Saturday was a fascinating day in professional sports. Two enormously gifted men achieved personal milestones. One superstar received adulation and praise. The other generated a mixed response of praise and open disdain. Michael Irvin was inducted into the Football Hall of Fame this weekend. The other superstar, Barry Bonds, tied the revered home run record of Hank Aaron on Saturday. Barry Bond’s story has been well chronicled. While the accusations have never been proven it is overwhelmingly suspected that Bonds benefited from performance enhancing drugs. Bonds has been defiant, arrogant, angry, and sullen as he relentlessly closed in on the record. Fans have taken to wearing asterisk shirts at San Francisco Giant games to make the statement that any records set should have an asterisk attached to denote that the mark is tainted. Barry Bonds has not made it easy to be a fan of his. But the fascinating juxtaposition from Saturday was the adulation poured on Michael Irvin. Irvin was also once an
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Today is a travel day so there is no time to write. I hope you enjoy this gently read post from the past. When I used to visit my family in Kentucky I remember the saying they used when someone thought a little differently. “That boy ain’t right!”, they would note with a smile and shake of the head. That is how I feel today after my “ain’t right” brain somehow linked two widely disparate stories. Story number one was found in The Week Magazine and told about a growing number of multimillionaires who are leaving their money to themselves in the hope they will someday be brought back to life. The Wall Street Journal had originally reported that these very future investors are having themselves cryogenically frozen with the hope that medical advances will allow them to be revived. I don’t know about you but I am really not interested in coming back to life on this planet. Woody Allen’s classic line comes to mind when he
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Johnny Cash had a big hit with his song about a “Boy Named Sue”. Unfortunately it seems like our society has adopted “Sue” as it’s collective middle name. Regular readers of these humble ramblings know my disdain for ridiculous lawsuits. I chronicled the case of the judge who sued for $54 million dollars when a dry-cleaner misplaced his pants. Apparently his pants and mind were both lost in the transaction but sanity finally prevailed and the case was dismissed. Of course, the grieving victim of trouser trauma (can I say that?) is appealing. Then I find a story about a woman in Illinois who is suing a Joliet, Illinois bar. The Chicago Tribune filed this report: A woman who tried to dance atop the bar at a Joliet tavern is suing the establishment after she fell and shattered her ankle. Amy Mueller — a Joliet-area resident in her early 20s, according to her attorney — is seeking more than $50,000 in
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Your humble “Bad Christian” took a little summer hiatus from the daily ramblings last month. July featured a countdown of the top twenty most read articles in the two year life of this blog. The countdown finished with a piece written just a couple of days after hearing about my wife Joni’s diagnosis of breast cancer. That post was called “Sentences That Change Your Life”.  Sixteen months later I can verify how much one sentence changed our lives. It was an odd coincidence that the story was delivered to many of your electronic mailboxes on the same day that ABC’s Robin Roberts announced her breast cancer diagnosis on ‘Good Morning America’. I saw Robert’s brave optimism and strength. But I also saw the emotion and fear of the unknown battle that loomed in the days ahead. It is not an easy journey. But I am sure that Robin Roberts will be an inspiration to women across America. The message that Robin emphasized was the importance of
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The countdown concludes today with the most read article over the past two years of this blog. Most of life’s sentences are blissfully mundane. I can’t find my keys. Take out the garbage. Please feed the dog. I can’t find my keys. ADD readers will relate to that string of comments. But sometimes a single sentence will change your life. My bride of nearly thirty years dropped one of those sentences on me earlier this week. “My spot was cancerous.” After an optimistic initial briefing from the surgeon days earlier we were not prepared for the harsh reality of the pathology report. The  breast cancer is still small but aggressive. The prognosis still optimistic but the journey will be hard. Yesterday I quoted that noted scholar and philosopher Mike Tyson who said, “Everyone has a game plan until they get hit in the mouth.”  That was how I felt after talking and crying with my wife. We are looking at a year of treatment and trials. But God is good and
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The second most read post in the history of this site involves forgiveness. One of the things that really struck me from the movie “End of the Spear” was that in the Waodani language, there is no word for forgiveness. The concept was so foreign to that culture that no word had ever been coined. In our Christian culture we have the word but we too often lack the ability to apply it. One of the joys of writing these daily ramblings is hearing from readers who are blessed or challenged by something I have written. Occasionally someone takes time out of their busy schedule to tell me I am an idiot. Isn’t it a waste of time to tell an idiot that he is an idiot? How can an idiot comprehend that? But I digress. The communications that are really hard for me are the ones from people who have been wounded by other people in the church or by church leaders. Those break my heart and
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The most read articles in the brief history of these humble ramblings reaches number three today. Today’s topic reflects on why we expect something for simpy doing the right thing. This morning I looked out in the backyard and noticed that adopted dog Hannah was vibrating. She usually only vibrates when she meets a new friend so I got a little curious. When I investigated I found that Hannah had “befriended” a box turtle that had somehow found it’s way through our fences and into our yard. The turtle seemed considerably less excited about the relationship with Hannah but he/she did seem to sense that the vibrating lab was, at worst, annoying. A few minutes later I checked again on the turtle. The turtle had managed to fall into our pool and it was apparent that land turtles cannot swim. I looked for the leaf skimmer but we had attached the brush instead. In the meantime the poor little thing was
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