THIS is what i'm talking about

the only thing worse than ignoring the facts is investing your ideological blindness with religious certainty. religion is meant to provide deep reflection, not easy certainty. - jim wallis

whaaaat jim wallis. i like him more and more. and ha! religion is supposed to be hard! beware of anyone who refuses to question any beliefs! exclamation!

so what i'm saying is, i don't completely like jim wallis because i am a QUESTIONER.

that's madam speaker-elect to you, mr. president.

i remember when the republicans took both houses. i remember watching newt gingrich on tv and asking my mom why everyone had brought their little kids to see him speak. she said it was because only republicans care about children. oops, i mean she said that it was a historical event. but wouldn't it have been funny if she had said the other thing?

lauren has offered me $3.95 a month for periodic west wing quotes. here, i would like to include bartlet's "something can't be extremely historic" lecture from the first scene of galileo, in season 2, but apprently no one else found it funny enough to post online. i'd do it, see, but i'm on the couch right now. welp, there goes my $3.95.

here's some food for thought. i've heard a theory that bush's mispronunciation of "democrat party" is intentionally insulting. i've heard the same theory about his dad's "soddom hussein." is this a family political trick, or a family weakness in pronunciation skills? i guess it's been working decently well for them either way.

do you think madam speaker-elect will have the opportunity to correct him? hmm...

other things to think about.

1. should christians find ayn rand offensive? because apparently some do. and i say - come on, guys, her books are EDUCATIONAL. people read them in school! [realize that this is not an actual argument.]

2. do people think about the practical reasons for being christian? i ask because, in judaism [as i understand it] there's no necessary reward in heaven for all of this. moses says, in deuteronomy 6, "fear the lord, your God, and keep, throughout the days of your lives, all his statutes and commandments which i enjoin on you, and thus have long life... that you may grow and prosper the more, in keeping with the promise of the lord, the God of your fathers, to give you a land flowing with milk and honey." not "so that you'll go to heaven." not "so that you won't go to hell." i think that people can follow God because it makes them happy, but i got a lot of disagreements on this from people who say that the Christian life is hard and heaven is the only reward. and to that i say, rejoice in the lord always! ha.

also, here's something for all you third-party voters.

on a related [?] note, studio 60 this week - um, not really sure what the deal is. i see what aaron's doing with the myserious beginning and flashback thingy. but nothing really happened. and i see very little irony or self-deprecation. kind of sad?

i wish people would just walk through hallways and make fun of themselves. like this.

sam: where are you going?
josh: where are you going?
sam: i was following you.
josh: i was following you. all right, don't tell anyone this happened, okay?

one clear opinion: i went to the coolest high school in the world.

"This new document puts more emphasis on the church’s moral teaching about sexuality. It says that although having a 'homosexual inclination' is not itself a sin, homosexual sex is a sin — as are premarital sex and adultery. The answer in all these situations is chastity."

so according to today's nytimes, apparently the US bishops are voting on a new document about ministering to gay catholics. i dunno. i'll snarkily say that this is a better summary than i expected from the times, because at least it's not "the catholic church says gay people are EVIL EVIL EVIL. for no reason." but i'm waiting. i don't know for what. things change slowly, but they do change - right?

i predict that the "gay Catholic leaders" quoted in this article are going to protest anything less than a 180 on moral teaching. that's not news as much as the times wants it to be news. time will tell if their protest is healthy or divisive - but again, the spirit leads people all kinds of places, and who can say which revelations are valid?

"A previous document, issued by a committee of bishops in 1997, was directed primarily at parents with gay children. But it proved controversial and was never approved by the bishops conference. "

i don't think that's true. as a rule, i'm suspicious of blurbs that quote a mysterious "previous document" as if the rest of us are too stupid to look it up. i don't know if always our children was controversial, but it's certainly not un-approved. perhaps there is another level of approval somewhere. we learned about it in high school, though, and i don't think i even realized at the time how concerned (in a good way) our teacher was about the gay students in her class. this is one of those things i didn't realize was cool until later, when i thought about how many catholic high school religion teachers would never bring this up...

i'd like the church to be a little clearer on loving gay people, with a little less emphasis on morality. but church leaders have a balancing act on this one, and i honestly don't know how i'd do it better. BAH. wait and pray...

apostles at the voting booth

"Jesus lived in politically hot times, and the people of his day were looking for a political leader and savior. Consequently, people were constantly trying to get Jesus to throw his weight behind this or that political issue, but Jesus consistently refused. He never so much as commented on the politics of his day. We know that two of his closest disciples -- Matthew (a "tax collector") and Simon (a "zealot") -- were farther apart politically than Michele Bachmann and Patty Wetterling could ever dream of being. Yet Jesus never said a word about it."

i haven't seen this point made a lot, but i LIKE it. i think i've said before that i'm afraid that this God's politics push is going to turn into another pendulum swing - aaaand now the left is religious! wheee! so i'd like to see more articles like this one from the faith perspective. as much as i'd like everyone to agree with me (wheee!) i think there must be some degree of danger in that. i know this is a point that pretty much goes without saying, but i think it's even more important to consider when we're talking about faith and politics - that is, the fact that disagreements are possible (and even necessary) among faithful christians.

who's picturing two men with beards and sandals glaring at each other before they go into the voting booths? anyone?

SEAN CASEY, YOU ARE SO GOOD AT BASEBALL.

oho, i am so darn happy to be watching sean casey on tv again. i just saw his player personality or whatever (brought to you by hp, the computer is personal again) and guess what - 1) dave matthews is his background music, and 2) he reads the bible every day. we'd totally be MFEO if, you know, he wasn't already... oh, whatever. anyway, he's playing really well.

do you ever glance at the tv and not realize that they're showing a replay from earlier in the game? i think that replays should be sepia-toned or something.

i wrote the earlier part of this post before the tigers started losing. missed the end of the game because we went to see little miss sunshine. um. i haven't laughed so hard at a movie since middle school. much better than that time we all went to see i heart huckabees.

oh my?

"i've decided i'm rooting for the lions. i mean the tigers."

okay, in my defense, here are things i know about the tigers.
1) they were almost the worst team ever in 2003.
2) my secret lover sean casey plays for them.
3) refer to the previous post on yankees hatred.

so there you have it. the tigers are going all the way.

TAKE THAT

dear sean casey, thanks for beating the yankees and then spraying the fans with champagne. for this, i still love you. and maybe i'll stop hiding in trees and cabinets because it's october and my team is out of the playoffs.

"not only are the yankees out of the playoffs, but the red sox already got all the good tee times."
- dad, being snarky.