BaylyBlog: Out of our minds, too...

Be a man...

(Tim) After attending Elizabeth Wegener's high school commencement ceremony this morning (dear Lizzie lives with us; her parents, David and Terri Wegener are MTW missionaries to Zambia), we were standing around outside Assembly Hall celebrating the graduation with 420 other families when this gentleman's hat passed by. I asked the gentleman if I could have a picture of his hat and he kindly obliged.

Last week, a dear brother who used to be a part of Church of the Good Shepherd was visiting Bloomington with his family and he described a group of men he's gotten close to in his new church. One of the men, he said, had been complaining about his wife not disciplining their children and he'd responded "Stop complaining. Do it yourself--it's your job. Be a man!"

Hearing of this conversation, I was shamed that I didn't respond as forthrightly to the men of my own congregation. How good it would be if our congregations were filled with men like this.

Hats off to this gentleman, to my friend, and to every father who, by God's grace, loves his children by disciplining them.

Pics from the past...

(Tim) Back in 1980, Mary Lee and I set off for seminary with our daughter, Heather. Completing my degree at UW-Madison in 1979, I'd worked a year at First Presbtyerian Church in Boulder, Colorado, before matriculating at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in the Fall of 1980. Our dear friend, Paul Cote, had worked in city management at Wheaton, Illinois, for several years before he, too, entered GCTS that fall. The next two years my brothers David and Nathan also joined us at Gordon-Conwell.

Friday afternoons, six of us got together in a library of medieval manuscripts and paintings to talk...

You try telling your wife she's a horse with a mane...

(Tim, w/thanks to Bryan Maes) Recently, someone told us he'd thought men had to have beards to attend Church of the Good Shepherd. Not true, although, like babies, we have a lot of beards...

The other day, my wife...

(Tim, w/thanks to Al) One of the benefits of having five children is how rarely I have to turn to my dear wife, Mary Lee, for sermon illustrations...

Why I believe in infant baptism and elder rule...

One thing presbyterians have over Baptists is that 'presbyterians' is an anagram of...

Following hard on the heels of the litter, tobacco, and booster seat police, the fat police...

Now tubbiness is just the thing,

That gets a fellow wondering...

(Tim, w/thanks to John McKenzie) When you throw out the big laws, you end up with an infinite succession of petty ones. Check out this article about a couple being threatened with the state-sanctioned kidnapping of their children because British social workers are concerned about the childrens' weight. It's every woman's right to kill her children as long as it's done at an early enough age; and every man's right to divorce the children's mother, bringing an end to the family's unity and love; but no man or woman dares to give their child chips (or crisps) with the nanny state watching.

It's a very good thing A. A. Milne's Teddy Bear didn't live in our day. Why, the case would be utterly hopeless...

Baby comes five months late; mother will never be the same...

(Tim) A certain prof left Church of the Good Shepherd and Bloomington years ago, and now serves on the faculty of a certain college. Being jealous of his or her many, many gifts, I've spent my life trying to catch him or her in a mistake--any mistake.

Back when he or she still lived here, I once caught him or her saying "renumeration" when he or she meant "remuneration." I was gleeful.

Today I read a family letter he or she sent out to loved ones. It began with this sentence:

We're pleased to announce the arrival five months late (the road to birth announcements is paved with good intentions!) of [John Doe], our bright new addition to the family.

My oh my! Try to get your head around those final four months for that dear woman! And you thought a week overdue was bad?

A little levity, two...

(Tim) Wouldn't you know. It's on --------- today. (Took the link down because, after I posted it, the page changed and became a stumbling block. Thanks to those of you who gave me the heads-up.)

A little levity...

(Tim, w/thanks again to Mark) A man who's a web designer and a member of Christ the Word (whose pastors use PCs) just sent me this link to an Engadget Apple ad. It's funny.

Franky's Haming it up again...

(Tim, w/thanks to Mark) Speaking of Senator Obama, Franky Schaeffer's using the current ruckus to kill his father. For the second or third time.

Remember the account of Noah's sons, how the youngest, Ham, saw his father in a drunken stupor and left the tent to broadcast his father's nakedness? How did Noah's two eldest respond?

So check it out, fans...

(Tim) Somehow, I can't get how to link to his bracket, but if you want to know what correspondence between a high school freshman boy and an MTW missionary to Africa looks like during March Madness, here's my son, Taylor's, latest E-mail to the academic dean of the Theological College of Central Africa in Ndola, Zambia. Heart issues, you know, and I'm so pleased as a father to have David's help...

As we suspected...

(Tim) Can you believe it? We're shocked--saddened, really.

The frozen chosen...

(Tim, w/thanks to Carole) We thought you'd all appreciate this clip of Presbyterians invading Grand Central Station.

Virtual Rube...

(Tim, w/thanks to our Tallamajiggie correspondent) When I finished watching this, I sat in stupefied silence. Then I came to and considered my options and the obvious choice was to share it with you so you could sit and stare, too.

Nerdriffic and engeekerated...

(Tim) From my eldest son, Joseph, this time waster...

"Um, congratulations, people on Segways! Yours is no longer the dorkiest-looking form of transportation known to humanity! (Also, congratulations to speed walkers for dropping down to third place.) There are people out there with an even less dignified method of getting around. People who are unafraid to look like the offspring of a gazelle and a stilt clown..." (Here's the rest of the story.)

Still wrestling on day two...

Nate lost his first match at the Ohio state wrestling tournament Thursday afternoon by a tech fall in the third period. His first round draw was a wrestler picked by most experts to take first in state and he pretty much manhandled Nate, though he didn't actually pin him.

Because the tournament is double elimination--a wrestler must lost twice to be out--Nate wrestled again in a consolation round Thursday evening and won with a fall in the second period. Nate wrestles next Friday afternoon--and at that point each weight division will be down to 12 wrestlers, four undefeated and eight with one defeat each.

At left is a photo of Ohio State's Schottenheiser Arena with the tournament running. Look for the specks in section 232 on the far wall and you'll find us. Unfortunately, Nate's teammate Mattew Curcio is no longer wrestling. But for character and tenacity Matthew and his brother Joel deserve golds.

Pigs is Pigs, Part 3

(David) My oldest son, Nate, took 4th place in Ohio's Northwest District wrestling tournament last weekend--which means he's one of sixteen Division 3 189 pounders to wrestle for the state championship at Ohio State's Schottenstein Center this weekend. Nate won his first two matches, took a fall in the second period of his third match to the eventual district champion, won his fourth match and lost his final match for third place on points.

I don't know of a better sport for developing character in young men than wrestling. Of course, Nathan's coach, Mario, is a real man of God who loves him like a son. In another setting wrestling might not be as powerfully formative as it's proven for Nathan. Personally, I'd love to see PCA churches more eager to develop biddy wrestling programs than art shows for community outreach--though I suspect such an approach would appear dismally lowbrow, even, horrors, baptistic, to many in the PCA.

In the first picture Nathan's wrestling for a place in the state tournament. He wins this match.

In the second and third pictures, Nathan's wrestling for third place--a match he eventually loses.

In the final picture, Nate's resting having just won a place in the state tournament. To his left is his youngest brother, Isaiah, who knelt in his corner with the coaches each match.

Pigs is Pigs, Part 2

(David) My senior-in-high-school son Nathan finished his regular wrestling season last weekend with a victory in the Ohio Wrestling League tournament and won again at this weekend's sectional tournament. Next weekend is the northwest Ohio district tournament.  Nate's record stands at 41 and 6. He began the season in the 215 lb. weight class, but dropped to 189 after Christmas and remained there for state qualifying.

Here's a short clip from last weekend's league championship match. The young man he's wrestling took second last weekend and third at sectionals today. Competition will be much more intense at the district level. (Thanks for the video, Bob)

Cool plasma stuff...

Check out what you can do with a grape and a microwave. Even cooler, find out how to melt glass using a microwave here.

Been there, not done that...

World's Most Dangerous Swimming Pool

(Tim) Nothing in all the earth like Victoria Falls. When Michal, Annie, and I went there with the David Wegener family, none of us knew about this. Had we, Michal and I would have jumped, for sure! Three hundred foot dropoff two feet behind these men. Now that's bonkers, for sure!

Gotta love the Mannings...

(Tim) My son, Taylor, never liked the Patriots and each time he voiced his dislike, I'd ask him, "Why don't you like the Patriots?"

He'd respond, "I just don't," and that was it. No explanation, just the statement of fact.

Then, about three months ago, he sent me a link to this article (apologies for the pic). I read it, and since then I've been rooting for anyone playing the Pats.

So tonight, all thirty-five of us here at the Baylys were cheering for the Giants. Not just because of our dislike for the Pats, but also because Eli is Peyton's brother and Archie is their dad.

Joseph said I should write, "Justice is served, pride goeth before the fall."

I'm sorry for Pats fans. But think of the moment Eli, Peyton, and Archie see each other tonight.

Terry Bradshaw said it was the greatest Super Bowl he'd ever seen. He got that right.

Toughest sherrif ready for Super Bowl...

(Tim, w/thanks to David Wegener) David says "I like the guy," and I agree. Being adipose myself, I know he's right about horizontal stripes.

Shepherding a child's heart...

(Tim, thanks to Doug) For eight and a half years following seminary, Mary Lee and I served a yoked parish in Pardeeville, Wisconsin. During our time there, the town was about evenly divided between Bears and Packers fans, but this was only because Mark Bortz, a Bears Pro-Bowler with a 1985 Super Bowl ring, was a native son.

Now Pardeeville has reverted to her pre-Bortz commitment and anyone showing the slightest disloyalty to the Pack is taking his life in his hands. My only shock reading this article was that the perp's name wasn't Grant Olson.

But hey, aren't we all rooting for the Pack (actually, anyone) to beat the videotaping team from New England this year? (If you're a Pats fan, don't bother telling us. Your comment will be removed.)

Happy New Year

(David) Like trains?

• Train through virgin snow
• World's fastest train (click on link in circle at left)

The funniest SNL skit ever?

• Japanese game show

A weird accident...

• Freeway geyser

And one impressive singer (it makes sense in the end)...

• Guess the song

Stores may have sold deceased birds...

(Tim) For the Monty Python fans...

Martin Luther's pastoral announcements during worship...

(Tim) If you haven't read it yet, make plans now to get a copy of Roland Bainton's bio of Luther, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther. It's a classic. My dear brother, Brandon Pickett, sent me this excerpt and I thought others would find it interesting. Bainton's commenting on the place of announcements in the worship services Luther led and he writes...

Pigs Is Pigs.

(David) As of today there are two Bayly practitioners of that most blue-collar of sports, wrestling. Isaiah (8) wrestled his first-ever matches at a huge biddy tournament where he went 3-1 and took second place in his bracket. Meanwhile, Nate (18) went 5-0 at a nearby dual meet, making the Bayly boys 8-1 for the weekend and Nate 16-3 on the year--reminding me of my favorite bumper sticker, "My kid just beat up your honor roll student."

Here's Isaiah shortly after waking Nate from a post-match nap to show him his ginormous second place trophy. Nate's just slightly peeved that in five years of wrestling he's never gotten nearly as big a trophy as Isaiah got at his very first tournament.

The European Union, again...

(Tim) This just forwarded by my dear Mary Lee. It is funny.

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.   

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English". 

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.   

The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.   

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when...

Running to win the race...

(David) If it weren't for the de rigeur woman-warrior shots, I'd think this one of the best commercials I've ever seen. (Click on the "Watch the new TV ad" link.)

Thus it begins....

(David) Here's the scene five minutes before the first wrestling match of the season--the Jim Derr Invitational in Northwood, Ohio. My son Nathan's a senior wrestling at 215 this year. He's a monster--but there are a lot of other monsters out there too.

...and, unfortunately, Nate met one in his last match of the weekend, losing on points and taking second in the tournament.

Bang me in the chest...

Our correspondent from the Copper Belt in Zambia, David Wegener, suggests:

Ask people on the blog to write in lyrics to songs that they've gotten wrong and always thought the singer was singing one thing, when in fact they later discovered that he was singing something radically different.

I just heard about example A-1 a few days ago and I'm still laughing to myself about it. Your son knows about it and so do my girls, but they just told me. John apparently used to think that Paul McCartney was singing "Bang me in the chest," when in fact he was singing, "Bennie and the Jets."

Maybe we shouldn't limit it to lyrics, but also include mistakes like thinking "Bang me in the chest" was done by Paul McCartney? Anyhow, the pit is open...

A trebuchet for pumpkins...

(Tim) My son, Taylor, sent this to me a month ago or more, but I didn't get around to it until now. Check it out, men. And don't miss the movie.

You ain’t really cultured ‘less you can…

(David) Tim answered all these questions the first time I posted them (back on our old WORLD blog). Can you? And if you can't, what on earth are you doing planting an arts-focused, culture-spouting, center-city PCA church? Go on back to school, boy. Git you some real culture to go with your hipster glasses and untucked shirt....

1. Tell, within a dozen, how many books P. G. Wodehouse wrote. Shoot, make it within thirty…
2. Name the song playing on the radio when Duke threw the grapefruit into the bathtub containing his Samoan attorney.
3. Fill in the blank, “I love the smell of _____________ in the morning.”
4. Tell what machine Toad fell in love with after being thrown from his caravan.
5. Name the Who’s original drummer.
6. Describe the procedure for trapping a heffalump.
7. Name the Black Panther Party member who went from exile in Cuba to preaching at Wheaton Bible Church before designing and selling codpiece-equipped pants.
8. Name the artist who played harmonica on Keith Green’s 1980 “So You Wanna Go Back to Egypt” LP.
9. Tell who said, “The policeman isn’t there to create disorder. The policeman is there to preserve disorder.”
10. Name the movie: “Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room.”
11. Name the Beatle with the bare feet.
12. Name the now-dead newspaper columnist who often quoted his friend Slats Grobnik.
13. Tell what color and model car O.J. Simpson was being driven down the Santa Monica freeway in.
14. Name the Chicago Bears defensive tackle who scored a touchdown in Super Bowl XX.
15. Finish the sentence from "Cool Hand Luke": “What we have here is a failure to _____________ .”
16. Name the movie this line comes from: “It's just a flesh wound! Come back and I'll bite your kneecaps off!”
17. Name the song that ends with the drummer shouting, “I’ve got blisters on my fingers!"
18. Name the lead guitarist on the Beatles’ “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
19. Name the Tom Wolfe book originally serialized in Rolling Stone magazine.
20. Name the television series modeled on the work of a New Yorker cartoonist.

"It's refreshing, actually. They're mortals now."

(Tim) Ozzie knows a good lick when he hears it, yeah? And how 'bout that Santana? My personal fav, though, is the guitar that gently weeps.

If you're clueless, go to my son-in-law, Ben Crum's, blog and read the link to the Wired article at the bottom of the post.

More profitable offerings...

(Tim: from my E-mail queue) Undoubtedly, Church of the Good Shepherd has much to learn concerning the proper way to take offerings. So much, in fact, that I can't find $7 to spring for the cure. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Piel me off the ceiling...

(Tim) Our youngest son, Taylor, just passed on this story about Noah Van Piel, a Harvard football player who later this year will be turning in his football jersey to pursue a Masters in vocal performance. From running back to operatic tenor? Splendid! Brilliant!

A convenient lie...

    "I think we need to declare an international smugness alert." -Damian Thompson

(Tim) The whole world wants to be its own savior, but there is only one Mediator, and His work is to save His people from their sins--not to save the world from man.

But tell that to Oslo. The man running for president who couldn't win his home state has won the Nobel Peace Prize by serving the chattering classes as the Calamity Jane of their latest green fad.

Yes, I'm completely disgusted. To think of this man who hired a consultant to help him shore up his virility index sharing the lectern with real men like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Mother Teresa is utterly revolting.

We have Darfur. We have seventy-five million or so unborn children slaughtered each year while nestled in their mothers' wombs...

You gotta love it...

(Tim) Where there's a will...

Our favorite Psalter selection...

(David) This is the way the Psalter should be accompanied today.

Douglas Wilson's version of Psalm 2 from the Cantus Christi hymnal is one of our favorite psalter selections at Christ the Word. And this arrangement of of that psalm--played for the first time today by CTW's band at our Labor Day picnic and concert--is the ultimate warrior psalm. The sound is crude--a poor bootleg from an echoey Boy Scout camp lodge--but we'll get a better studio recording and put it up soon.

In the meantime . . . this is the way David played this psalm, brothers and sisters. And this is the way Christ's triumph should be celebrated. Believe it.

Hearty laughs...

(Tim) Good hearty laughs for the weekend.

(Thanks to Lauren Shockey at Ever Faithful.)

Coming close...

(David) Thirty years ago Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, the psychiatrist and researcher on the process of dying, came close to Christianity. Ultimately she turned away from Christ to mysticism and Buddhism--a form of madness that caused her obituaries to speak of her as one who had met her end decades before she actually died.

Kubler-Ross lived near the flame of eternity too long without embracing Christ.

I think of Kubler-Ross's attraction to Christ as I listen to music from Sinead O'Connor's latest album, Theology. A recent interview with O'Connor in Christian Music Today makes it clear that she is toying with rather than embracing faith, yet the songs on this album are powerful expressions of Biblical truth. And they're beautiful. I had stopped listening to most rock by the time O'Connor appeared on the scene so I'd never previously listened to her. But when I read the lyrics to "Something Beautiful," a song on her latest album, I went online to listen. "Something Beautiful" and the three other songs available here are wonderful. Their author may not be a citizen of the Kingdom, but like the Bob Dylan of the early 80s, O'Connor has written music that peeks within the door.

My son, the artiste...

(by David) My 17-year-old, Nathan, has just posted his first internet composition, an acoustic piece called Journey of a Man. You can hear it on his MySpace page. Be warned, it plays automatically if you navigate there.

Pretty funny...

(by Tim) Here's a compilation of funny video clips from worship services. My favorite is the lady slapping the groom's hand.

A Cultured Kiwi Bloke...

A.J., if you get to the States look Tim or me up. Meanwhile I commend this New Zealander's blog to you. But first, check out the picture of his baptism on Wikipedia.

Nature, red in tooth and claw...

Incredible. (Watch the WHOLE video or you'll miss the point.)

Even more incredibly, many Christians willingly deliver their young to the lions who seek their souls by failing to surround them with the Word and surrendering to worldliness: uncontrolled, unmonitored television, schooling, videos, games, friendships....

Who's the bull buffalo in your home?

Authors we can no longer read...

Some authors grow on you, others wear on you. I was reading a top-ten list of books on sanctification moments ago and I realized that among the ten were several authors I'm no longer willing to read. So, in a rather different vein, here are ten authors I can no longer bear to read....

• Leo Tolstoy. Several years ago Tim's and my mother finished reading Anna Karenina. She'd never read it before, so I asked her opinion. "It was beautiful," she said, "but evil. He made evil so attractive that you were cheering Anna's adultery at the end." Others I've told this story to dislike Mud's assessment, I agree with Mud.
• Knut Hamsun. I loved this Norwegian author (Pan, Mysteries, Hunger) in my teens and early 20s. Now the thought of him curdles my blood. Florid emotion run amok.
• A.W. Pink. He was grimly palatable until I learned of his failure to attend church for decades. Now I line gerbil cages with pages from his books. (Just joking about the gerbils, dead serious about the rest.)
• Thomas Hardy. Though I liked the name Tess enough to name my daughter Tessa, my affection is reserved for the name these days, not the book or the author. I hope my children never turn a single page of his drivel. If you don't understand, don't bother reading Hardy to see what you're missing. Simply read the recent New Yorker profile of Hardy. A more godless and depraved Victorian would be hard to find.
• Tom Clancy. Talk about a one-hit wonder. The Hunt for Red October was fun, the rest were verbose, jingoistic, immoral, over-the-top, macho cornballs.
• C.S. Lewis. Too much lionizing by the Evangelical and Reformed world for me to be able to enjoy him any more. No denying his brilliance or wisdom, I'm simply tired of the marketing and Anglophilia of it all.
• Patrick O'Brian. Not only did his books grow increasingly mannered as his fame increased, devolving into plotless collections of character twitches and tics, the Guardian/Observer revealed him to be the worst sort of father at his death.
• Hunter S. Thompson. I loved his books when I was young and had no fear of God. But what a tragic man he always was. I still laugh at memories from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but I'd never read anything by Thompson again.
• Scott Foresman. Yes, I know it's not the name of an author. It's a publisher, the textbook company that published the Dick and Jane reading books of baby-boomer childhoods. The idea of such stupid, plotless, senseless, vapid writing employed to teach children to read is beyond credibility, except it really happened. No wonder America is a television nation....

Firefox and the also-rans...

Yup, Firefox rocks.

Another day at the ballpark...

My son, Taylor's, contribution to my day.

Elliott Carter atones for his atonality...

Sun Apr 01, 2007 6:53 pm From the Disassociated Press NEW YORK --- American composer Elliott Carter,  an exemplar of the atonalist style of modernism  and according to admirers the greatest living practitioner  of his craft, apologized to music lovers  around the world today for what he  called "a half century of wasted time."

"What was I thinking?" the venerable Mr.  Carter, 99, said at his home in Manhattan. "Nobody likes this stuff. Why  have I wasted my life?" Carter said he "went wrong" back in the 1940s and  spent the next 60 years pursuing the musical dead-end of atonality. In the past seven decades, he has  produced five string quartets...

Speaking of the Divinity School at Vanderbilt...

Speaking of Vanderbilt's Divinity School (see Craig Pope's comments near the end of this page), son Joseph is a recent graduate of Vanderbilt and he used to take meals in the clubby Divinity School cafeteria. He comments:

(I'm reminded) of something I heard from a professor in the Divinity School. Anything can be made into an idol--even the Bible or Jesus. They use this to seem somewhat conservative by being willing to attack idols. But the truth is revealed when they refuse to attack the idols of our culture, and instead attack the truth of God's word.

Bluebirds...

Growing up, my mother's bird feeders attracted every kind of squirrel and bird, but never bluebirds. Even putting up a bluebird house didn't do the trick--they remained elusive. So my life has been a quest for bluebirds. Bluebirds come only slightly lower than my wife, daughter-in-law, daughters, and grandsons on the scale of the wonders of God's creation. Then yesterday, while David was watching Chris VanderGoot tag muskies, Mary Lee and I were sitting at our dining room table, talking, when this bluebird landed on our suet feeder! My life is complete.

I'm color-blind, but still I wonder...

Funniest Passages in the Bible, Continued...

Several years ago we did a post on the funniest passages in Scripture. David Lehr contributes this as a belated entry in that series...

Funniest Scenes In English Literature...

I was thinking about the category "Throw the radio in the bathtub" we apply to off-topic posts and it struck me that, given our recent difficulties with posts and comments, some may think it a general expression of unhappiness.

Not at all. It's a reference to one of the funniest scenes in American fiction.

There are funny books (A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court), there are routinely funny writers (P.G. Wodehouse), and there are insanely funny scenes. Among the funniest scenes in English fiction are the stories in James Thurber's My Life and Hard Times--especially "The Day the Bed Fell." Nothing beats an insanely funny scene. Sometimes they're by funny authors. More often, they're by great authors in the midst of mordant observations of human character. My choice for the funniest scene in recent English literature is this of the upended Toad sitting by his ruined caravan at the side of the road...

The Toad never answered a word, or budged from his seat in the road; so they went to see what was the matter with him. They found him in a sort of a trance, a happy smile on his face, his eyes still fixed on the dusty wake of their destroyer. At intervals he was still heard to murmur `Poop-poop!'

The Rat shook him by the shoulder. `Are you coming to help us, Toad?' he demanded sternly.

`Glorious, stirring sight!' murmured Toad, never offering to move. `The poetry of motion! The real way to travel! The only way to travel! Here to-day -- in next week to-morrow! Vil-lages skipped, towns and cities jumped -- always somebody else's horizon! O bliss! O poop-poop! O my! O my!'

`O stop being an ass, Toad!' cried the Mole despairingly.

(Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows)

Comments askew...

The list of comments on the left margin with the comment by David at the top is inaccurate. In fact, there have been eight or so comments posted since David,'s but they're simply not registering on that comment list, nor are these more recent comments registering in the number of comments listed under each post.

So, for instance, under "What is feminism," the number of comments given on the main page under the post is 25, but click into the post itself and you'll find more.

So, for now, until the blog is working again, please actually look at the individual posts to see whether there are new comments. Thanks.

Playing Church

Here's Josiah Ummel, Tim's grandchild (son of Doug and Heather Ummel) practicing for the day he gets to sit in church and listen to his grandpa preach.

Check out the drummer....

The New Yorker had a review of a band named Arcade Fire several weeks ago. Their weird high energy craziness reminds me of a band from the late 70s named Television--the band David Byrne and the Talking Heads wanted to be.

My son Nathan and I just listened to several Arcade Fire songs followed by several YouTube videos of live sets. Nate's decided the band is made up of musicians like Andrew Dionne who got tired of making snap-crackle-pop-bang classical music and switched to rock. For a taste of their music check out this video.

And if you really want to catch them in their glory, check out the drummer/tambourinist in this video. Unprompted, Nate echoed Tim Varner's comment when he first showed me the video: "He looks just the kid in Napoleon Dynamite." (Finally, ignore David Bowie. Nate took one look at him and said, "He looks like he's had too much Botox.")

More twentieth century snap/bang/rattle/drip music...

Ben Crum's blog has a link to this manly chef.

Consumer report: Chinglish SUV buying guide...

Our automotive correspondent, Ben Crum, writes: This year's Detroit Auto Show featured an exhibit of two cars recently released by China's fledgling automotive manufacturer, Changfeng Motor Company, Ltd.

If there's one thing I know about Americans, it's that they're in the market for SUVs. (If you're not American, SUV stands for "Get out of my way--I'm an American.") Like most of you comrades, there are very particular attributes that attract you to the specific SUV that you will inevitably buy. You may not know this, but China is hoping to cash in on the west's SUV craze--and from the glossy brochure they had available in their exhibit, it seems like they have a pretty firm grasp on what SUV-buying Americans are looking for. So here are a few pictures of Changfeng's brochures.

Well, that goes without saying. I mean, why would I want a vehicle that would ever disappoint me?

Light side up...

Tonight, after dinner, Mary Lee, Hannah, Taylor, and I had fun laughing... Check out this dorm room prank and don't stop watching until you see the guy walk into his dorm room and he starts laughing.

While we're doing funny, here's Frank Caliendo doing a white-haired, tongue-tied John Madden. Belly laughs, if you ever watched Monday Night Football.

For fans of Monty Python, who says there's no such thing as killer rabbits? You'd run too if a bunch of them chased you.

Finally, remember the baby who laughed and laughed? Here's his grandpa who laughs and laughs--you gotta hear it to believe it--then does his part in Freddy Mercury's Bohemian Rhapsody.

Boise State/Oklahoma: The mighty have fallen...

Late-breaking news from our killjoy department: Fox Sports now wants you to pay $2.99 to watch the game again, so any links that aren't working can be filled in by going to the next to last link where all the highlights should still be available.

Note: Of all the things we're thankful for in 2006 (and there are very many), one of the best is the one year furlough two CGS missionary families are spending here in the US, the David and Terri Wegener and the Grant and Deb Olson families. The Olsons lived here in Bloomington until just before Christmas, and now are down in Florida. The Wegeners are here in Bloomington all year, close to David's parents, Jonathan and Sally, and David's brother, Tim, who is an elder at CGS and whose wife, Anne, has a blog well worth reading.

Last night, our youngest son, Taylor, spent the evening with David and Terri's son, John. They were playing one of our family's favorite games, Dutch Blitz, while watching the Boise State/Oklahoma game. If you can believe it, David sent the boys to bed and they missed ...well, I'll let David tell you what they missed. Here's his report sent by E-mail first thing this morning, with video highlights from YouTube.

I made Taylor and the kids go to bed at 11:30 and now your son and John are going to kill me. They were playing Dutch Blitz and watching the Boise State-Oklahoma game and it turned into a barn-burner, almost like the Plano East game on YouTube. [One of the best football videos I've (Tim) ever seen, but the language is bad at one point.] It was boring when they went to bed: 28-17 Boise State winning, but then Oklahoma got a field goal, so 28-20. That's when they went to bed. Then Oklahoma scored with time running out; now it's 28-26 and they go for a two-point conversion to tie. The first attempt ended with a penalty against Boise State so they get to try again. The next attempt was another penalty, this time against Oklahoma and somehow they get to try again, but now from farther out. This time Oklahoma makes it, so now it's tied 28-28.

Still almost two minutes left to go and Boise State's fifth year senior quarterback goes to work from around his own 20 yard line. On one of the first plays, he and his receiver get mixed up on what route was to be run. The quarterback thinks the receiver is doing an out to the sideline, but the receiver heads down field. The defender intercepts the pass and runs it back 30 yards for a touchdown; Oklahoma kicks it and now leads 35-28. The star quarterback is now the goat.

The papers this morning say that ten teammates came up to him and told him, there's still a lot of time left, you can do it...

Scrabble in a bowling alley...

Keeping in step with a many-year Taylor Christmas tradition, our clan went bowling this evening at the Brunswick bowling alley at the corner of Gary Avenue and Route 64, just outside the Wheaton city limits. Since there were about thirty-five of us, we had to wait half an hour for the leagues to finish before lanes opened up, so we all sat down to wait.

For some reason, one of the uncles had a Scrabble set under his arm. He pulled it out and four of the aunts and uncles passed the time playing Scrabble. Scrabble and bowling?

A perfect pair.

USA Today highlights Christian Christmas gifts...

Two articles in the December 14th USA Today titled "Faith's purchasing power" and "Christian groups spar over video game" will contribute to mainstream America's understanding of followers of Jesus Christ. Here, from the sidebar to "Faith's purchasing power," is USA Today's description of one of the products we Christians crave:

Prayer Circle Friends $19.99: A Christian spin on the Build-A-Bear toy idea. Kids create a stuffed lamb, bear or dog and add a prayer audio chip ($7.99) they record themselves. Along with a prayer journal, "it's a great tool for parents who want to teach their children how to pray and why they should pray every day," says Cliff Bartow [president of Grand Rapids-based (and Zondervan nee Harper-Collins nee NewsCorp nee Rupert Murdoch-owned) Family Christian Stores].

"And viola!" you've got a Harley-Davidson...

For years I've been asking why the entire country has to live with the EPA's noise pollution standards, but the guys riding Harleys don't? Everything else on the road purrs now, while Harley's continue to burp and belch and clink and rattle. You can be trucking down the road, even next to an eighteen wheeler on an interstate, and carry on a conversation with the others in your car. But when a Harley comes along the talk stops until you pass him or he passes you. His pipes violate every noise pollution ordinance in the country, but what--he gets a pass because he's driving a Harley slapped together in the good old US of A? All the foreign brands have to toe the line. No straight pipes blasting explosions from their rear for BMWs, Hondas, Yamahas, Ducatis, or Moto Guzzis.

So no, I don't admire Harleys or the poseurs who ride them--although I might consider making an exception for Chuck and Luci Swindoll.

If you've read this far, you might as well go all the way and check out this article titled, "Why a Harley Davidson Isn't a Real American Motorcycle." But watch out--it uses Lutherian language that will be offensive to many. Here's an excerpt selected by Jeff Moore to get you started:

I think I've finally figured out just *WHY* Harley Davidson motorcycles are so popular... Harley Davidson isn't a motorcycle company, it is a cult religion. You don't ride a Harley Davidson so much as you worship it. You and every other little acolyte. A Harley Davidson is a rolling altar to mediocrity, you bend your knees and you pray to a pagan idol of chrome and leather for the pitiful life that you glean from it. That is the only way that I can see why so many people are so clueless when it comes to motorcycles. They can't stand on their own, they aren't tough enough to be individuals, so they have to reinforce their own self image with artificial constructs. Joseph Campbell would have a field day with the average Harley owner, I think that Harley Davidson is another of the 'masks of God' that Campbell once talked about so richly, or one of the supposed nine thousand names for God.

Harley Davidson. It's not a motorcycle company. It is a pagan cult religion...

PS: If the stringed instrument in my title is giving you a facial tic, note the quote marks. Then search the article and you'll find that same instrument.

The whole world's watching...

Good sense makes a man slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense. (Proverbs 19:11)

Taylor and I have been watching the World Cup together, but I missed the final match between France and Italy. The next day Taylor gave me an ahem blow-by-blow and I asked him to write up a post for the blog. Here 'tis:

Although many of you probably did not even know that it was going on, the World Cup in Germany this year has been filled with many surprises. The drama included everything from first-time participant Ghana defeating power-house Czech Republic 2-0, to Trinidad and Tobago's coach quitting the night before their first game, then returning the following day.

On July 9th, the final game was fought between France and Italy. The French team's captain was superstar Zinedine Zidane, well known for his ball-handling skills and leadership. He is easily the best French soccer player ever and had led France to the 1998 World Cup title.

Although he's nearly thirty-five now, and announced before this World Cup that he would retire as soon as it ended, he's still an amazing player. After scoring on a penalty kick by audaciously chipping it into the top netting just seven minutes into the game, it looked like all was going well for Zidane and his French mates.

However, just 10 minutes later Italy struck with a header that evened the score at 1-1. After 80 more minutes of play the game was still tied, resulting in two fifteen minute overtime periods (not sudden death). In the second overtime Zidane's career would come to an astonishing end.

After exchanging some words with an Italian player, he turned around and viciously head-butted him in the chest resulting in Zidane receiving a red card and being ejected. This meant his team had to play a man down and Zidane himself had to leave the field for the locker room.

This football great ended his career in front of over a billion people in a shameful way and was unable even to come out after the game to receive his second place medal. As proof of his new legacy, his Wikipedia entry already includes a video and pictures of this incident.

He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, And he who rules his spirit, than he who captures a city. (Proverbs 16:32)

Sex differences go deep?

This morning's headline reads, "Gene study shows sex differences go deep."

My first response is "Why sex differences?" I thought 'sex' had been replaced by 'gender'? But then I guess when we talk about genes even the chattering classes know we're not talking about a social construct, but God's biological marking that's either man or woman. So just for a moment, we're back to the word 'sex.'

My second response is, "Duh!"

We're visiting Doug (our son-in-law), Heather, and family here in Nashville and last night after dinner, Heather, Mary Lee, and Cassie drove out of the city limits to buy fireworks for the Taylor Family Reunion while the men stayed home and babysat the children, right?

Wrong. The men--Doug, Taylor, and I--made the pilgrimage out of town.

And on our way home, I saw a man driving a pickup that was a year or two old, all buff (the pickup), pulling a trailer holding about six 4X8 sheets of particle board, some eight foot pieces of trim, and a few other pieces of wood. I wondered out loud why the man didn't just put the wood in his pickup?

Well, any idiot knows he didn't want to mess up the bed of his pickup.

But then the trailer was pretty buff too--brand new and painted white. Why was he taking the risk of scratching his new trailer? I would have hitched a second trailer behind the first, an old trailer past its prime...

It's in our genes.

Oh, the wonder of it!

Note: This comment, left by Bill Mouser under the "Oh, the horror of it" post, clearly needed to be promoted to the main page. So here 'tis:

I add this anecdote, because it needs to be preserved somewhere. I heard it from Dr. Richard Beale, who was pastor of First Baptist Church in Tuscon for 52 years. He related it to me when I interned in a church where he had retired.

When Dr. Beale was "prominent" in Tuscon, a woman died who was also prominent on the local scene. She was not a member of his congregation, but Dr. Beale agreed to perform her funeral, which was a huge social occasion. He tells me that he unwisely allowed the local Ladies Club design the service.

All went swimmingly until the graveside. The Ladies Club had composed a flowery prayer which Dr. Beale was to read. At one point in the prayer, there was a phrase about her spirit ascending up to heaven. At this point, Dr. Beale had been instructed to cease speaking, until someone standing by had opened a wicker cage, inside of which reposed two white turtledoves with long white satin ribbons tied to their ankles. The idea was for the turtledoves flying away to present a picture of Ms. Prominent heading off to heaven.

Dr. Beale did as he was instructed. He stopped. The wicker cage was opened, but the turtledoves remained inside. A few gentle jerks didn't dislodge them. So, the turtledove bearer shook the cage violently, whereupon the turtledoves gripped the open edge of the cage, flapped their wings in panic, and made screaming noises that turtledoves make when terrified. Dr. Beale told me that at this point, he was having trouble breathing normally, as he wanted to break out in guffaws.

At last, the wicker cage bearer gave a mighty jerk and the turtledoves turned loose of the cage. But, they dropped to the ground, ran to the open grave (the casket suspended above it) and jumped down into the hole in the ground. Several matrons leaped up, grabbed the ribbons which were still above ground, and pulled the screaming and squawking turtledoves out of the grave. After additional flapping and dragging of turtledoves, they beat a ragged retreat, not heavenward, but toward a stand of bushes running alongside the cemetary

Somehow, Dr. Beale finished the prayer. To me, he wondered out loud if the Lord was not making His own statement about the deceased's destination upon death.

Oh, the horror of it!

Dad used to say every article in Reader's Digest fit into one of three categories: "Oh, the wonder of it," "Oh, the horror of it," and just plain "Oh."

Last week I was skin diving off the beach of Florida's Caladesi Island State Park. Mary Lee and I had a wedding in Orlando on Memorial Day and we'd taken a couple days of vacation in the Clearwater Beach area. Mary Lee had heard that Caladesi Island was beautiful so we drove up to Honeymoon Island and took the ferry over. She was on the beach with her book and I was out in the water looking for sand dollars and shells. All of a sudden my mask got dark, but the darkness seemed to be inside the mask!

Being color blind, it took a moment to realize what the darkness was, but soon it was clear I'd gotten a nosebleed and my mask was filled with blood. I ripped the mask off and rinsed it out, but as soon as I put it on, it again began to fill with blood. Then it occurred to me that, for once in my life, the nosebleed thing was no big deal. After all, I was in water and the water quickly washed it all away.

For a while, I kept pulling the mask off to rinse it, but then I realized the nose bleed was less of a big deal than I'd thought: I didn't even need to take my mask off and rinse it since the purge valve would work as well with blood as it did with water. So then I just cleared the mask in the normal way, blowing air into the mask to displace the water and blood. (Now you know more than you ever wanted to know about nosebleeds while skin diving, right?)

Mary Lee got up from her perch on the sand and came out into the water to talk. She suggested I go over and offer to help two men who were looking for a pair of sunglasses one of them had dropped into the water. I swam over and offered my help. They told me the general area where they thought the sunglasses had fallen and I began to sweep the area under water. A couple times I came up to get oriented, once quite near one of the men. Seeing the blood, he asked me whether I was worried about sharks? I said, "No, not really," but when I went back under, I was worried about sharks.

There wasn't much I could do, though, other than to get out of the water and gross out the people on the beach as I stood there waiting for the bleeding to stop. Much better to be under water with the water washing it all away. While waiting I remembered my son, Taylor, had said that if a shark attacked you, you needed to punch it in its gills or eyes--not its mouth. My fist was ready.

It took about a half hour before the bleeding stopped. I was relieved not to have to worry about sharks anymore. The two men left without finding their glasses and I continued to sweep up and down the beach, picking up dead sand dollars and shells. About an hour after the men left, I found a pair of sunglasses, but Mary Lee said they were ugly so we threw them out on our way back to the ferry.

In the car on the way home we talked about how disastrous it would be if the nosebleed returned during the wedding, but we forgot to knock on wood...

IU President Adam Herbert: Coach Sampson has "highest integrity"...

In the past, my wife and I had some arguments about a certain IU basketball coach. More recently, though, we've been seeing things the same. We both liked Coach Mike Davis and we both were disgusted when Kelvin Sampson was hired to replace Coach Davis.

Then, this morning, Mary Lee brought me the paper opened to the article announcing the NCAA's sanctions against Coach Sampson for his recruiting violations back at Oklahoma. Dropping the paper next to me, she said, "I hope by some fluke he brings a losing streak to Indiana." I agree.

So why are we so hostile to Coach Sampson?

We're not. Our hostility is directed towards IU basketball in general; and more specifically...

Go figure...

A couple months ago I ran into a woman wearing a medium sized cross on her necklace, so I asked if she was a Christian?

She said, "Yes, why do you ask?"

"Because you're wearing a cross," I said.

"Oh, that's just a decoration," she responded, "but I am a Christian."

The Wrong "Guy" for the BBC...

(Update: The BBC asked YouTube to remove its video of the interview. BBC's explanation and video of the incident is available here. Good video of the interview is also available here.)

Check out this video. The BBC was doing a breaking news segment on last week's British court decision in favor of Apple Computer in a lawsuit against ITunes by the Beatles' Apple Records.

Their hope was to have Guy Kewney, European editor of EWeek.com, comment live on BBC news. But when Guy Goma showed up for an employment interview with the BBC's IT department, the receptionist sent him right into the studio where they were live on camera.

The look on his face in the first few seconds is priceless.

Forget Johnny Damon...

If you've lived in Boston, imagine this. The Red Sox were starting Tim Wakefield, the knuckleballer, last night against the Yankees, and at the last minute they decided to reacquire Doug Mirabelli to catch for him. (It's not easy.) Problem was, Mirabelli had to be aquired from San Diego and to get to Fenway Park, pronto.

The Red Sox chartered a jet that sped across the country and made it to Boston's Logan Airport where Mirabelli disembarked at 6:48 PM. Changing into his uniform in the car that picked him up, his police escort helped him make it to Fenway by 7 PM. He was announced over the PA as the starting catcher at 7:07 PM. The crowd roared its approval.

Twelve minutes from Logan to Fenway.

He got the finger..

True story: T_IFriday's just opened their first restaurant here in Bloomington. Last Friday, it took on a certain notoriety for serving a man a hamburger garnished with a finger tip. Meanwhile, one of the kitchen managers was on his way to the emergency room to get some stitches. Apparently, someone took the patron literally when he said he wasn't very hungry and asked for some finger food.

T_IFriday's spokeswoman, Amy Freshwater, soothed troubled waters, saying the restaurant would "absolutely not" suffer any loss of business because of the incident.

Whew, I was worried.

A sense of direction...

Although Muslims may not be born with a sense of direction, they quickly get one.

The Contest's Winner....

Last week we called on you to vote in Pyromaniacs' contest for best talent show performance. The winner, by a considerable margin, was a juggling performance by Chris Bliss to the music of the Beatles' Golden Slumber/Carry that Weight/The End.

But on this site, Ben Crum introduced a new entrant: Jason Garfield juggling to Chris Bliss's Beatles soundtrack. You can see it here. After viewing it several times, I'm convinced Garfield simply outclasses Bliss as a juggler, if not as a showman. Take a look at this dead-on replica of Bliss's act--but with five juggled balls instead of three.

Be certain to watch the video to the end. At the very end, Garfield briefly juggles five balls in each hand--an awesome, if brief, performance.

Go and Vote....

Visit Pyromaniacs and vote at their Talent Show. A real treat. Tim and I vote for the juggler, but the ukelele player was terrific too.

BaylyArt

Your pal, David.

If I Were King of the Blog World: an exercise in constructive blog criticism. . . .

If I were king of the blogging universe I would:

1. Force Doug Wilson to type with mittens--the only way most of us could possibly keep up. Also: have posts on Blog & Mablog stay on