The LSU Tigers baseball team defeated the University of Texas 2 games to 1 in a best of three series to win their 6th National Championship. The Tigers are young, confident, and loaded with talent, and it won't surprise me to see them at the top again next year. The best part of all is that they beat Texas, and, well, I live in Texas. Thanks, Tigers, for giving me bragging rights over all these snooty longhorn fans!
Here's a general description of Texas and LSU fans:
Texas Fan:
Attire: Burnt orange cap, white golf shirt, khaki shorts, Crocs (Texas colored), Oakley's and a blue tooth device.
Likelihood of face paint: Very Low.
Drink of Choice: Shiner Bock or Cognac
Demeanor: Composed, almost disinterested, and likely to flash a "hook 'em" sign after a good play.
Demeanor: Shamefully enthusiastic, slightly inebriated, and likely to chant "LSU! LSU! LSU!" or "Tiger Bait! Tiger Bait! Tiger Bait!" to the top of their lungs after every play.
My new worship leader, as stated before, is awesome! He's been recording some new stuff lately, and it's really, really good. Kind of reminds me of Neil Young but with a much better voice. I love Seth's style of music: acoustic, folksy, and layered. Listening to his stuff is like lying in a wheat field next to a big tree on a blue sky day. Nice work, Seth!
There was an article today in an Omaha, Nebraska newspaper that sums up why it's so fun and addictive to be an LSU Tiger sports fan. The Tigers are in Omaha this week for the College Baseball World Series. LSU had an incredible run in baseball between 1990 and 2000, winning 5 National Championships in 10 years. During that time, LSU fans became an annual fixture in Omaha, site of the College World Series. This article explains the phenomenon that is LSU athletics, and shows that there's nothing quite like the fraternity of LSU sports fanatics. In short, nobody throws a party like LSU!
Seth Slay, the new Worship Leader at my church, is wonderful! He's young... Very young (20), but he's delightful. The best thing about Seth is his humble spirit. He's not into the spotlight, which is weird for a public musician. Instead, Seth is quiet, unassuming, and more concerned about what the people in the congregation are singing than what is happening on stage. I love it!!
Anyway, Seth has been recording this week in Rockwall, TX, and here's his first new song. It's really great! You can listen to it by clicking this link: http://twiturm.com/6gcy
My friend Todd Bragg sent this to me, and I can't stop watching it. I remember watching this video on Friday Night Videos in the mid-80's. I was mesmerized by the glowing eyes and all the crazy imagery. Apparently so were the makers of this new and improved video. Beware... You will laugh out loud at this.
My family's out of town for the weekend - all except Pierce and me - and that paves the way for some serious time wasting on my part. When I'm home alone the typical restraints and responsibilities are no longer present, and there's ample space to fill with meaningless activities, or even the random nap (which I thought was extinct, but, as it turns out, is only an endangered species). Last night I put Pierce to bed and watched Frost/Nixon on pay per view. Good choice.
Told in documentary style, the film details the final days of President Richard Nixon and tells of David Frost's risky attempt to interview America's most controversial political figure. The movie is extremely well made, well acted, and... well... fascinating. There are many layers present in this film that one could explore, but the story line that intrigued me most was Frost's willingness to put his entire financial status, reputation and career behind this project. He risked everything to interview Nixon, and nobody thought he had the journalistic pedigree or intellectual integrity to pull it off. For most of the movie, it seemed the critics were right. Frost was disorganized, distracted and often times disengaged from the reality of his situation. He was in over his head, and his realization of this fact before his final interview with Nixon was the turning point of the story.
In the end, the Frost/Nixon interviews proved to be some of the most compelling political documentation in American history. Frost was rewarded and even lauded by the same critics who doubted him, but I couldn't help but think how close the line was between massive success and crushing failure. This movie was so fascinating because it demonstrated that anything worth doing must straddle the same line. It made me ask myself if I have done or am doing anything "on the line", and it forced me to realize that, if I want my life to matter, I've got to walk the line (Fade lights; cue Johnny Cash song; roll credits).
Dr. George Tiller was murdered this weekend at Church. I feel bad for his family and his church, and I hate that this terrible thing happened. Dr. Tiller is best known as one of only a few doctors in the United States who perform late term abortions. He had performed more than 60,000 of these procedures in his career. Here's what Dr. Albert Mohler (President of Southern Seminary) said about Dr. Tiller:
"Violence in the name of protesting abortion is immoral, unjustified, and horribly harmful to the pro-life cause. Now, the premeditated murder of Dr. George Tiller in the foyer of his church is the headline scandal — not the abortions he performed and the cause he represented.
We have no right to take the law into our own hands in an act of criminal violence. We are not given the right to take this power into our own hands, for God has granted this power to governing authorities. The horror of abortion cannot be rightly confronted, much less corrected, by means of violence and acts outside the law and lawful means of remedy. This is not merely a legal technicality — it is a vital test of the morality of the pro-life movement.
Murder is murder. The law rightly affirms that the killing of Dr. George Tiller is murder. In this we must agree. We cannot rest until the law also recognizes the killing of the unborn as murder. The killing of Dr. George Tiller makes that challenge all the more difficult."
I agree with Dr. Mohler's assessment. It's sad to me that this has already become ammunition for certain pro-abortion activists who claim that Dr. Tiller's murder is a sign of the violent and hypocritical nature of the pro-life movement and mentality. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, this situation sheds light on a stunning pro-abortion contradiction.
I've heard from many people over the years who think abortion should be legal , and one of their main arguments for abortion is that they claim that making it illegal would cause thousands of pregnant women to rush into back alley's and perform their own abortions. They think this would cause a "black market" abortion industry that would be unhealthy and would eventually cause more harm than good. While I appreciate the compassion that leads to this argument, I think it is completely wrong. Here's why:
What if pro-life activists made this same argument in relation to the murder of Dr. Tiller? What if we said that abortions should be made illegal because, if they're not, the potential exists for people to murder more abortion doctors? We can't continue to allow abortions because a "black market" industry of abortion doctor assassins (ADA's) will flood to dark alley's to hatch murderous plots and purchase weapons to kill those who carry out abortions.
The problem here is that we don't make laws against bad things because the potential of collateral bad things might happen. We don't tell everyone it's ok to speed on the highways because if they don't, they might be late to work and get fired. We say it's not ok to speed because speeding is a threat to society and is therefore immoral. In the same way, we shouldn't legislate for or against abortion because it might make people do illegal and immoral things. We should legislate for or against it because of it's threat or benefit to society.
I find it very difficult (if not impossible) to find an argument that proves that abortion is a benefit to society. On the other hand, it's quite easy for me to find many arguments that prove that abortion is the termination of a viable, LIVING human, and in the society I live in, that is never tolerable.
