Omaha

(Pic source:http://www.flickr.com/photos/84263554@N00/204089511/)

So, where are all the cornfields?

Yeah I know, but some leeway should be given considering that people who move to Texas think that we’re all rocking cowboy hats down here and that there is a hitchin’ post outside every business, even Starbucks.

“Omaha, somewhere in Middle America…” or so goes the line from the Counting Crows tune that is shares a name with this post.

Middle America, now there is a loaded term. More often than not, it refers to the middle class here in these United States. You know, the demographic that politicos of every stripe take for granted except around election time.

I’m currently reading a book in which at one point, the venerable writer calls out ‘many of the soundest and most orthodox Christians’ and describes them like this:

[Their] ambition in life seems limited to building a nice middle-class Christian home, and making nice middle-class Christians friends, and bringing up their children in nice middle-class Christian ways, and who leave submiddle-class sections of the community, Christian and non-Christian, to get on by themselves.

I must admit this hits a bit too close to home, yet… yet, does not this ambition at times seem harmless and dangerously appealing?

Good Summary on Mark Driscoll

The man, the legend, Tim Ellsworth wrote a good and blessedly fair piece on the man hated by some, loved by others, the inimitable Mark Driscoll (below on the right).

No worries, Piper is about to turn the other cheek

A good excerpt from Tim’s post:

As an aside, the condemnation of Driscoll for his cussing is especially despicable. Driscoll has publicly repented of his former propensity to use vulgar language. If God can cast those transgressions as far as the east is from the west and remember them no more, what does it say about us when we insist on taking sins for which Christ died and of which Driscoll has repented and keep throwing them in his face?

Maybe Team USA Thought They Were Playing México

It is quite possible that the only people who thought that the U.S. Men’s National Team had a shot against Spain, FIFA’s #1-ranked team, were the 11 guys on the pitch and their half-Vulcan coach (only thing missing are the ears, must be an autosomal recessive allele).

The best some fans of the red, white and blue were hoping for was at least a good showing (i.e. an 0-2 loss).

Prose and verse could be committed to endless reams of paper in praise of the American back line, the main reason Team USA pulled off the upset. Most notable among them was central defender, Oguchi Onyewu.

Univision’s Pablo Ramírez glossed him “Oguchi the Omnipresent” in reference to Onyewu blocking and winning balls all over the pitch. “Oguchi, siempre, Oguchi…”, another Ramírez instant classic.

I watched the match twice (part of it during my lunch hour, and the whole thing in the evening when Telefutura replayed it) and one thing became evident to me.

Team USA’s performance looked eerily familiar, why? Because their effort yesterday mirrored what they put on display when they play my beloved Tri. Opportunistic scoring and impregnable defense are the hallmarks of the Americans’ game against their bitter rivals to the South.

The only difference, of course, is that yesterday, the Spanish players didn’t employ any of the classless tactics sometimes employed by my countrymen (below).

Congrats to Bob Bradley and the rest of Team USA.

Phil Jackson Sheds His “Slave Name”

Here’s the evidence:

By the looks of it, Phil X isn’t fielding any questions on this matter.

Kris Allen Wins American Idol

No, not that Kris Allen, though that guy is the stuff that dreams are made of for the folks over at Vote for the Worst.  He’s got a mane for crying out loud, not to mention the name of his band.

Really though, congratulations to AI winner, Kris Allen, a worship leader from Arkansas (who says that can’t describe our guy in the picture?).

Couple of things to chew on:

• A former worship leader won a competition named “American Idol”.

• How much is Kris Allen (above) going to hold out for to hand over the domain name to the AI winner?

• Will this inspire other worship leaders to leave their G’s, C’s and D’s behind and focus all their energies into that all-important Idol audition?

Burning questions indeed.

Roof Wanted

Pic h/t: Daily Mail

The Gospel According to Pink

No, not her:

Him:

That’s Arthur Walkington Pink and his book, “The Sovereignty of God” has been burning up my lunch hour.

Here are his words on the Gospel:

Concerning the character and contents of the Gospel, the utmost confusion prevails today. The Gospel is not an offer to be tossed around by evangelical peddlers.

The Gospel is no mere invitation, but a proclamation–a proclamation concerning Christ; true whether men believe it or not. No man is asked to believe that Christ died for him in particular.

The Gospel, in brief, is this: Christ died for sinners, you are a sinner, believe in Christ and you shall be saved.

Admittedly, Pink’s words have to do more with what the Gospel isn’t and his brief definition does not (cannot) surpass the Apostle’s divinely inspired definition, read it here.

From The Fall Collection

What is Love?

With all due respect to Haddaway, the following shot is one answer to that question,

Michael Conroy/Associated Press

No, I’m not saying that Michael Jordan looking like he’s at a revival is love.

Rather, him rocking that Illinois polo is love, a father’s love. Before achieving basketball immortality in the NBA, Jordan played ball at North Carolina. There, he won a national title under the tutelage of the coaching great Dean Smith.

Yet, because his boy is a reserve player on the University of Illinois team, Jordan forgets Carolina blue to support his son by sporting Illinois orange.

Boy, I don’t know, if our son were to attend OU (or A&M), and miraculously (you see, the genetic deck is stacked against him) play basketball there, could I set aside my burnt orange to sport crimson or maroon?

Blasphemous as it might be in Longhorn Nation, I wouldn’t even think twice.

Seriously though, what is love? This is love:

Not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. – 1 John 4:10

Before Bobby Valentine, there was Vladimir Putin

Back in our college days, my friends and I would frequent one of our glorious university’s computer labs. Since we attended college at around the time that chat rooms were beginning to proliferate, our time was spent talking to people we’d never meet.

Naturally, using the anonymity that the ‘Net grants, we’d play all sorts of pranks on each other. Without going into detail, let’s just say that some of them were epic.

This kind of tomfoolery would extend to acquaintances. We knew these 2 guys and on one occurrence we tried to punk them via chat room. They must have caught on because one of them (the spymaster) sent the other on a mission unworthy of Dzerzhinsky.

The fact that our counterespionage efforts uncovered the plot reveals the efficacy of our nemesis’ total lack of subterfuge. After this incident we glossed this guy, “Beano the Spy”.

It is this lack of subterfuge and underhandedness to which I pay tribute to on this day.

Exhibit A is former New York Mets skipper, Bobby Valentine. Bobby was ejected from a game and then came back to the dugout looking like this,

Exhibit B, I’m afraid, is anachronistic. At the time the following picture was taken, we didn’t know that the spy in question would later become Russia’s President and more importantly, because of his unfortunate last name, the butt of many Mexicans’ jokes,

Source: Pete Souza

Here’s the story behind the picture:

“Undercover Putin In KGB Reagan Ruse”