Double Standard

GOP candidate and former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney had an interesting start to his campaign in New Hampshire yesterday. Read the following AP report:

Tue May 29, 12:30 PM ET

Mitt Romney’s visit to New Hampshire started on a sour note Tuesday when a restaurant patron declared he would not vote for the Republican presidential contender because of his faith.

“I’m one person who will not vote for a Mormon,” Al Michaud of Dover shouted at Romney when the former Massachusetts governor approached him inside Harvey’s Bakery. Romney was kicking off the second of two day’s worth of campaign visits in the lead primary state.

Romney kept smiling as he asked, “Can I shake your hand anyway?”

Michaud replied, “No.”

Michaud later told reporters he was not “a right-winger,” alluding to some evangelical Christians who have compared Romney’s faith to a cult. Instead, Michaud stated he was “a liberal.”

He said he planned to vote for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., should she win the Democratic presidential nomination.

If elected, Romney would be the first Mormon to serve in the White House.

While I feel that the “patron” was rude, his opinion of Romney, or Mormons for that matter, is not what has me chaffed.  Read the title that Yahoo News ran over the above story “Romney Criticized for Mormon Faith in NH“. Technically, I agree with the title. Romney was criticized for his faith. I cannot help but wonder; however, what the title would have been had a restaurant patron told Barack Obama, “I’m one person that will not vote for a black.”

Maybe I’m wrong, but I just do not believe that the title for that story would have read “Obama Criticized for Being Black”. The same holds true had Hilary been told, “I’m one person who will not vote for a woman.”

I do not think that anyone should withhold their vote from a candidate based strictly on race or gender. That is not the point of this post. I just think there is a double standard in the media.

Anything for His Pet

Would you wrestle a leopard to the ground and hold it there until the authorities arrived? I like to think that I would wrestle a leopard in defense of my family. I’m not sure I’d tackle a leopard to defend my pet. I might try to distract the big cat so Zeke could make a getaway, but I definitely would never prevent a leopard, or anything for that matter, from eating a cat.

The same cannot be said about the 45 year old Israeli Arthur De Mosh. 

Tue May 29, 2007 10:18AM EDT

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – An Israeli man wrestled a leopard to the ground after it entered his bedroom in a desert college and tried to make a meal of his pet cat.

“He jumped on the leopard and pinned him to the floor, then his wife called us so we could take it away,” Amram Zabari, a local park ranger who rushed to the scene, said on Tuesday.

Arthur De Mosh, a 45-year-old tour guide at the college near Kibbutz Sde Boker in southern Israel, was awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of the leopard trying to eat his cat.

He freed the pet, which survived the ordeal, from the leopard’s clutches.

A local veterinarian, Ronnie King, told Israel’s Channel 10 television the leopard was suffering from malnutrition and probably entered the home looking for easy prey.

Experts said only 10 leopards live in the wild in Israel. The animal captured at the college was transferred to a veterinary hospital for treatment and then taken to a nature reserve.

What a hero.

“I’m Looking for a Hero”

 

Varvel is one of the best, if not the best, political cartoonist. There are so many TV shows and movies depicting fantastic “heroes”. I’ll admit, I love Spidey; always have, and I believe he’d whup Superman’s behind.  But Varvel gets it right. Granny is the real hero.

Reading Material

Being a pastor, much of what I read is related to theological matters. I do not, however, like to restrict my reading to that area. I’ll share with you what I have recently read, and provide a little blurb or two about each book. (By recent I mean in the last month, and I’ll list them in their reading order.)

The Harvard educated son of a Presbyterian minister journalist Chris Hedges has exposed to the world that Fascism is not dead, nor is it lying dormant in some under-developed corner of the globe. Fascists populate the American nation in great numbers. They are everywhere! They are leading the country to utter ruin.

Who are they and where may they be found? The new fascists are any Christians who believe and live as if the Bible was literally true. Did you not know that D. James Kennedy, James Dobson, Tim LaHaye, and the now decesased Jerry Falwell are all fascists? They seek to destroy American life and reform it in their twisted image.

Yes, I am employing a bit of hyperbole. The book is interesting in the sense the reader is able to see conservative evangelicalism and fundamentalism from the perspective of an educated, “spiritual”, and secular mind. I do not agree with all the men I listed in the previous paragraph. I do not find from scripture that Christians are to raise a Moral Majority or any other such para-church organization to Christianize a nation or the world. Hedges is spot on in some of his criticism and observations in that area. But he holds to the theory that anyone who literally believes the Bible, anyone who seeks to win converts to Christ, anyone who believes that Christ will literally and bodily return to this Earth, anyone who believes in a literal heaven and a literal hell…well, those people are literally “escapist” and basically fascist.

Who knew?

I followed up American Fascists with NPR political correspondent Juan Williams’ book Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America–and What We Can Do About It. I was interested in this book for two reasons. First, I enjoy listening to Williams’ political reporting on NPR. Second, I was curious to hear, from a black man’s perspective, an opinion on the “leadership” of such African-American luminaries as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Plenty of good stuff in this book.

Tired with non-fiction, next I turned to J.R.R. Tolkien; one of my favorite authors. Children of Hurin is an old work newly edited and released. Tolkien fans are well aware that as far back as 1918 he began work his “Great Tales” of the mythical Middle Earth. Tolkien worked on the Middle-Earth mythology throughout his life, and some of his writing has remained unpublished. His son, Christopher Tolkien edited his father’s many drafts and published the current book. This story is actually told in the Silmarillion, but in that book the story is just parts of another whole. In Children of Hurin we have the uninterrupted narrative of Tolkien’s must tragic hero, Turn Turambar the son of Hurin. If you like The Lord of the Rings then you’ll love this book. I certainly did!

With my fiction fix achieved, I once again turned to non-fiction by reading in one evening Tolerating the Intolerable. This book chronicles the DePauw University v. Janis Price case, in which professor Price was ostensibly fired from DePauw for promoting Christian beliefs and practices on her students. I no live, pastor, and work in Greencastle, IN which is where DePauw University is located. The author, Jeffrey Shively, is a DePauw alum who happens to to be an adjunct professor at Ivy Tech; where I happen to work a part-time job.

The book was obviously biased in Mrs. Price’s favor. The author and Mrs. Price are friends; both members of Greencastle Christian Church. Still, the book is well written and documented. Facts are not skewed, but are honestly reported. This affords the reader an honest view of an ugly event. Mr. Shively does a good job of reporting on an epidemic in American higher education – the intolerable attitude of administrators for anyone who is Christian.

Finally, I just finished my favorite of the four non-fiction books that I read; Peggy Noonan’s When Character was King: a Story of Ronald Reagan. Noonan does a marvelous job of describing an excellent man. SHe reveals what made Reagan great. It was not his intellect…his charisma…his conservative positions. Reagan was a wonderful man and a great leader because he was a man of character. This attribute has been lacking in the Oval Office for quite a while.

I believe that Reagan was one of the top five Presidents of all time, and he is greatest post WWII President. He didn’t finish his two terms unscathed, and he was far from perfect. Through it all, however, he displayed dignity and integrity and he did it all with a natural, disarming, and ingratiating humor. This was a wonderful story about a fabulous man who is sorely missed.

Worst Team in the NL

It’s official: my beloved Cincinnati Reds are now the worst team in the National League. They own a scintillating 18-30 record; which gives them a solid hold on the cellar of the Central Division. They are the worst team in the worst division in the NL.

They just lost three of four games the Washington Nationals, the former NL basement champs. Of course, one could call the Nationals “Cincinnati Reds East” because the team has Jim Bowden and Bob Boone in the front office and Dmitri Young, Austin Kearns, and Felipe Lopez on the field. By the way, all three of those players shined at various times against the Reds.

I just do not understand this free fall. Last yeat this team was in contention for the entire season, and should have won the Central division. They imploded down the stretch, but they haven’t even lifted off this season. It’s May25th and you can already stick a fork in this season. The only reasons left to watch this team are these:

1. Will Junior stay healthy?
2. Will Hamilton stay clean?
3. Will Dunn hit 40 homers for the fourth consecutive season?

Other the above storylines there is no compelling reason to watch this team. Nevertheless, I shall watch and listen to Marty!

Before I finish I want it to be understood that I do like Adam Dunn. I really do. I have to be honest, though, this guy is a liability in the field, and how does someone with such a good “eye” strike out a couple times every game; usually in a clutch situation? I loved his effort last night on Young’s bloop hit to left, but his decision to attempt a shoe-string catch was bone-headed. It also cost the Reds a run. It was great effort combined to a poor decision. The Reds need great effort and smart decisions. 

They need them in a hurry.

‘Nuff Said

The Natural

Amazing. That is the only word that sufficiently describes Josh Hamilton. The guy simply does it all. He hits for average, spraying the ball all over the field. He hits for power. He has speed; on the bases and in the field. He has a ”laser-rocket” arm (to quote one of the many Peyton Manning commercials).  The young man is literally a natural. His story is, as Thom Brennaman correctly stated during yesterday’s telecast, this year’s best story in baseball.  All season long Hamilton has displayed his many talents, but during this past week the younng man who has been out of baseball for four years batted .429 with nine hits, including two home runs, a triple, a double, two walks and a stolen base. Not only that but his defense has been, well, his defense has been Griffeyesque: a diving grab on Saturday, an over the shoulder catch on Sunday, and an 8 – 5 assist (that’s from CF (8) to 3B (5) for those of you who can’t keep score) on Willy Taveras, who is arguably the fastest player in the NL. After yesterday I doubt if anyone in their right mind will attempt going from first to third on his arm.

Hamilton must be an every-day player, and I believe that Narron has done a fine job of regularly inserting him in the lineup. My feeling is that Edwin Encarnacion should be dealt away so that Freel may become the regular 3B and Hamilton the everyday CF.  Freel is a better outfielder than infielder, in my opinion, but Hamilton is a better CF than Freel, and Freel will play just as good a 3B as Encarnacion.

The only bummer about this past week is the inability of the Reds to win! That’s always a downer. Yesterday’s victory stopped a 4-game skid, but tonight’s prospects are grim because the great Reds slayer Roy Oswalt, he of the lifetime 18-1 record versus Cincinnati, will take the GABP mound. The only good news about Oswalt being the pitcher this evening is that Hamilton has done all of his damage against RH pitchers. (Although the Natural did post an o-fer against Oswaltin their first meeting.)

Besides Hamilton this year’s bright spot for me has been the play of one Ken Griffey, Jr. His defense is not, well, Griffeyesque. In fact, during one game in the Houston series he looked horrid in RF, but his RF defense will improve and his bat is coming into fine form. Griffey has absolutely stung the ball the last few games. It seems as if his wrist is completely healed. The only thing Griffey can do better offensively is be more productive with 2-outs and runners in scoring position.