplishment and consistent leadership.

One talks, and talks, and talks. The other has followed through.

Bweinh! proudly endorses Senator John S. McCain for President.

Best of Steve: The Unseemly Pride of Barack Obama

10/30/2008, 11:00 am -- by Steve | 1 Comment

Originally published April 14, 2008.

The least attractive and most damaging characteristic President Bush has is his arrogance. So it’s a wonder to me that so many who have hated the results of his presidency have flocked to Barack Obama, who gives Bush’s Texas cockiness a hard-edged trebling.

This arrogance first became obvious when he became convinced — after a mere 27 months in the US Senate, which followed eight mostly unremarkable years in the Illinois state legislature — that his rhetorical skills and passion to “unify” somehow qualified him to bring his doctrinaire liberalism to the Oval Office. Since then, flashes of his pride and hubris have piled up, becoming more and more clear with every condescending explanation he gives of the latest “misinterpretation” of his words.

Now we find out he said, at a San Francisco fundraiser:

“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Arrogant Barack here assumes that:

— A generation of small-town residents have remained helpless and unemployed because Presidents failed to put them to work.

— These residents dealt with this reality not by making the best of their situation, but by becoming bitter and frustrated.

— This bitter frustration explains their Neanderthal desire to cling to (among other things): gun rights, religion, racial prejudice, and hostility to free trade.

Now I could point out that Barack himself has exhibited anti-trade sentiment, while simultaneously assuring our allies that he doesn’t mean a word of it.

I could add that if any religion could be characterized as “bitter” or “frustrated,” it might be the religion of the guy who had his children baptized by a man who thundered that God should damn America, not bless it, who taught that the US government created HIV to kill black people. I might even mention that Barack’s close and continuing political association with that man, and many others like him, brings up legitimate charges that racism exists in Obama’s own heart.

But all that is just simple hypocrisy. We’ve come to expect it in our politicians.

What I want to point out instead is that this man really does believe those fainting, screaming crowds (“Yes, we can!”) prove his greatness. This man actually thinks that his election is the only event that can possibly save the union. This man truly expects that a president, as his wife has said, can and should “demand that [we] shed [our] cynicism,” “put down [our] divisions,” “come out of [our] isolation,” and “move out of [our] comfort zone.”

A man who would stand in front of some of his strongest supporters and unapologetically insult the core beliefs of the very people whose support he most desperately needs is a man who, deep down, believes that he is better than they are.

He is angry, he is radical, and he is almost impossibly arrogant. And the more he talks, the more we learn about the unreasonable fire that motivates the flowery rhetoric.

Best of Job — All Your Base…

10/28/2008, 10:00 am -- by Job Tate | 3 Comments

Best of Job, originally published in February 2006.

I was reminded this morning of a prank I played in college. I was initially taught this genius by my brother Joel who would, of course, in his current pastoral capacity, deny it. But I had a giggle fit remembering it this morning, and now that the statute of limitations has passed, I will share it with you.

On one of the few occasions I was in the Houghton library, I noticed my arch-nemesis hanging out at a table with some of his henchmen, reading and carrying on. Armed with only a Russ Picardo, I felt the unholy, unhealthy urge to suddenly assert my dominance.

I made a beeline for the psychology section and searched for the most twisted title the shelves offered. I settled on “Homo-erotic Tendencies in Young Adults and Theories Toward Their Explanation” or something similarly-titled (ed.’s note: my search in the online catalog suggests it was “Homosexual behavior among males; a cross-cultural and cross species investigation”).

Perfect.

Rustler and I settled down at a table near the Pharisees and waited patiently. Finally my arch-nemesis and his minions went off to scope out the air-conditioned room upstairs for chicks to flirt with.

Quickly, and with Russ watching the stairs, I slipped the book into What’s-his-face’s bag, behind his binder and some looseleaf paper.

We moved over near the periodicals and waited. It was almost time for dinner. We would not have to wait long.

Here they came, laughing like drunken frat boys. Past the circulation desk. Towards the door. Through the scanners.

**BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP**

Looks of honest incredulity, as they tested themselves individually, narrowing it down to the evil one — who opened his bag at the circulation desk.

“That is NOT mine!”

It was a good dinner.

Trust me.

Four Weeks (Part Nine)

10/24/2008, 4:00 pm -- by Steve | 4 Comments

Read the series in parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

Most airports are on the outskirts of large cities, surrounded by squat tracts of industrial zoning, often abutting the discolored shores of the local lake or ocean. Flying into Ithaca was a revelation. Gliding down amid the undulating hills and rolling, cow-choked pastures, all I could see were forests and farmhouses, until suddenly, the trees opened up on a tiny stretch of asphalt: this traveler’s version of the Great Valley, with marginally fewer pterodactyls.

Tom’s car had died shortly before our trip began, and so he picked me up in mine, the ever-reliable Purpletrator. From the tiny airport, we went to his laboratory, where I donned a lab coat and posed for several pictures holding beakers, pouring liquids, and doing several other things I am manifestly unqualified for. He left me at his apartment, where I showered and laundered; once his neighbor cut off his wireless signal, I gladly succumbed to the call of the nap.

For there wouldn’t be much time to sleep. 25-cent wings were on the agenda, followed by Monday trivia at a downtown bar. When I was planning my flights, I chose Ithaca over Rochester solely for the chance to join Tom and his team. Although we fell oh-so-short of victory, my trip was not totally in vain — my evening in Ithaca led, in part, to the flowering of Tom’s nascent relationship with his triviamate. Had I not met her that night, chances are very good that I would not have given insistent pro-Lindsey advice a month down the road. The evening was also memorable for an odd phone call that found me wandering around the downtown Commons, holding my phone at arm’s length while a friend spent five solid minutes laughing at me.

It had turned to Tuesday when I drove up to Rochester, Tom asleep in the passenger seat. He then drove right back to Ithaca while I packed my suitcase to go back west — this time New Mexico, via Phoenix.

Will you mind if I don’t tell you about my week there?

Were I disciplined enough to have written all this in August, I would have recounted in detail the scenic drives, hidden lakes, pleasant dinners — even the herd of mighty elk that thundered across the mountain pass in front of us. But instead it is October: three months since that week with Chloe; six weeks since we broke up. What can I say about the trip now? I had a lovely time. She and her family are wonderful people.

As time passes, actions and feelings piling up in its wake, our memories change in a way we cannot control. The past is seen only through the lens of the inevitable present. A delightful Christmas morning is tinged with sorrow after a sudden death, the valleys of a roller-coaster year are forgotten under the ether of nostalgia. What actually happened is not as important as how it is remembered, because only the second can ever change. Only the second makes a difference now.

The happiest moments, the perfect times, the days and nights you are surest of your fate and future: the joy they bring, though great, is never eternal, or immutable. And so the challenge of life is to risk the pain, to accept our transience and uncertainty, yet still choose to live — and love — with the abandon of the One who not only laid down His life for His friends, but commanded us to do the same.

Meka Has Fallen!

10/23/2008, 12:00 pm -- by David | 1 Comment

Meka has fallen. For those of you unfamiliar with Meka, she is the minor deity of considerable girth who reigns over the convenience store where I buy my coffee and newspaper everyday. She sits behind the counter, on a high throne that, to the uninitiated, appears to be a simple barstool. She rules the coffee maker and the racks of honey buns; she dispenses alcohol and tobacco products to the throngs of adoring devotees. All things considered, her reign has been a good one.

She arrived about a year ago, and her time has been marked by a magnanimous beneficence that had been greatly lacking in her predecessor. When I buy the USA Today and a cup of coffee each day, my total comes to 75 cents. If you know anything about the world of convenience stores, you know that the paper alone costs 75 cents. I’m not sure whether I get the coffee or the newspaper free, but I like the arrangement.

When Meka is not there, the owner charges me $1.25 for the same combo. On the rare day when they are both there, Meka charges me $1.50. I never flinch when this happens, not wanting to bring any ill fortune on her. Meka giveth and Meka taketh away. Blessed is Meka.

Her predecessor was known as the Elephant Woman, not because of her size, but because of her short, compact stature, and the general grayness that seemed to infuse her entire appearance. She reminded me of a character from Babar. Before her, there was a red-haired girl of gothic bent, whose name I don\’t recall, but who loved to talk about her pet squirrel Ralphie. At the time, oddly enough, we had a pet squirrel named Billy, and so there was common ground.

There was never a doubt about who was in charge during Meka’s reign. There is a license plate-sized placard behind the counter with the words “PERSON IN CHARGE,” and every day, “Meka” was written there in large red letters. And although I cannot prove it scientifically, things have been better under her rule. Slothman Cabdriver has not blocked my coffee access in months, his slow stirs costing me precious minutes so I pull into work at 8:02, not 7:59. I also have not been accosted by panhandlers lately. I like Meka.

All good things must come to an end, though. When I entered the store Monday morning, the sign loudly proclaimed: “PERSON IN CHARGE — Jesus, honey!”

So Meka was gone, but how could I be dismayed? I was shocked and elated; all I could do was ask the owner (to his utter confusion) if Jesus would still be selling beer and alcohol. I didn\’t mention the wine because I hate taking a nearly indefensible position in a debate.

To my great delight, Meka was back today, but the sign remained. She explained that she was tired of Jehovah\’s Witnesses coming into the store, “readin\’ they scriptures to folks and stuff,” so she made the change herself. Things can only get better now that Meka has yielded control of her small kingdom to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

“Crap” Reaches Christian Expletive Hall of Acceptance

10/22/2008, 10:30 am -- by Steve | 4 Comments

–ATLANTA, Ga.

Angry and frustrated Christians can curse easier today as “crap,” long considered vulgar and sinful, was elected to the religion’s Expletive Hall of Acceptance.

“This is a big day for ‘crap’ and the Christians who can now feel free to use it to express even their most righteous anger,” said Rev. Jerry Johnson, expletive voter from the Southern Baptist Convention and longtime supporter of the punchy euphemism for defecation. “I for one look forward to hearing what the Bishop T.D. Jakes can do with this now-fully sanctified word.”

With the vote, “crap” joins “dang,” “heck,” “good grief,” and the still-controversial “gosh-darn” as first-ballot selections to the Hall. Not only does the decision pave the way for “crap” to be used with impunity in bulletin inserts, at church potlucks, and on the covers of countless shallow, doctrinally unsound books, but it also retroactively negates an estimated 350,000 threats of the use of soap in the mouths of impudent youngsters.

“The voters clearly realized that ‘crap’ is a true triple threat,” said George Ito, linguistics professor at Wheaton College. “The word combines the powerful release of a plosive consonant with the naughty tinge that comes from its mild vulgar meaning, and — most importantly to evangelicals — it has the benefit of not actually being, uh, the ‘s-word.’ You can’t get away with using that one unless you’re that darn Tony Campolo!”

“Golly, he’s a loose cannon,” Ito added.

The Hall was created in 1954 for two purposes: to recognize and honor those offensive words which had become so common that Christians gave up trying to avoid them, and to provide a convenient way to judge one another based on their words. “Before the Hall, it was anybody’s guess which words were okay; I didn’t know who should get a sneer and who should get a hug,” said Johnson’s wife, Mabel Lou. “The Hall just makes this judgment crap so damn convenient.”

“What? That one’s not okay yet? Oh dear me.”

“The difference between ‘shucks’ and ‘sucks’ may be just one letter, but it might just mean everything eternally,” added Rev. Jerry. “At least until next year, when we look at ‘sucks’ again. I think it’s got a pretty good shot actually.”

The Johnsons also noted that the vote on “crap” does not extend to the phrase “holy crap,” which is still “very, very wrong.”

In related news, “freaking” was denied acceptance yet again in this, its 20th and final year of eligibility.

Best of Job: My Worst Teacher

10/21/2008, 9:30 am -- by Job Tate | No Comments

Originally published in May 2007.

Whether holding my hand over the fire pit of his analogies or examining broken twigs on the trail of his meandering reasons, never track his logic could I.

I always felt like I was a few days behind him, pressing through the dark forest of my instruction — trusting, hoping that his point lay just ahead, around the bend. I never enjoyed the chase, and there’s a thin line between being challenged and harassed. I came to a particular point in my trek when I determined that when a point is that well-hidden and obscure… when it requires that much angst to merely understand it… only a fool would spend his time rotting in the woods trying to catch it. The best in life is easily understood, and truth despises fog.

My worst teacher.

A man who bristled at the notion that you might think differently than him, he sent you his own copious notes before class and asked that you not take any others. They distracted him. If a question endeavored to stampede the discussion away from his notes, the energy he’d employ to corral us back into line was almost pornographic. Bullying, effacing and no-kid-gloves sophistry were never below him.

Sadly, these tactics were never below me either, and we butted heads to such a degree that he eventually asked me to drop the class. Success in his class was conformity to his thinking, a convincing imitation of it, or the old B-minus silence — none of which seemed a workable solution to me. My parents had taught me to speak my mind and to be aware and wary of socialist thinking. To him I was ruined.

While he had earned tenure, a doctorate in sociology, and ample respect from his colleagues, in turn he asked his students to simply piggyback on his experiences, judgment and morality. To just trust him. Our own conclusions were not encouraged, but headed-off.

But perhaps in being the worst teacher of my life, he is slowly morphing more readily into the best. He is the one who taught me that when it comes to faith, love and logic, I will only embrace them when I am tracking the truth — not, alone, someone else’s version of it.

Four Weeks (Part Eight)

10/17/2008, 4:00 pm -- by Steve | 1 Comment

Read the series in parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

To me, California has always existed in a sort of hazy myth. Crowded, temperate, and seismic; home of heroic, half-remembered President Reagan; it was as far removed from my marooned and icy New York youth as ancient Ur.

As a boy, I spent hours planning cross-country road trips, following the example of my father, who crossed the continent at 18 and has the unpaid San Francisco parking ticket to prove it (although, he quickly reminds me, it wasn’t his car). Not many years later, the state was home to my first requited crush, a kind girl from Napa who, it turned out, was by far my wiser. And after my college graduation, my first plane ride was there, courtesy of my grandmother, who gave me a week out West with several close friends, where we climbed Tahquitz and strung up Chinese lanterns in preparation for a wedding.

Seven years later, those not-so-newlyweds had three children, and visiting their home would not only allow me to see them all and return to the California of lore, but also to meet the only Bweinh!tributor I did not yet personally know — the delightfully rational Kaitlin. All told, easily sufficient motivation to weather a return itinerary that would wing me from LA to New York to Phoenix in just under 36 hours.

Have you ever returned to a place you loved, only to find that the utopian glow of nostalgia had made it only a modest imitation of the splendor you remembered?

Me too. But this wasn’t like that at all.

No, instead, returning was all the more wonderful. I had the autonomy to do whatever I liked (including a few trips to a sturdy swing set, as well as buying and devouring a surprisingly readable translation of Don Quixote) and repeated opportunities to help my hosts, which I particularly welcomed, since my entire July had begun to feel like one unending impingement on the kindness of others. I even had the good fortune to witness a late-night thunderstorm, rumbling down from the mountains in a pyrotechnic volley.

As always, the people were the highlight, full of grace and good humor whether we were slinging trash bags into the dump or playing games around a kitchen table. I have never yet regretted a day spent with a Tate (that winter evening we slept on the floor of the unheated lakehouse is another story), Lisa and I defied predictions of a heated melee, and Kaitlin proved even more engaging than her well-crafted (if sadly rare, on these pages) prose. Watching the four sisters interact was eerily like being with my three brothers, with only slightly more talk about fashion.

Before I flew out Sunday evening, the Tates took me to Sarah’s childhood home, where her mother treated us to a delicious dinner, then watched the kids while we headed to the beach. We walked the Santa Monica Pier, past the carousels to the very end, where the brisk sea breeze whistled through the lines of the men and boys fishing for halibut off the side.

And as the sun set into the endless blue Pacific, I ran through the sand and leapt into the crashing surf, plunging beneath the warm ocean, no longer just a legend. A few hours later, as I climbed aboard the plane back to my homeland, I could feel in my brow, taste on my lips, the salty dross the sea had left behind.

I taste it still. I will feel it again.

Behind the Scenes

10/16/2008, 10:00 am -- by David | 2 Comments

–ITHACA, N.Y.

It\’s the kind of thing that drives a coach crazy; the sort that has him sitting at a bar drinking free Salvation Army Cokes, reminiscing about what might have been. Last year, Bweinh! had a strong season, nearly winning several major awards — and then, during the offseason, busted the salary cap by re-signing several free agents, among them Tom.

“We originally signed Tom out of college; his numbers in the combine were incredible, off the charts really,” said Steve, coach, general manager, and owner of the fledgling website. “He had a great rookie year and signed at the league minimum, but we knew arbitration would nail us, so we signed him to a big contract over the offseason.”

Tom had a strong training camp and started the season with a bang — but then he was injured in a freak accident. Said Steve: “He did some great clashes for us last season, and we were going to move him to left guard, taking over some of the more liberal clash positions from MCB — but then he wrote that little blurb for the new ‘bwog’ feature . . . and the rest was history.”

The blurb, of course, was the subtle, yet uproariously humorous PT Cruiser quote, by far one of the funniest items in the two-week period. But disaster struck when Tom dislocated the tip of his index finger polishing the sentence; a relief writer was called in to finish the last few letters. The next day, he was flown to Sloan-Kettering to be examined by nationally renowned finger experts, and the news wasn\’t good.

“There was more trauma than anyone realized at the time, actually some damage to the nail, causing it to discolor as it has grown out,” Steve noted. “Not only that, but it was extremely painful, which was, uh, the real problem.”

By “the real problem,” of course he means the rumor that in treating his injury, Tom has become addicted to the painkiller Advil, complicating his return to the site. When reached for comment, Tom spoke of needing to “return to the lab,” refusing to answer any questions about ibuprofen dependency.

They say it’s lonely at the top, and no one knows that better than the coach: juggling lines, redrawing plays on the fly, and wondering who will next land on injured reserve. Next week, we’ll look at center MCB — who recently changed his name to MB, but has yet to get league permission to wear it on his jersey. Last year he got off to a quick start, but his offseason marriage has forced him to be placed on the “physically unable to perform” list.

Bweinh! Goes to the Movies — Religulous

10/10/2008, 1:42 am -- by Steve | 2 Comments

I’m going to make a documentary. I’ll line up a friend with a camera to follow me around; maybe a boom mike too, for effect. I’ll get people to sit down and have a conversation with me, just two folks trying to understand each other — only once I edit the footage, I’ll make them look as stupid as I can: cutting them off before they finish, cutting in some vacant stares, maybe throwing in a nasty caption or two. And if I can’t think of the perfect smarmy comeback immediately, that’s okay! It’ll come to me in the editing room, and I’ll splice it right in!

I think I’ll call my film “Maheronic.” Too derivative? Well, why don’t you sit down and tell me why you think so? Don’t forget to look directly into the camera — no, not the one I set up on the floor behind you so you look like a naughty student in the principal’s office. Look at the other camera, the one behind me with the zoom set on “Nose Hair.” Don’t worry, I’ve been taping you while you were confused. And yes, if I really hate you, I’ll use that part too. Don’t pick your nose!

How will I start? Oh, by giving away the ending — namely, that I think Bill Maher is an insufferable, swaggering dunce. But then I’ll quickly explain that I’m making this movie to explore whether I’m right, which I am, because no rational human being could possibly disagree with me. Then I’ll move on to anecdotes from my past that no one cares about. Would you like to meet my mother? She’s feisty!

But enough about me (only for a few minutes) — what I need now are opponents to misrepresent. I’ll open with those my audience respects the least: my hero Maher went with truckers, so maybe I should pick actors. At least truckers can drive a stick shift. I’ll confuse them by mixing what they actually believe with my odd hallucinations about what they believe, then demanding they defend the whole mixture. “So you really think Bill Maher is a comedian, and an actor, and the capital of Peru?? Can you seriously believe that? Are you totally stupid or just completely wrong?”

After they stammer through, I’ll switch gears (trucker lingo, sorry) to the other extreme. This requires a new strategy — like Maher with Dr. Francis Collins, I’ll let experts talk, but then cut them off, editing their words so they either agree with me or agree to nonsense. There’s no middle ground, and if they talk longer than three seconds at a time, I’m screwing up! Documentaries are no place for complete thoughts! And sometimes, when I need to, I’ll just straight-up lie: blatantly false captions, unsupportable assertions, added sound effects, it’s all good!

Who’s gonna know? My opponents are simpering idiots, remember?

My superiority assured, I’ll tell my new “friends” all about how great I am. Loathing Bill Maher is a luxury, you see: I’d like him too if I was from Hollywood, which is like prison, just with different implants. Out in the real world, I don’t need to rely on a crutch. Besides, did you know a lot of really bad people like Maher? It’s true. Fred Phelps likes him; they were even in a movie together, called Religulous! Who hangs out with a guy like that?? Someone with a neurological disorder! I’ll even find a scientist to say those words, to make it seem like he agrees with me!

I’ll bang these gongs for a bit, with the occasional detour into the odder iterations of Maher fanhood (that valentine of a Wikipedia page doesn’t update itself), until — in the ultimate triumph of hyperbolic reductionism — I tie all my opponents together in one unhinged, foaming rant of conclusion. This is where the medium of film comes in really handy. Just think: a shot of Bill Maher, a shot of Osama bin Laden, the one, the other, back and forth, back and forth! The sound of his voice over visions of exploding bombs and the corpses of innocent kittens! His head on the body of every member of the Village People! He! Is! Evil!

But if you dare disagree with me? You’re an enabler. A “mafia wife.” You’re guilty of all of the crimes of all of the people who ever lived and agreed with you about anything ever, in all of recorded history. Even if you only like him a little, you need to know: that solace and comfort comes at a terrible price.

Grow up — by which I mean pledge allegiance to my rigid, stilted worldview — or die.

Fade to black.

That’s how I’ll make my propaganda film.

I give Religulous no letters on our scale.

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