Friday, December 11, 2009

Sports Break - Good for Brian Kelly, and Wow, what happened to the Steelers?

I've enjoyed watching the before unheard of Cincinnati Bearcats go full throttle in college football these last couple of years and am glad Brian Kelly was able to leaverage that resurrection performance into the Notre Dame head coaching job. His players at Cincy seemed upset, for now, but I hope they'll eventually be happy for him.

I watched the entire Steelers-Browns game on the NFL Network last night. I usually check out of these Sunday night, Monday night games because they end too late, but stuck around for this one. Partly because I couldn't believe what I was watching. The Browns actually looked like a real football team. Have been hearing about how good this Josh Cribbs is returning kicks. And the Browns, recognizing what a weapon he is, have put him in the offense running the Wild Cat, mostly successfully. Not sure what has happened to the Steelers. The Browns D got to Rothlisberger for 8 sacks. Incredible. But for the Steelers to only put up 6 points on a 1-11 team, particularly a division rival they had beat 12 straight times, is pretty remarkable. Can't be a good day in Steelers country.

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Deal or No Deal

Forgive me for not getting all into the latest "deal" being talked about in the Senate regarding health care reform and the public option, Medicare, etc. Seems like we've had a number of deals over the past several months--it reminds me of the multiple number of occasions in which it was announced that we had killed the #2 leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq a few years ago. Just get the thing done and voted on, please. Thank you.

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

Christianist Double Speak

Andrew Sullivan flags this interesting post from a graduate of the Christianist Patrick Henry College, but I most appreciated this particular quote from it:

The first argument the letter-writers are likely to hurl back at me will insist that this is about America, about its future as a moral nation. This is politics, not our personal lives. Yes it is, and that’s the problem. It is why, on my darker days, I hardly want anything to do with the American church: as a national political force, it is about a highly politicized view of the United States, and not about God, people, or love. It assumes that the church can be a political force apart from the very principles it supposedly exists to defend—that it can preach institutional hate in the political arena and expect individuals to believe it really wants to love them. (This double-mindedness is apparent throughout the PHC letter, which one moment assures that Christians just want to be left alone to “remain faithful,” then pooh-poohs “small, behind-the-scenes actions” in favor of combative politics the next.)

I'm glad someone else is picking up on this Christianist dishonest gobbledygook. That it comes from a graduate of one of Christianism's "warrior" training bastions is especially reassuring.