Here’s to more technical failures like this one.
Picture this: you’re a bomb disposal guy working feverishly to diffuse defuse (thanks C.!) the thing, and suddenly you hear a cell phone start ringing.
Those Brits are made of stout stuff.… Read the rest
Philip Yancey is one of my favorite contemporary Christian writers. My first exposure to him was during my premed days at Harding when I read Fearfully and Wonderfully Made, a book he coauthored with Dr. Paul Brand. Since then, he’s only become better and more prolific. As someone who in the past has described himself as a “reluctant Christian,” Yancey to me feels like spiritual next-of-kin.
Two weeks after the Virginia Tech massacre, Yancey waded into the morass of grief that was Blacksburg, Virginia and delivered these words.
I sent this link to Number One Son, figuring that he might appreciate some of the things that Yancey had to say as he prepares to take up the tricky business of learning and living out his faith on a state university campus.… Read the rest
There is the endless drone of the mainstream press serving up bland portions of the same o’ same o’, and then there is Camille Paglia.
I have a confession: I dig a lot (but certainly not all) of her stuff. Yeah, I know, I know, she’s a gay-atheist-feminist with a fetish for homoeroticism, but nobody’s perfect, right? Still, apparently beholden to no one, she writes things that others are too wimpish to even think, and does so with a vim and verve that are a rare sight in today’s media landscape.
She’s taken some time off, but Camille’s back. And just in the nick of time to make things interesting.… Read the rest
I know that tawdry stories such as this and this can catch a person’s eye like a bad case of conjunctivitis. Life is truly sometimes stranger than fiction.
So may I humbly suggest that this weekend you focus your peepers on this instead.
Thanks to my favorite law professor for recommending Stranger Than Fiction. It’s not often that I gush over a movie rental. But this morning, I’m overflowing like Old Faithful. Will Farrell, Maggie Gyllenhall, Emma Thompson, Queen Latifah and Dustin Hoffman combine to produce a sober but soothing feast snack for the soul. There’s also a delightful reference to Space Camp for you Huntsville folks, plus some funny cameos by some guys whom you’ll recognize immediately.… Read the rest
Having just attended a somewhat (okay very) rowdy high school graduation ceremony, this one caught my eye and made me glad that I live in Huntsville, Alabama rather than Galesburg, Illinois.
Which one do you think is worse, someone not hearing their kid’s name called when she walks across the stage, or someone walking across the stage and holding out her hand to receive her diploma only to have it taken back later? What a nice graduation picture (and memory) that last one would make.
Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.… Read the rest
You know that tractor song? Well, he wasn’t just whistling Dixie.
Yes, I graduated from Franklin County High School, and today, needless to say, I am a proud alumnus.
If you think my John Deere’s sexy, then wait’ll you see that Bush Hog I’ve got parked out in the shed.
Guess which Huntsville high school student was named to the First Team All-USA High School Academic Team?
Johnny, a friend of Number One Son at Grissom High who scored a perfect 2400 on his SAT and a perfect 36 on his ACT, was among 20 students named to the team. Of those, 15 were of Asian or Indian descent. I don’t know precisely how much genetics has to do with that (my guess is quite a bit), but I do know that many of those kids are second generation Americans whose immigrant parents have instilled in them a killer work ethic which makes me and my progeny look like absolute slouches.… Read the rest
I wasn’t a fan of his, but I didn’t really think he was a monster either. What ever happened to “you don’t tug on Superman’s cape, spit into the wind, pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger, mess around with Jim, or dance on someone’s grave?”
I’d like to think that when I die, no one will dance on my grave. But there’s probably someone out there who will.
“No more stinky glasses, no more stinky glasses!” they’ll joyfully bleat as they stomp and strut around my grave like a barnyard animal, stirring up a cloud of dust from the freshly dug dirt.… Read the rest
The Explainer at Slate does it again. I commented on this the other day, but little did I know then that I was actually a “code shifter” when I’m hangin’ with the clan back in Vah-GIN-ya and talking mountainspeak.
Hillary’s not the only one trying to convince us of her Southern bona fides. In Full Professor Elrod’s case, the more hard-core secessionists among his rowdy and far-flung boiled peanut gallery may have finally disabused him of the notion. I think it was the part about lapsing into Delawarespeak that did him in.
Huntsville is about as cosmopolitan as you can get in Alabama with so many transplants from all over the country and world.… Read the rest
Michael Winerip’s touching and elegant essay, “Young, Gifted, and Not Getting Into Harvard” is the most sensible piece of writing on today’s hypercompetitive college admissions game that I’ve read in a long time.
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If brains were transmissions, then mine would be a four-speed manual that I’ve red-lined and ground to bits in the quest for maximum performance. Number One Son, on the other hand, has a silky smooth six that he rarely shifts into overdrive. Instead, he cruises down the highway in fifth gear, the top down and the wind in his hair, making good time and covering a lot of ground, but not so fast and so far that he can’t take in the view and enjoy the glory days.… Read the rest
O Lord, if I must live 50 more years, please let it be like this.
Like fine wine, Nola has aged very nicely.… Read the rest
If this keeps up, I’m going to start feeling sorry for her.
Seriously, she may not be faking it. My accent is pretty neutral for the most part (comes from marrying a Missouri “Show Me”), but I’ve been told that when I’m around my uncles and cousins back home, that I lapse back into a Southwest Virginia lilt.
Yes Vah-GIN-ya, it is possible for an accent to change depending on the circumstances and it not be a campaign trick.… Read the rest
When I was in high school, I had a teacher who made sure that we knew about the civil rights struggle in America. I’m thankful that I learned early in life about Medgar Evers, the Birmingham church bombing and the murders of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. I can remember chafing and squirming when I learned how the perpetrators of those crimes had escaped justice and were still free to live their lives as they pleased.
Little did I know that the goofy, red-haired guy wearing the suspenders and top hat who used to do the announcements in chapel at Harding would be the one to help bring those scoundrels to justice.… Read the rest
Among the more curious reactions to the Virginia Tech killings that I’ve seen bandied about in various circles is one that goes something like this:
… Read the restThe tremendous outpouring of grief over the death of 33 Virginia Tech students and professors is proof positive that Americans are selfish and egocentric and care more about their own lives than lives lost around the world everyday from other far worse atrocities, civil wars, preventable diseases, etc. Why not more outrage and grief over innocent lives lost in Iraq and Darfur, or the thousands lost to AIDs on the African continent? Stupid, myopic Americans; so much grief over their own kids, so much blindness toward the suffering of others around the world whose lives are just as important.
