Page 132

Page 132 is on extended haitus

2009-05-03T14:32:00.002-04:00

Due to my professional and personal life, I will no longer be updating this blog until further notice. None of the other writers appear to be writing either, so Page 132 is on extended hiatus.

Thank you for reading and corresponding with the writers.

We hope to be back in the future, but I don't know when that will be.

Feel free to contact me at baseball_fan4life AT hotmail if you wish to continue the conversation.

Sebelius was pro-choice AND decreased abortions

2009-03-02T11:23:00.003-05:00

I'm quickly coming to love Matthew 25 Network as the place for progressive evangelicals to discuss issues of faith and politics.

Check out their post on Gov. Sebelius' efforts to reduce abortions in Kansas while being pro-choice.

Brilliant stuff.

Totally agree

2009-03-01T13:01:00.001-05:00

With OMB Director Peter Orszag - "I just reject the theory that the only thing that drives economic performance is the marginal tax rate on wealthy Americans as the only way of being pro-market is to funnel billions and billions of dollars of subsidies to corporations."

Obama may use 50-vote tactic on energy, healthcare

I hope we hear more Democrats saying this same sort of thing!

Cool

2009-02-19T23:43:00.003-05:00

Before I go any further, you have to understand something. I live in a time lapse. By that I mean that the "city" in which I dwell is about 10 years behind most other places. Therefore, I find out about stuff much later than most other people. So, if you've already seen or heard what I'm about to share with you, please humor me. Anyway, you should check out cooliris. It's quite, well, cool.

So, I used to actually write somewhat original content...

2009-02-19T23:30:00.003-05:00

But, now I'm relegated to bringing you stuff like this.

see more pwn and owned pictures

I'm still trying to figure out what was meant by this. This plan is not helpful to any baby making efforts.

And one of the tech dudes shared this with me today. I was laughing so hard I was crying in my office. Seriously, I was bent over my workstation with my sandwich over over my head and convulsing with laughter.

Ha!

2009-02-15T19:57:00.003-05:00

see more pwn and owned pictures
This is so funny on many layers. First, what are the two dudes in the front of the boat doing? Second, the dude in the back!?! If I didn't know better, I'd think it was my dad! Third, what kind of ride are you going to get behind that boat while on that tube?

see more pwn and owned pictures
Freeze frame!

Page 132's godfather autographs book

2009-02-11T09:33:00.000-05:00

My buddy, Grant, helped Donald Miller and his photographer when they were here for the inauguration. I'm plenty pleased.

Will MLB become another WWF?

2009-02-08T03:42:00.003-05:00

After 40+ years of creative cooperation between National Football League officials and their Players’ Union, the NFL dominates the American professional sports landscape at a level of popularity that is the envy of all other sports leagues. Throughout the same 40+ years most of what we’ve seen between the Office of MLB and their Players’ Union is contention, distrust, legal wrangling, player strikes, bad leadership, bad management, scapegoating, finger-pointing, and media spin. Is it any wonder that one of the major consequences of this uncooperative history is that the former “national pastime” is well on its way to a level of credibility rivaling that of professional wrestling? MLB officials have been so spineless that the US government has had to threaten intervention to get them to do drug testing to save their own sport. Then, when MLB finally does drug testing there are no uniform and consistent consequences for those who fail. When evidence of drug abuse does surface, what is the reaction of the MLB Players’ Union? To work WITH the league to discipline offenders and clean up the sport? Not hardly. The MLBPA is much more concerned to protect the guilty than it is in supporting the clean players and protecting the health, reputation, and public regard of the sport. How long will MLB survive when its leaders remain more interested in juiced homer run hitters than a clearly legitimate sport? What are today’s young parents supposed to say to their baseball-fan-kids in the future about this era? “Well son, many of the most famous players cheated, they took drugs, the league looked the other way, many of the career statistics for this era are bogus, but the league never wanted to figure out who was clean and who was not and so there is no way to know which players, which teams, and which statistics are honest and which ones are not?” I can’t imagine an answer like that is going to inspire a next generation of fans (other than those who follow professional wrestling.) How heartbreaking for lifelong baseball fans, like me.

High quality accademic interventions can do what?

2009-01-28T23:32:00.002-05:00

So, I went to a one day conference today on Response to Intervention (RTI) which is a model of addressing the specific academic needs of students prior to referring them for Special Education services. The idea is that through assessment, differentiated instruction, quality instructional techniques, and more time with areas of need many students will not need Special Education services.

Anyhow, the presenter was talking about how a school somewhere used this model, became profecient with this model, and the results were staggering. She said something to the effect of, "Teachers in this school found that these powerful teaching tools brought them more sex."

Breaks my heart every time

2009-01-28T23:15:00.002-05:00

I've been known to spontaneously hi-five my daughters. We can be talking about dance class or the latest master piece on the 'fridge and out of no where my hand goes up and there is no hesitation on their part. We slap the other's hand, smile, giggle, laugh, maybe embrace in a hug and go on about our business.

I've been known to spontaneously hi-five my students. We can be talking about numbers and I'll hear some great mathematical thinking from a first grader and my hand goes up and the kid's shoulders and face turn away and fall slightly back. I smile reassuringly while my heart breaks, feeling pretty sure I know how that reaction became so automatic in a 6 year old, and I spend the rest of the class trying show a group 4 or 5 of the least of these that they are fearfully and wonderfully made.

Martin Luther Who?

2009-01-13T23:58:00.003-05:00

Maybe it's not appropriate for an 11 year old, but I was shocked and chagrined this morning when a 4th grade African-American boy asked me two minutes into a video of MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech if he had to finish listening to it. After all, it was too, "boring."

Am I overreacting in saying that I was unbelievably grieved by this young man's response to perhaps one of the most important speeches in American history?

An Obama press conference

2009-01-13T22:30:00.004-05:00

Just way too professional for Jon Stewart's liking:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

President Goofus and President Gallant - Peer Pressers

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Richardson withdraws - I'm gutted

2009-01-04T14:05:00.003-05:00

The big news today is that Bill Richardson has withdrawn himself as the Commerce Secretary.

I've got no insight. No special knowledge.

All I've got is a sense of betrayal and frustration. The Bill Richardson I volunteered for and spent hours organizing for is too smart to be involved in a pay-to-play scheme. However, he's too smart to not know this stuff was happening in his political machine.

I have no sense of where this goes or what happens to his political career.

All I know is that I won't be working in the Commerce Department and have unhitched my wagon from Richardson's star.

Just 18 More Days...

2009-01-03T02:12:00.002-05:00

“WASHINGTON (AP) – President George W. Bush on Friday branded the Hamas rocket attacks on Israel an "act of terror" and outlined his own condition for a cease-fire in Gaza, saying no peace deal would be acceptable without monitoring to halt the flow of smuggled weapons to terrorist groups… Bush offered no criticism of Israel, depicting the country's air assaults as a response to the attacks on its people. The White House will not comment on whether it views the Israeli response as proportionate or not to the scope of rockets attacks on Israel… More than 400 Palestinians and 4 Israelis have been killed in the latest offensive.”

Palenstinian Observers: "100 to 1." President Bush: "No Comment."
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The NRA Called Today

2009-01-02T19:30:00.002-05:00

NRA (after a short description of the political climate in the nation): "So, sir, can we count on you to donate some money in order to battle gun opponents so that the right to possess guns described in the Second Amendment doesn't disappear?"

Me: "I'm not sure that the founding fathers had AK-47s in mind when they wrote the Second Amendment."

Brief silence....

NRA: "Okay, well... thank you very much for your time. Have a good evening."

Me: "Thanks. You have a good evening too."

They are killing each other's children, again.

2008-12-31T15:30:00.002-05:00

How will the American public ever get a "fair and balanced view" of the recurring conflict in the Middle East when even organizations like MSNBC and the AP put out coverage with descriptions like this…

“Bush has been constantly monitoring the air strikes into the Gaza Strip, which Israel launched last Saturday in response to the rocket strikes directed at the Jewish state by the militant Hamas organization.”

Full article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28449657/

The massive Israeli bombing of civilian Palestinian communities is simply called “air strikes.” The perpetrators are simply called “Israel,” while their targets are described as “the militant Hamas organization.” I believe that Hamas also happens to be the democratically-elected standing government of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip no less representative of its people than the Zionist Terrorists of Israel.

How many in the American public know what the weapons used in these Hamas “rocket strikes” look like - compared to what is coming back at millions of Palestinian families huddled together in that tiny acreage called the Gaza Strip? Old, scrappy, land-based rocket launchers versus modern high-tech, fighter planes loaded with massive, sophisticated bombs. Accurate depictions of what’s going on would help!

Am I trying to justify the violence coming from Hamas? Never! But, the American government’s longstanding indifference toward applying massive political pressure to fully develop the “two state solution” - coupled with the colossal military disparity between the desperate, homeless, impoverished Palestinians with their little rocket launchers -and- the fierce, high-tech, terrorism of the Israelis is largely invisible to many mainstream news media consumers in the USA. And the above cited paragraph is a classic example of why this is so.

BOTH the Palestinians and the Israelis need and deserve an adequate homeland with safe and secure borders (monitored by the UN if necessary). BOTH governments are very wrong to be waging war against one another. After 62 years of unending warfare and violence and grief one would like to believe that these people realize that this approach is NEVER going to resolve their differences. And yet, the murdering goes on and on and on.

This real estate may have started out as the home of the Canaanites, and then been “given” to the Israelis (according to the Old Testament.) It may have been taken over by the Turks hundreds of years ago and it may have been partly reclaimed by the Zionists at the turn of the 20th century and then made “official” in 1947 - BUT - we’re in 2009 now and the ONLY way all this bloodshed is ever going to stop is by this “two state solution” which deserves many times more effort than the political leadership of the entire world has invested thus far. May the USA-led world please get serious about helping establish fair and secure borders that will let these two people groups LIVE!
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The post I would have written if I had time re: Warren and Obama

2008-12-19T12:57:00.003-05:00

Over at Huffington Post, Steven Waldman wrote, In Defense of Rick Warren, regarding the invocation prayer.

The whole thing is worth your 45 seconds to read, but the key passage is this one:

For Obama, picking Warren for the inauguration is a smart move. George W. Bush chose Franklin Graham, a hard-right evangelical to do his prayer. Instead of retaliating by choosing a liberal preacher, Obama opted for spiritual bipartisanship. The move helps to depoliticize prayer -- which, of course, is very politically shrewd.

That is what change looks like. If progressives thought change was simply putting our guy in their guy's place, they are sorely mistaken. That's simply same body, different face.

Relgious Pluralism in the 21st Century

2008-12-15T13:52:00.002-05:00

I have to admit that I've been laughing at this story all weekend.

The Department of General Administration, which oversees the Capitol grounds, declared a moratorium Friday on any pending and future requests to put up displays in the Capitol building....

The department declared the moratorium because it received far more requests than it anticipated and that could be accommodated in the display area on the third floor of the building, Valandra said.

The furor over the displays began early this month when an atheist group, reacting to a Nativity scene set up by a private citizen, put up an anti-religion placard. Several pro-religion displays followed.

This week, the Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church applied for permission to put up a "Santa Claus Will Take You to Hell" sign, which includes lines such as "Santa's to blame for the dead soldier's fate."...

The moratorium applies to Westboro's application, along with pending requests for a Buddhist display, a Jewish banner, a mannequin of Satan holding a statement against atheists and wishing them a merry Christmas, an aluminum pole in celebration of the invented holiday of Festivus, and a "Flying Spaghetti Monster Holiday Display."

Now I'm a huge fan of letting everyone share their beliefs. I think that is a much better option than the French version where all religious displays in public are banned. However, this has gotten a little out of hand with everyone trying to prove a political point.

If I were to re-write the guidelines, I'd say that religious themes are acceptable. Displays must come from an organized religious group of 500 or more people and only one display per religion.

So what should the new guidelines contain? No displays? Displays for all? Displays that have no overt religious theme? Some hybrid?

Woof, woof... if the shoe fits!!

2008-12-14T16:44:00.004-05:00

"BAGHDAD (Reuters) - President George W. Bush made a farewell visit to Baghdad Sunday... and, in a sign of lingering anger over the war that will define the Republican president's foreign policy legacy, an Iraqi journalist shouted "this is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog," and hurled his shoes at Bush during a news conference with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Throwing shoes at somebody is a supreme insult in the Middle East. One of the shoes sailed over the president's head and slammed into the wall behind him and he had to duck to miss the other one. Maliki tried to block the second shoe with his arm. "It's like going to a political rally and have people yell at you. It's a way for people to draw attention," Bush said. "I don't know what the guy's cause was. I didn't feel the least bit threatened by it."

Now, there’s the central problem of the past eight years summed up in one statement: "I don't know what the guy's cause was.” Apparently the Worst President Ever is still looking for the USA to be “welcomed as liberators!” After all, if Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz told GWBush in 2003 that this is what would occur when we invaded, then evidently he’s still awaiting that reception from the Iraqi people! Sigh.
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Norweigian Jesus

2008-12-13T13:26:00.001-05:00

Saw this today. White Jesus with blonde hair. How historically accurate.

Another Occasional Trivia Contest!

2008-12-10T22:42:00.000-05:00

1. Arachibutlphobia is the fear of:
A. getting burned by melted butter
B. getting bit by poisonous insects
C. insects crawling into your underwear when sleeping
D. peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth

2. Barack Obama’s mother’s second husband was:
A. Indonesian B. Philippine C. Kenyan D. Wealthy

3. Who was the first Major League player to pitch a ball over 100 mph?
A. Dwight Gooden B. Nolan Ryan C. Roger Clemens D. Tom Seaver

4. On what island did ancient Greek civilization originate?
A. Samos B. Olympia C. Crete D. Rhodes

5. Which of the following inventions was the first to be patented?
A. Chewing Gum B. Dishwasher C. Cash Register D. Rubber Band

6. What U.S. President gave his residence the name “the White House?”
A. George Washington B. Thomas Jefferson
C. Abraham Lincoln D. Theodore Roosevelt

7. What toy was introduced in Australian stores in 1957 after proving to be a popular exercise tool in schools?
A. Frisbee B. Hula Hoop C. Jump Rope D. Roller Skates

8. What famous painting was stolen from a Norwegian museum in 2004?
A. The Mona Lisa B. The Starry Night C. The Scream D. The Last Supper

9. Which Beatle crossed Abbey Road first?
A. John B. Paul C. George D. Ringo

10. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was created as a promotion for what store?
A. J.C. Penney B. Montgomery Ward C. Macy's D. Nordstrom

11. What happened to Thomas Jefferson's personal library of books in 1815?
A. They were burned B. They were stolen
C. They were donated to charity D. They were sold to pay off his debts

12. What is Europe's longest river?
A. Rhine B. Loire C. Volga D. Thames

13. Who was the first player drafted in the first NFL draft in 1936?
A. Sammy Baugh B. Jay Berwanger C. Don Hutson D. Bart Starr

14. What country pulled out of World War I on March 3, 1918?
A. Austria B. Belgium C. Poland D. Russia

15. Iran is slightly larger than what U.S. state?
A. Alaska B. Rhode Island C. Montana D. Texas

16. What was the name of Mark Twain's wife?
A. Mary Whitman B. Olivia Langdon C. Clara Price D. Becky Thatcher

17. What candy bar was invented by Curtiss Candy of Chicago in 1923?
A. Zagnut B. Snickers C. Butterfinger D. Mr. Goodbar

18. Where is the “geographic center” of Europe?
A. Valmiera B. Taurage C. Vilnius D. Riga

19. Henry McCarty was better known by what nickname?
A. The Tall Texan B. Butch Cassidy C. Billy the Kid D. Sundance Kid

20. What was Elvis' first #1 hit on the U.S. Billboard pop charts?
A. Hound Dog B. Stuck on You C. Burning Love D. Heartbreak Hotel

Obsession has set in

2008-12-10T14:38:00.002-05:00

I guess I am obsessed.

Here is an article by Robert A. J. Gagnon (PDF) that is probably the best, most level-headed discussion of Romans 1 that I've read so far. It is clear and deals with the underlying theological issues and not simply repulsion at homosexual relations.

And further pointing out the ridiculousness of the "sanctity of tradition marriage" movement, here is a post on DailyKos that might be one of the best responses to those that use the Old Testament as their example for "traditional marriage laws."

Gov. Huckabee and Jon Stewart talk gay marriage

2008-12-10T13:11:00.004-05:00

At the risk of seeming obsessed with sex and gay marriage, I think this exchange last night between Governor Huckabee and Jon Stewart is where we are at in America; compare Jon Stewart's calm demeanor as compared to Gov. Huckabee's defensive nature*.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Mike Huckabee Pt. 2

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Thoughts Page 132ers?

UPDATED: * = see Steve D's comments in the margins. I may be reading Gov. Huckabee incorrectly.

The Religious Case for Gay Marriage

2008-12-08T21:19:00.002-05:00

Newsweek has an article that has the Old Evangelical Guard up in arms.

The Religious Case for Gay Marriage is a thought-provoking article and sums up nicely why I support gay marriage.

Thoughts my friends?

Now THIS is my kind of Christmas

2008-12-07T14:43:00.002-05:00

hattip to the Old Man for the email link.