Jeopardy!

Hey everyone. Read this then watch tonight.

I don't speak Creole

I, like most emotionally healthy people, am (overwhelmed, empathetic, worn out) by the horror in the imagery of the Haiti earthquake. I cannot say what my first thought was when I found out, or even where I was when I first heard. It did not quite ring as personally as the 9/11 attacks, as I have never been to Haiti. I cannot say I even know anybody who has been to Haiti, even though it is closer to where I was born than as far as I traveled last week. The small nation has been almost an abstraction in my mind, not just in the ways that those foreign places like Greenland, Okinawa and Papua New Guinea are; Haiti represents suffering and poverty in a way very few other words can.

The text message campaigns, fund raisers and benefits have been inspiring. I have reservations and questions about what, exactly, success in this rebuilding effort will look like. It is a thought that convicted me, because history has not been kind to the Haitians and, strangely enough, a post I read on a Clemson sports message board pointed out that this earthquake is not God’s judgment being meted out; rather, we will be judged by our reactions to it. I think that is a fair statement.

By this measure, or any other really, I think one of the bigger de facto voices of Christian representation, Pat Robertson has surely failed. I find it intensely frustrating when these de facto voices are de facto without actual regard to the fidelity of their content. My associations are publicly judged by the opinions of Robertson and others like him, when the most (in)famous are directly contradictory to the very philosophy to which he espouses. I decided, then, that it is our responsibility, my responsibility, to say that the idea that Haiti is suffering because of sin or an insufficient faith is not representative of what Christians believe. In fact, John 9:3 pretty succinctly discounts this idea: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.”

This is a problem for us. When I say us, I do not just mean Christians. I mean people. The relationship that Christ wants is world changing. And the picture of that relationship that Robertson’s most publicized and controversial comments paints are, unfortunately, the only picture that many might see and as representative of how such a relationship should function as Joe Jackson’s fatherly relationship with the Jackson 5. Personalities like Robertson’s going unchecked are obstacles for spreading the Truth, and easily trump the (I’m sure) numerous virtuous and positive efforts that his ministry has effected. We must be good examples.

I do want to do something to help, though. But I want that something to be more than an anonymous text message that disappears down the memory hole and makes me feel better. The Haitian society was dysfunctional before this happened and how many text messages will I have to send so the Red Cross can afford to fix that? What can I do in order to be a better model of the life Christ wants us to live than Pat Robertson?

My butt feels papery

Hey everyone, it's been a while. I know, I know, you've been waiting with baited breath for this observation. I could tell by the overwhelming silence of comments I have gotten lately. Thanks for that, by the way. Makes me feel loved. And why does a blogger blog if not for unsolicited and unearned attention?

I am puzzled by a fixture on many a public bathroom wall. (No, not toilet paper, smartalec. That does not puzzle me at all anymore.) I remember as a child that some relative suggested that you put strips of toilet paper down on the seats in order to not sit on foreign toilets, and there has been a proliferation of doughnut shaped tissue paper in dispensable containers in bathroom stalls to achieve that end. They have it where I work, at air ports where TSA rifles through your things without really accomplishing much other than increasing the inconvenience in the world (like government paid entropy generators) and disgusting gas stations (I'm sure).

I have a question, though. What good does it do? What kinds of toilet borne plagues are out there? And what is that paper thin barrier really going to stop? I can understand wiping down before landing, because there are certainly contaminants that can be removed. But sitting on top of them? It's like the sneeze guard at salad bars if those guards were completely permeable to sneezes. What they should really have are something to keep the struts warm, because, well, sitting down on a cold morning makes me feel bad for girls every winter.

I wonder how big an industry that useless paper thing is. I think I have a brilliant business concept: some of that alcohol hand sanitizer strictly for toilet seats. It might not exactly keep you warm, and it might be weird when you try to put your pants back on, but you wouldn't have to worry about getting motaba virus on your bum.

Veteran's Day

Veteran’s Day is for us all, whether we actually put on the uniform and saw combat or not. We turn ourselves upon those who did, awestruck, and try in any demonstrable effort to point our collective American focus on those who traded some measure of their freedom in exchange that we might not have to bargain with ours. We can’t know what it’s like to be 7000 miles away from everything we’ve ever known because our country, our people, asked us to go there. We can’t know how changed, transfigured, one might be afterwards.

There is a photograph of my grandfather in his living room standing in uniform arm in arm, smiling, with his wife who sits in that same room with him every day. They are who they are because he wore that. I am who I am because he wore that. We are all who we are because they wore that.

Sadly, last week reminded us that these stories do not always end in picturesque black and white photographs and the romance of how the Greatest Generation allowed us to say the Pledge of Allegiance in school in English. Sometimes the transfiguration, whatever its source, is not into something noble, beautiful, and romantic; sometimes there is a horrible metamorphosis, twisting at the soul of those caught between commitments and tragically unmoored from the mission they are commissioned to execute – our country, our people, who count on every man and woman in service, who need every man or woman in service – our safety, our freedom and our identity is their mission. Sometimes the tragedies are not quite so grotesque as unfolded last week in Texas. Sometimes it’s small, and simple, like the nameless stories that newspapers never cover like newly married couples who make their lifelong commitments just months before being flung across continents to carry out the yearlong ones. But I guess it’s only small and simple from the outside.

I have faith that that photograph and that couple and every wonderful and morose moment in between occurs under the watchful eye of a loving God, even, paradoxically, the murders at Ft. Hood. I certainly don’t understand how, and I am returned to the often unsatisfying “My ways are not your ways” from Isaiah 55:8, but to be fair, I don’t understand how the two people found their way from the photograph to their living room half a century later, either.

Let it at least serve as a terrible reminder for us, all of us, that we need them. And that we need Him. We need the servicemen and women, because without them, we are not “we.” Our country, our people are defined by the dividends of freedom they have voluntarily surrendered so that ours may collect interest. As we realize this, though, it may be easy to overlook the fact that as much as we need them, they need us, too. They keep going because of us. A care package, a letter, a meal, a handshake, a thank you serves to remind them that we have not forgotten that they have done something incomparably gracious just by doing their job, by being who they are. So I take this opportunity to say thank you to them for in their sacrifices, I see lives lived in the example of that loving God, whether they realize it or not, and a simple reminder to put our focus on them, and Him, today, on Veteran’s Day. But I guess it’s only simple from the outside.

Rain, rain, go away. (Not really; you're cool rain)

It's been raining around here a lot. That's ok on its own, but it's also getting cold, and the cold is empirically bad. It is a proven fact that people who like cold weather are sociopaths. I know you are probably thinking, "Ted Bundy killed people in Florida!" Aha! He was born in Vermont. Count it.

With these rains, though, comes thunder storms. It got me thinking about how when we were kids and somebody would say, "I saw thunder!" and then the other little smartass kids would say, "HA HA HA! You can't see thunder!" I was probably one of those smartass kids. I had a pretty vicious habit of correcting people when they made innocuous blunders when I was younger. Then I learned that people don't like it when you point out their flaws so pointedly, so I tried to lay off. I'm a recovering correctaholic.

The thing, though, is that there are two separate words, thunder and lightning, for basically the same thing. If you take a gander at my handle there, you can probably guess I know a little about sciencey things. So for those of you who don't know, I'll lay a little meteorology knowledge on you.

The exact mechanism of lightning forming is not well understood, but it's a discharge of static electricity (static electricity is the bitch kind of electricity) from a cloud to [usually] the ground. Even though it's the bitch kind, it's still a horrendous bolt of electricity that travels through the air, kind of like the boy in A Boy Named Sue. If you've ever held electricity in your hand, or things like extension cords, you notice that they kind of heat up. The lightning bolt named Sue is like that times a million. I don't know if a million is enough, but the air gets super hot and that expansion and re-contraction of air makes a boatload of noise. Think of the pwoompf sound that you hear when you light something on fire really fast. Except times a million.

Here's the thing: thunder is the sound that lightning makes. They are different sensory reactions to the same event. It's just that you see the lightning sooner due to the fact that it's really bright and you can see it from far away and light travels faster than sound. But, they aren't really different. If a cop asks about a barfight and the guy says he heard a slap, nobody's going to say, "HA HA HA! You can't hear a slap!"

So the moral of the story is, lay off on thunder and lightning. It's just a universal shared experience and the concept of language developed before we understood high energy fluid mechanics.

Also, I am writing this as I am watching the Green Bay-Minnesota game, and I have to say that I would not be that disappointed if I never heard Brett Favre's name ever again.

Sitting-O

I just got back from listening to Neal Jeffrey, a former QB (that's quarterback) for Baylor University and the San Diego Chargers, who gave what he called a pep talk for life at church. It was pretty much what you expect, a good testimony about his life in service to Christ, impressive (and self-deprecating) stories about playing football, and a little bit of stuttering. That's kind of his thing; he is a speaker who stutters (very well, he points out) while talking about faith.

It got me thinking, though, about how weird it is that when you sit around clapping for something cool somebody said, how do you know when to stop? Like, for instance, if you are at a Starland Vocal Band concert and after they finish Afternoon Delight, sure, you're clapping, but for how long? Eight claps? Twelve? Usually, you judge based on everyone else, right? Well, somebody's got to be the pioneer. He's like the guy who starts the wave, except in reverse. The guy who gets tired of smacking his hands together first.

I also have questions about when exactly a performance traverses from just sitting and clapping to standing up and clapping. What is that element in your speech that takes you over the edge? I'm guessing it has something to do with quality of booger jokes told. The same applies to jazz concerts.

Anyway, if any of you have been to performances and remember thinking, "This is the thing that will make me stand up when I start clapping. This guitar solo/tennis serve/ventriloquist trick/sawing magician's assistant in half/etc puts him over the edge." Or, "He was so close, but because he made fun of Democrats/Republicans/black people/children/asthmatics/applesauce/whatever, I'm only going to clap from my seat. And indignantly for only four claps, at that," I want to hear about it. I want to know where that edge is.

Would you please enter your phone number?

I made a pretty happy discovery yesterday: it looks like I can save some money on automobile insurance this year by switching to a different provider (oddly enough, not Geico). I had been using a certain online provider that has a cartoon trying to convince me to save the world by going paperless or something, and they don't have actual stores so it's all online or over the phone, which reminded me of something I hate. (I know, surprised, right?)

Have you ever called into an automated system and they ask you to enter a phone number or social security number or something? I have. The computer knows who you are, they can tell you your upcoming balance, your service plan, your whatever. But as soon as your fight your way through the labyrinthine thicket that is that computerized navigation system, the person makes you give them all that information all over again. There is nothing you can tell me that will convince me that this is not asinine.

There are a few conclusions I can draw from this: 1) Their technology is not sophisticated enough to tell the person who is calling, even though the Homework Hotline at my college could do that, 2) they don't trust their computer system to deliver the proper information, 3) they enjoy being inconvenient. All of which are good options.

So, the moral of the story is that the computerized navigations are stupid, and they don't have to be. Come on, non-threatening electronic voice. Step up your game.

Hey Sports Fans

I wanted to advertise some sports writing I and some of my friends are doing. Check it out at almostcompetitivechatter.blogspot.com and keep reading the observations at howobservant.blogspot.com

Here are a couple of phrases that I hate

I probably come across as an authoritarian agressor when it comes to proper speech usage, commercial likes, and decision making. That's not that true. I respect your preference to like stupid stuff, so long as you respect my right to criticize it. You can, of course, defend yourself (as you should), but chances are you are wrong anyway and will not win.

This is especially the case if you make a habit of using a particular set of words or phrases. My mom has a huge list, while most of hers are common errors made with actual words, notably the inexplicable "supposably" pronunciation for supposedly, which, in her mind, is grounds for sterilization. I have issues with that sometimes too, but I also have issues with words that are used that probably should not be nearly as often as they are. Let's take a look, shall we?

• Myself - This is one of the former complaints. This is misused all the time. It is the reflexive pronoun used for emphasis or reflection, like when the subject and object of a verb are the same: for instance, "I laughed so hard at their grammar mistakes that I peed myself." It is not a replacement for the standard nominative (I) or objective (me) pronouns like, "John and myself will empty the tiger's cage" or "Please send the shoes filled with champagne to either Hector or myself." No dice.
• Utilize - This is a longer word that means the same thing as use without bringing anything extra to the soup. This word should be used never.

I used an unnumered list, the inferior form of list, because I could only think of two at the time of writing this and a numbered list of 2 looks tacky, and quite frankly, we're all better that that. If you feel the need to demonstrate, please add your distasteful phrases in the comment section.

Is Little Debbie a good Hostess?

A discovery I made recently has the potential to ruin whatever health gains I may have been making in my unfortunately not regular enough visits to the local olympic swiming pool: the vending machine in my building at work has cinnamon streusel cake. You may not have known this about me, but I have strong and far reaching food tastes and opinions, and one of the is that Hostess makes super excellent breakfast baked goods. Another is that cinnamon is a flavor not to be trifled with; it does get jealous of chocolate and peanut butter. Hell hath no fury like a spice scorned.

My dad has been involved in the grocery business in some fashion for basically my whole life, and most of his -- he is the leprechaun from Lucky Charms. I'm joking of course, as that would be absurd. My mom's side of the family is my Irish side. As a result, though, he would periodically bring home retail products -- almost always "day old," which is groceryspeak for "old" -- some of which were sometimes strange and obscure, like weird cookies shaped like windmills or clogs, or lemon turnovers that come in that weird wrapper that can't quite decide if it's paper or plastic. It's the same stuff that breakfast burritos, the you know the kind that everyone seems to own but nobody really ever eats. Sometimes, though, my siblings and I would hit the individually packaged jackpot when he'd score something like Teddy Grahams, Koala Yummies or some other bear shaped cookie. Or, those glorious, glorious Hostess cakes.

Honey buns and the aforementioned delicate sweetness that is cinnamon streusel cake were the top choices in my mind. Like preservative laden versions of Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, they were unmatched by their peers. Sure, Ho-Hos and Ding Dongs are vaguely inappropriately named delights and the confections that made my lunches the envy of the middle school (and it's a wonder I didn't weigh like 300 pounds) but they weren't an excuse to let you eat cakes that taste like candy for breakfast.

The hitch, though, is that for some reason the vending machine versions of these products tend to taste more decadent than the ones in stores. Maybe they benefit from aging, like a fine cheese, or maybe they have gone away from trans fats and the vending machine versions don't turn over fast enough for the inventory to have caught up. Or maybe the stores I shop at are just too high brow for such simple pleasures. All I know is that I have looked forward to coming into work everyday this week for y reakfast that will probably take 5 years off my otherwise impressive life expectancy.