Midweek Reality Check

No big news to report or significant topic to weigh in on, I'm just in the middle of a busy week, I have a few minutes of time until a 3:00 pm appointment, not enough time to do any real work, so I thought, this is a good time to slap down a drive-by blog entry.

The grant project/proposal thing I've been studying and working on got a big (and welcome) slowdown yesterday when it was decided that applying for DoEd NCLB funding was just too big a bite to take at our current level of preparedness, so I don't have to worry about working furiously to meet an April 12 deadline after all. But the good news is that I still am seen as a "project leader" and will be getting support and compensation to make continuing progress in learning how to write grants. This will turn into a more formal job assignment sometime in early May, it looks like, so I'm pleased to be moving into something new and (to me) enjoyable.

Tomorrow will be the memorial service for the individual who passed away at my workplace last week. It's been very busy and at times mournful and heavy around here as we cope with a hard situation, but I am also reminded of how much strength and goodwill exists within this community. Those qualities are a huge reason that I've been able and willing and happy to do this work for all these years. Some colleagues and friends of mine who were touched even more profoundly by the events than I was have been on my mind and in my prayers a lot over this past week.

Now from the world of sports... I have a 3-in-8 chance of winning the agency's NCAA basketball pool! If George Mason, LSU or UCLA win the tournament, I'm out. But if Florida wins their first game, I'm in good shape. If LSU beats UCLA and Florida wins, I finish first. If UCLA beats LSU, then Florida would have to win against the Bruins. I'm excited to be this close to winning a pretty competitive contest - even though it's almost entirely luck that I have advanced as far as I did, since I don't pay any attention to college hoops until it's time to fill out the brackets.

I have two fantasy baseball teams starting play this weekend as well. One is work-based, a league my friend Tom and I started that is now entering its 14th season (that's a loooong time!) The other is a league I'm just joining this year, at my brother-in-laws invitation. Different format, different scoring system, mostly different players that I drafted. I always enjoy the beginning of a new MLB season, regardless of whatever controversies may be going on at the time.

Tomorrow I teach my first CPR class to a group consisting largely of the staff that I supervised up until a couple months ago. I'm looking forward to that, though of course I'm a bit nervous about teaching on a new topic that I still don't think I've really mastered yet. But I have a highly experienced partner who will be there to bail me out if I get stuck or say the wrong thing.

OK, my time is up, off to my meeting.

Newest, Biggest Megachurch in West Michigan Opens Today!

Remember that training I offered at ResLife Church earlier this month? I blogged about it here. This morning, I discovered on the front page of our Sunday Grand Rapids Press that I was getting an inadvertent "sneak preview" of some new construction that had not yet fully opened to the public. That explains all the workmen I saw roaming around certain parts of the building and lot.

I briefly entertained the thought of attending worship there this morning but decided I really didn't feel like doing that. Maybe I will find my way to see what it's like attending a service in such a high-tech, state-of-the-art sanctuary. For now, I'm just wondering, where does a church come up with such abundant sources of money? Is there a wealthy private or corporate business interest behind the construction of such massive structures? I can't help but think that there's something in that "American Theocracy" book that just got released last week that would begin to offer an explanation.

And if you are interested in following up that thread on American theocracy (the topic, not the book) here's a link on "Bible Belt Christianity" that got emailed to me earlier today. It's a bit on the polarizing side for some folks, I imagine, but I found the perspective interesting and fairly consistent with how I see things.

Heavy Heart

The past couple of days were pretty strange for me. Thursday and Friday were spent in all-day trainings for me and a few of my colleagues to get our annual certifications as Handle With Care instructors. The sessions themselves were great - I now feel more confident and prepared to lead people through these classes, even though I think I've done a decent job of it up until now. My techniques and insights will be sharper and more helpful to the staff that I'm teaching about physical management interventions.

What made the days strange for me was walking into a very difficult situation at my workplace when I dropped off one of my fellow instructors there on Thursday afternoon. When we pulled up to the building, we saw several emergency response vehicles parked in front of one of the homes. That ominous feeling of something bad happening hit me pretty hard, and I knew that I had to go find out what was going on, even though I would have been just as happy to just stay in my car, turn around and go home.

When I entered the unit, I discovered several co-workers looking pretty stunned, as well as some officials from the emergency response system performing various tasks. I won't go into any detail on the circumstances here in respect of confidentiality, but they were dealing with a fatality on the unit. That's really all I can say about the situation, other than give brief expression to my own feelings of sadness for the people most directly involved as well our agency in general. The seriousness of the circumstances and my own anticipation of some of the events yet to come
weighed on my mind quite a bit Thursday night. Yesterday felt more "normal" in many ways, but that was at least partly because I was off-campus and engaged in an active, diverting training session. I can even say I had a lot of fun. But I know the atmosphere will be different when I get back to the normal work routine on Monday. In the meantime, I have a number of people whose well-being will be on my mind and in my prayers for a good long while to come.

Protest Postscript

Back to the work-week routine... Saturday's rally and teach-in events were cool, I'm glad to have participated in them, but I have to admit that I'm left feeling unsatisfied by the inability of me and the people who oppose the course our nation is taking to really affect the process in ways that seem not just "meaningful," but actually get results. I even have to acknowledge a sense of disappointment in the aftermath of our protests. For one, the crowd was not as big as I'd been led to believe - the main organizer was quoted in an interview beforehand as expecting around a thousand people, and I think it was more like 300 and that might be a bit generous. The speakers at the rally reflected a diverse variety of backgrounds (ethnically and culturally) and while I was in general enough agreement with much of what they said, I didn't hear much that I thought would seriously challenge the assumptions of war-supporters or breathe new life and inspiration into our efforts to stop or slow down the path of ruin that Bush has led the U.S.A. on to.

Maybe I am just too jaded and cynical, but it seems unproductive to put forth something along the lines of a "radical socialist" agenda as the alternative vision for our society. It just seems obscure and dated to me, culturally speaking. I don't want to invest my energy into simply being part of a movement of "grudging misfits." I don't say that to put down my friends who agree with the points that our speakers were making, but I'm just recognizing how things get portrayed in the media and how more strident anti-war messages get interpreted by people who approach issues from a suburban, mainstream, middle-class point of view.

It's a significant problem with our conformist, materialistic culture, that so many people avoid taking the risk of truly standing out and making themselves "the exception to the rulers" (to borrow Amy Goodman's slogan.) I personally am still pretty locked in to "the establishment," with my white-collar mid-level social work job and standing in the local community. I want to support a political perspective that differentiates between a nominally comfortable, mobile and connected lifestyle and endorsing the full-fledged exploitative, fear-based and jingoistic values that characterize the America that Bush and his fellow Republicans are trying to instill in our citizens. I want to be taken seriously, and I want the movement with which I associate myself to reflect a thoughtful, informed and realistic set of ideas about what our country should be doing differently. So I'm reluctant to invest in rhetoric and symbols that are too easily ignored or dismissed as naive or simplistic.

And I'm even more frustrated that our political representatives (and many people in their electoral bases) are not willing to seriously consider the views of people like me who want to show a higher level of respect and understanding for those who are adversely affected by our government's policies and actions. I'm so sick of having to live under a president that so many people in the world consider to be a terrorist and a human rights abuser himself, and who deploys weapons and soldiers so frequently that those charges are not easily dismissed.

I was also unsatisfied with some aspects of the teach-in that was held after the rally. Several lectures were scheduled to fill out the afternoon's program, and while they had some interesting and worthwhile things to say, I didn't like the way that the schedule seemed to drain off much of the energy that the rally had created. There should have been more time set aside for people to connect and build relationships with each other. Instead, there were three hours of presentations before we had a chance for breakout groups to talk about what we'd want to do next. By then, a lot of people had left for the day. It felt like some opportunities had been lost.

That's where I'm at for the moment. Not quite "discouraged" but definitely feeling kind of weary and dismal about the poor prospects for significant improvement in the situation anytime soon. Today is the first day of spring and I am happy about that - the sun is out, plants are just beginning to green up around here and there are many nice things to look forward to in the weeks and months ahead. But I still have to cope with a serious sense of regret that so much of the story of our times is being written by bumbling and misguided people who seem so unwilling to learn from their mistakes, unmotivated to bring our society together to work for common goals, and unconcerned with the calamities that their poor planning and mismanagement have caused. Meanwhile, I'm stuck in the middle of the grid here, not liking what I see, trying to do something about it, but wondering if it is really going to yield a tangible result in the larger scheme of things. OK, enough of this, back to work, lunch hour is over!

Protest Pics

Here's a collage of a few of my snapshots from yesterday's rally in Grand Rapids marking the third anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. When I get more time I will weigh in with a few thoughts on the event itself and the general state of the peace movement here in town and elsewhere. But I have to drive my kids back to their respective college dorms in a short while, so I'll catch you later...

Preview of Today's Anti-War Protest

I'm going to be spending most of today in a demonstration and teach-in in opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which happened three years ago this weekend. This article from the Media Mouse website features an interview with one of the events main organizers. I don't know him yet but I will most likely get to meet him today. My role there will be as a Peace Team worker during the march and rally portions, then I'm going to help with facilitating the teach-in to be held in the afternoon. I'll have photos and stories from the event later. Not sure when though - right after that, I'll be heading over to my grandmother's place for a late St. Patrick's Day corned-beef-and-cabbage dinner. We couldn't make it last night because my kids already had plans - Brandon and Curt were out with friends watching "V for Vendetta" on the IMAX, Alyssa is at college because she has to work today, and Derek spent the night at a friends. So we figured it would be better to do the holiday dinner with Grandma when more of us could be there. Last night I helped my sister make a video (a photo slideshow, really) to be played in synchronization with a song that her choir will be performing at church in a couple of weeks, and I entered the results of our fantasy baseball draft that was held earlier in the day. I drafted Barry Bonds back in the second round. That elicited a "boo and hiss" from one of the owners, but I gotta stick with Barry in his time of trial...

There are a few other things going on worth mentioning, but I have to get ready so I hope this gets you sufficiently caught up for now. I'll fill in the other details when I get more time.

More from the "I told you so" department

This is an amazing collection of quotes from prominent media figures and news commentators who jumped to premature and erroneous conclusions about the supposedly easy victory that the USA achieved in Iraq. It's quite illuminating to read these statements and realize that, just as very few in the Bush administration have been held accountable or expressed any kind of public remorse for their mistakes and misrepresentation of the facts, neither have many of the pundits whose names are included and who still go about their commentating business as if they still have some shred of credibility left to speak with any authority on these matters.

Meanwhile, over in Iraq...

Here's a link to a compelling summary of what went wrong with Bush's invasion of Iraq. The third anniversary of this historic blunder is coming up this weekend - find a protest near you on March 18 and join me (and millions of others around the world) in a stirring exercise of I told you so! (though I wish it weren't so...)

:o(

ResLife Church

This afternoon I led a training at a local mega-church here in Grand Rapids. Resurrection Life Church is one of the larger congregations in the area, and one of their interns contacted Wedgwood recently to see what we have to offer them in the way of instructing their youth ministry staff on how to work with teenagers. After some negotiations, we decided that I would visit them and provide a condensed version of my "Behavior Management" training that I normally provide as an orientation session for our new employees.

Even though I normally provide this material for professional caregivers in an institutional and residential setting, it translated fairly easily to the needs of the people I spoke with today. This church has over 1000 kids in its program - I don't know if that's all the church's children, or if that's just their adolescent population. Either way, that's a lot of kids. Bigger than many high schools in this country, to say the least. The group I spoke to consisted of sixteen interns - all volunteers, I take it, who come from the community and Bible colleges in this region to watch over the teens who no doubt come streaming through the door in waves at various times during the week.

The setting was a room called "The Zone," which was just beyond the large "oneighty" hall and a bit further away from the cavernous "Ground Floor." These last two regions of the building each featured full service espresso and snack bars, and the Ground Floor also featured a fully functioning pool hall as well as state-of-the-art lighting and multimedia rigs. The church is hosting a concert featuring the Christian rock band Superchick later this month. I figure that this would be a pretty fun church for a teenager to attend, relatively speaking. I'm sure that ResLife has its share of sullen malcontent adolescents who think that it sucks to be there and to be them, but that's the human condition, ain't it? Or at least, the American teen condition...

The Zone had a smallish stage with several instruments on it - an electric synthetic drum kit, conga drums, a huge stack of pillows for sitting and laying on (though we used tables and chairs for the training event) and a wall of TVs at the back, each one connected to individual GameCubes. The walls were decorated with mounted trampolines, each one illustrated with a different outdoor athletic scene, such as soccer players, hang-gliders, surfers, skateboarders, etc. The grooviness just did not stop!

I really enjoyed the chance to get to know these young people - most of them were probaby between, say 19 and 25 years old. All of them feel some kind of calling to work with teenagers, and they seemed pretty receptive to hear my stories from the clinical residential perspective. I think I gave them some good material to think about and keep in mind when working with their kids - ideas that will help them understand why kids misbehave and not get so frustrated when they fail to adhere to the script. We only had two hours, so it went by pretty quick, a mixture of lecture, role playing and ample Q & A to give everyone a chance to air their opinions and get some feedback on their youth ministry efforts.

But I still have to marvel a bit at the sheer hugeness of this church. I know there are bigger ones out there - even in this county. But other than some occasional attendance at a large Assembly of God church back in the early days of my life as a Christian, I've never been much of a mega-church kind of guy. After the class had concluded and I wrapped up a couple of short after-chats with some of the interns, I wandered around a bit just to soak up the atmosphere. It amuses me to see how effectively the church targets its various demographics - the teens get zapped with radical, intense, edgy graphics and straight-up entertainment, while the womens conference coming up later this month is all tulips and tranquility as far as atmospherics are concerned. As I strolled the corridors, I saw all kinds of people going about their business - other church staff, guys playing basketball in the large gym across the hall from where I led my class, women in aprons coming out of the Central Kitchen/Food Service, facility maintenance guys wheeling their toolcarts around attending to an unending list of fix-ups that a building of this size must need, and I never even got near what I imagine must be a bustling hub of clerical support services that are required to keep this enterprise organized and effective. It made me seriously wonder just what the essential ingredients are that made this congregation launch into the stratosphere, attendance-wise (and financially too, I suppose.) I remember ResLife when it was a lot smaller, just one of several "full gospel" (charismatic) churches that I was aware of back in the early 1980's. Something remarkable must have taken place here, and now it has its own center of gravity, one might say, that draws people like the interns I met today (and me, I guess I have to acknowledge) into its orbit.

The training went well enough that I think we'll be asked back to do some more. I hope so - I enjoyed the group, appreciated the reception they gave me, and I'm curious to learn more about their ministry. With a group as large as the one they host, they deal with pretty much the full range of issues and concerns besetting teens these days, and I think there is a reason that God has brought Wedgwood and ResLife together. I expect to have more opportunities to explore ResLife from the inside out...

Images from a downtown stroll

Here's a sampling of what I saw in my meanderings around the town after I was done with the grant-writing seminar...


...including some evening and morning views from my hotel room, a few impressively massive buildings, a couple of exterior shots of the hotel where I stayed, the Picasso sculpture in front of the courthouse, and a couple of ominous helicopters that hovered in place for several minutes just about directly over my head, which gave me a strange Matrix-like vibe... 

My tribute to Wilco

It's not exactly a replica of Wilco's "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" album cover, but it's close enough for me. And I chose to go with the limited edition blue tint rather than the standard issue beige.

Chicago

A Couple of Side-notes

For the most part, this blog is about me. At various times, I've considered making it something more along the lines of the old "weblogs" that serve to link readers to all sorts of relevant, cool, interesting articles on a particular topic (in this case, it would be something along the lines of "the cutting edge of pomo style Christianity") but I just enjoy having this little on-line diary to explain what I'm up to and leave a trail of bread crumbs so I can retrace my steps if and when I ever feel like doing that.

But here are two links that I would like to pass on to people who read this blog either intentionally or by accident.


1. Wafa Sultan is profiled in today's NY Times. A video clip of her debating a Syrian sheik on the nature of radical violent Islam is stirring up some sensations, so check it out if you haven't seen it elsewhere.


2. The Boondocks comic strip has been running a series this week with a MySpace theme. It's hilarious! Start with the panel that is linked above and click on "Next" to see the sequence in order.

Live from the Crystal Ballroom, Hyatt Regency, Chicago IL

I’m on break from the conference, which as far as I know, doesn’t really have a short snappy title. The Power Point is titled “Preparing Quality Grant Applications,” and the agenda says that I’m at the Region V Technical Assistance Workshop. Region V of what, you ask? Why, Region V of the US Dept. of Education Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, working under the jurisdiction of the No Child Left Behind legislation that was passed back in 2001, one of President Bush’s earliest achievements and a continuing priority of his administration. That was made clear by Kristine Cohn, the Assistant Secretary in charge of Region V (which consists of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and Minnesota.)

So here I am, in a crowded hotel ballroom, learning how to supplicate for a small part of the nearly $6 Billion that will be distributed in Fiscal 07 by the DoEd. Other than paying my taxes and participating in a few anti-war protests over the past few years, this is the most engaged I’ve been with the federal government in quite some time… or maybe ever.

What I’ve heard so far is making sense to me – after we got through a brief bit of political cheerleading by Asst. Secty. Cohn (that’s not a snipe, I know that any administration would have their highest ranking rep do the same thing, how do you think she got that job anyway?), the subject turned to the nuts and bolts of how to write competitive grants. I was told prior to departing for this trip that this grant is kind of obscure, that there are 58 awards designated but that the government doesn’t always even get that many applications – but I would doubt that based on the turnout this morning. The room was packed, probably 400-500 people or more… And this is just one regional meeting. So I think there is a realistic chance that even a well-done grant may not win approval. The presenter said as much – he figures that somewhere between 20 to 30 % of grants are funded, and given the preferences of that portion of the conservative base that remains leery of “big government handouts,” I think this percentage is probably in the target range that the DoEd wants to maintain. They use a scoring system that results in tenth-of-a-point margins between winners and losers (on a hundred point scale.) It will be interesting to see how the work that I and others do on this project pays off. All part of a larger learning curve and experience-building regimen, I suppose.

So yeah, how about that? I’m about to get up to my elbows in collaborating with President Bush’s Faith Based Initiatives project! I hope that my personal activism and outspoken critiques of some aspects of our current government’s priorities and policies won’t unduly influence the final decision on the merits of our grant! I don’t want to get all paranoid about it, of course, but who knows what kind of databases or watch-lists my name may have appeared on? One never really knows, does one? At least, not until one gets a security clearance and does a little FOIA work…

Club Quarters, Wacker at Michigan

OK, I'm in. In the middle of the great mid-American metropolis, Chicago Illinois. I'm staying on the 27th floor of the Club Quarters Hotel, which appears to be an older building but a comfortable one, with some character to it. It's the pointy one in the picture above. I have a pretty nice perch from which to check out a lot of the other big buildings in the neighborhood, but its a foggy, rainy night, so I've made the decision to just chill out in my room for the night. I got the wireless internet, my boombox with some music going (currently R.E.M.'s New Adventures in Hi Fi) a pot of coffee on and all in all a rather cozy little set up. I got off the phone with Julie (my wife) a few minutes ago - she's at home, just returned from a book discussion group on The Power of One, which went well for her and everyone, even though she wasn't quite able to finish the book before tonight.

If you've seen the cover of Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot CD, you would recognize the two unique buildings that are just outside my window and across the canal. Here's the cover for your reference:



I could take a picture, because I have my camera, but I didn't bring the USB cable up from my car for some reason, so I won't be able to load anything into my computer until either tomorrow or when I get home. I will probably just wait until I get home tomorrow night. It's not like there's a real urgent need to get pictures of me or taken by me onto the internet just moments after they are taken. Even though I think it's kind of cool to have that capability...

Off to Chicago

I'm minutes away from heading out on a business trip to Chicago. It's just an overnighter. I'm going to an meeting on Friday where I'll be gathering the materials and information I'll need in preparing to write a grant for Wedgwood. This is a new thing for me - I was asked to do this because the main grant writers for our agency are both very busy with other projects, and my writing skills are seen as an asset for this project. So even though I've never taken on the challenge of writing a grant, I'm up for it and pleased to have this opportunity. It's also nice to know that the head administrators thought of me when they were wondering who they could commission to go on this trip. I'll have more to say about the specifics of this grant, the project and the governmental bureaucracy and hoops that I'll no doubt have to maneuver through in order to secure the funding we'll be asking for. Oh, and by the way, the grant is part of the "Faith-Based Initiatives" project...

But for tonight, I'll just be spending it in a nice hotel downtown on E. Wacker Drive. I've got a laptop computer with wireless access ready to go along for the ride, so I'll be blogging from Chi-town in a matter of hours. And probably headed out for a little Thursday-night-on-the-town action as well. Let's see what all happens with that!

Baseball, Bonds and Bush

Baseball talk may not exactly be of interest to some of the people I know who read my blog with some regularity, but it is an important subject to me. I have been a baseball fan all my life, and a serious fan since falling in love with the Giants franchise back in 1987, when Will Clark, Jeffrey Leonard, Chili Davis, Mike Krukow, Candy Maldonado, Kevin Mitchell and a bunch of other great players resurrected the team from a dismal stretch of losing seasons and got into the playoffs. Though they didn't get past the Cardinals into the World Series that year, I saw a bunch of games in person that season and have been a serious Giants fan ever since, even though I now live 2000 miles away and haven't seen them in person since the 1989 season, when I traveled down to Wrigley Field in Chicago to see them. (I moved back to Grand Rapids in the fall of '87, after our twin sons were born, and haven't been to California since then.)

So I have been, by extension of my allegiance to the Giants, a Barry Bonds fan since he joined the team in the mid-90's. I was excited when the former Pirates superstar and MVP winner joined up with Will Clark, Matt Williams and the rest of the crew. His presence continued the winning tradition after the older stars moved on to other teams and made the past decade a great time to be a Giants fan. Of course, Barry has never been able to lead his team to a World Series title, though they came agonizingly close in 2002 before losing to Anaheim in seven-games. But he's been a terrific player, really a marvel on the field and at the plate, despite all the allegations, denunciations, mockeries and flat-out hating that he's had to endure. Much of the responsibility for his alienated relationship with the media rests on him - he has been a prima donna, abrasive, egocentric, blunt and any number of other unflattering adjectives could also be applied. For all that, I really don't care much either way. I might feel differently if I were a sportswriter, but I'm not, so I figure that it is not my place to take sides in the disputes that have taken place between him and the media. Each side has their grievances and I am content to leave it at that.

So now it looks like his already-battered reputation is going to take an even harder and more sustained pounding, as a book detailing his use and misuse of performance-enhancing drugs is getting a lot of publicity lately. I am not condoning or excusing anything that Barry Bonds did that was against the rules of baseball, but I am seriously wondering why so much anger and extremist rhetoric is being leveled against him on a personal level. It's not like he was the only player who was resorting to such measures, and it wasn't like he was a no-talent player whose game suddenly flourished when a chemically-enhanced regimen was adopted. A lot of the players he was competing against were doing something pretty similar to what he is alleged to have done. This is a reality that all the Bonds-bashers have to grapple with. I have read numerous columns written by guys pontificating that Bonds' admission to the Baseball Hall of Fame is ruined beyond any hope of redemption, and that his accomplishments should be basically wiped from the record books. I find such talk absurd, irresponsible and way too vindictive. The baseball records are what they are and there's no way that one can extricate the stats of selected alleged cheaters retroactively. If these guys want to give up on baseball altogether or proclaim the game hopelessly corrupted and tarnished, that is their right but that doesn't mean I have to take them seriously or view them as credible spokesmen about a game that I continue to appreciate and enjoy.

Let's not kid ourselves - professional sports have long been beset by problems that all but destroy whatever notions we had of a pure, noble and admirable competition among equals. Baseball's longevity as the national pastime and a major sports enterprise puts it at the center of many of the social ills that our nation has experienced over the past century and more. Racism, corruption, exploitation, cheating, dishonesty, gambling, greed... even lust, idolatry and covetousness, if one wants to view the catalogue of sins from a more biblical perspective - all have been and will be inextricably woven into the fabric of a very human game and business operation. Where the stakes (for money, fame, reputation, power, glory, etc.) are high, people will be tempted to use all their wiles and schemes in order to wrest whatever advantage they can in pursuit of the crown. In this case, baseball has indisputably fallen into another period of crisis, which in my opinion, the game is now taking belated but I hope meaningful and effective steps to correct. It's not like this is the "worst" crisis, on an ethical level, that fans have ever had to endure. I think that the period of enforced segregation, when the game was in its legendary Golden Age with an all-white cast of immortals setting most of the biggest and most enduring records, was the most systematically corrupt and shameful scandal of them all. It matters not to me that this was the condition of society at the time. One could make a similar argument about today - our society has a pretty demonstrable track record of rewarding cheaters and others who cover up, dissemble and create false impressions, in government, business, the arts, science and other fields of endeavor. The flaws that are being exposed in baseball and other pro sports are endemic to our society as a whole. It's not pretty or pleasant to see them come so strikingly to the surface, but I don't really see why Barry Bonds is particularly deserving of the largest share of blame in all this. Too much of this just feels like personal venting that frustrated columnists are piling on to Bonds in big heaps because they simply don't like the guy and figure that they have a nice juicy target and an easy platform to stand on. They want to get the other Bonds-haters out there nodding their heads in agreement and maybe win the competition for who can be the most brash and unyielding in their denunciations.

I do think there is a racial element in all this too. Not that the sports media is opposed to a black man breaking records, but there is a set of expectations about how the man is supposed to conduct himself, and I think to some black men, there's a sense that they have to play a certain role in order to gain that acceptance. Barry Bonds has pretty much decided he's not going to play by the rules that he thinks others are trying to impose on him. I can't begin to imagine what it would be like to be him. Some would think they are just asking for civility. I have genuinely gotten the sense that Barry can be a fine, pleasant, reasonable and likeable guy, if you are able to take him on his terms and respect who he is, what he's about, what he's accomplished. I read some columnists and wonder just what it is that Barry would have to do in order to get some kind of a clean slate or fresh start from them, they are so harsh and denunciatory about him.

Then I think about how all this compares to my regard for President Bush. :o)

On the one hand, I am clearly of the opinion that what he and the US government have done since his administration has been in office is of infinitely graver importance and thus is much more regrettable and infuriating than anything Barry Bonds could ever have done. I would honestly like to see such a strong-voiced chorus of opinionaters speaking in such unambivalent terms about the mistakes that Bush and his cronies have made over the past five years. Of course, there are plenty of strident voices out there denouncing Bush, but rarely do I see the "mainstream media" as unified in their opinions as they seem to be on what they think of Barry Bonds.

And then on the other hand, I want to challenge myself. If I wasn't such a partisan to the Giants and by extension, Barry Bonds, would I view the situation the same way? If Barry was a Yankee with four or five World Series wins on his resume, would that make a difference?

Likewise, with the Bush analogy, what would the president have to do for me to be ready to let him off the hook, in my own estimation and personal respect for the guy? Am I truly ready to give the man a fresh start, or is the relationship between us irrepairably damaged?

Well, I look to my presidents and my favorite ballplayers to serve different needs, I guess. That's about where I'm going to have to leave it tonight... I've written a lot, on a topic that may leave you simply shrugging and surfing elsewhere. But if you've read this far, thanks for hanging with me. Please drop a comment to let me know what you think about all this!

Quiet Weekend

Really not much to report this morning. Friday night was just a "hang out at home" evening. Saturday morning I worked a shift at Wedgwood. It was a sunny and "warm for Michigan in March" day so I enjoyed getting outside and shooting some baskets with the kids. Yesterday afternoon was frustrating because for about two hours I was searching madly for a file with all my tax information in it, wanting to get going on my tax returns. After going through all my file cabinets and looking basically everywhere in the house for the inexplicably missing file, it turned out my daughter had it in her room for some still-unexplained reason. I was relieved, not angry, but by then I was too worn out from the search effort to want to spend any time crunching the numbers. Then there were the Academy Awards. I only watched the first hour and a half because we had to catch the ending of Bleak House (see earlier post from last Sunday) but I was able to tune in to the end to see the big news of the evening, which was that Crash got the award for Best Picture that most people were predicting would go to Brokeback Mountain.

Visit my friend Julie's blog to read up on that story. She is much more informed and articulate on the subject than I am.

My forty-day fast from buying books and CD's continues. I have countered the impulse on a number of occasions these past several days, but have no deep spiritual insights to pass along at this time. I do believe that this is a significant and constructive commitment I've made though.

Politics, Race and Education

That was the theme of last night's IGE Talks meeting, which we hold on the first Thursday of every month. (The last two were about protest songs as I've chronicled on this space.)

I didn't lead the discussion this time out, nor will I for the next couple of months to come. Instead, I just went and listened and offered a few comments toward the end after I felt sufficiently informed on the specific topics at hand. The subjects of politics, race and education are obviously quite broad, but things narrowed down considerably as the evening progressed. Two candidates for the Grand Rapids Public Schools Board of Education, one white and one black, were present and their views on the current state of the GRPS provided the essence of our conversation.

Besides those two, we had a very interesting, diverse and noteworthy group of participants, including some community activists, a prominent local radio personality, education students, retired teachers and, generally speaking, people with informed and interesting opinions. I was pleased to see a majority of people in attendance were from the local African-American community. IGE's offices are in a primarily black part of the city, and while we have cordial relationships with our neighbors, they are under-represented when it comes to direct involvement in IGE-sponsored activities. One of the objectives I want to pursue in my role as an IGE board member is to strengthen our connection to the neighborhood and the inner-city community of Grand Rapids, and last night's meeting was a big step in the right direction.

As the night went on, I was rather appalled to hear about the current strains that exist between the GRPS school board and the families of the city who in many cases feel shut out and excluded from the decisions that the board has made over the past few years. I am not clear enough in my grasp of the details to provide much information here, but it is apparent to me that there are some serious communication problems, at the very least, and perhaps things are worse, much worse, than that. A new Superintendent is on his way here later this year, and he seems to be well-received. The current super is a good man, but is drawing close to retirement and is seen as not having the energy left to get the board in better shape. This is the gist of other peoples' opinions that I picked up last night. It just kind of sets me back a bit to hear about all this, since my own experience with Wyoming Public Schools, where my kids have attended since we moved here in 1996, has been very smooth, successful, positive and non-controversial. I cannot fathom how a district can fail to provide books for its children, instead sending them home with stacks of photocopies that lack directions or some of the reference materials that kids need to learn. While the specific matters that were raised last night could be seen by myself as "not my problem," I think that this kind of thinking is very short-sighted, selfish and ultimately self-defeating.

My main contribution to the talk last night was an observation that, as a society, we have grown much too complacent about poverty - the deprived conditions that so many of our citizens are living in create a broad vortex of problems that ultimately drags all of us in to some degree or another. The leaders that we turn to seem to me to have misplaced priorities and too many people follow their cue to invest in weapons systems, tax breaks for the wealthy, special interest political deals (kickbacks, basically) and other policies that seem mostly to widen the gulf between the haves and have-nots in our society. It's fashionable in some circles to bash old ideas like the "war on poverty" or other supposedly discredited practices of the welfare state, but the problem I have is that for the most part, no one in the higher levels of government appears to be seriously talking about what we can or should do to alleviate poverty. Even in the post-Katrina era, the focus is more on settling where to pin the blame, not trying to get a handle on why so many people in this country are falling off the edge of personal sustainability, why so many kids are growing up in home situations where the basic needs of life are not being met and the problems they import into our schools are overwhelming the folks who have decided to get involved in bringing up this next generation.

That's about all I have time to spell out here, but I think we have some interesting dialogue ahead of us as we dig deeper into these issues at IGE.

Ash Wednesday

Today is the beginning of the season of Lent and I thought I'd toss out a question
to see if anyone has anything to say about this portion of the liturgical year. I
have never been one to make a big deal of such observations, but for the next forty
days, I have decided to exercise some self-discipline by not purchasing any books
or CDs. I am a somewhat compulsive browser and I enjoy sifting through library and
used CD bargain bins, picking up other peoples' cast-off items for really cheap
prices. I have a knack for finding quality items amongst the dross. Just yesterday
I found a nice cloth-bound copy of Clausewitz' "On War" and a hardcover copy of
David McCullough's biography "John Adams." Each book was clean and worthy of adding
to a high-class collection, and they cost me two dollars for the both of them.
Quite a value, but my problem is that I have acquired such a backlog of these gems
that I probably have years of reading before I take full advantage of all the
wisdom these books are capable of imparting. And I could tell a similar story about
CDs! Just the other day, I got immaculate copies of R.E.M.'s "Murmur," "Automatic
for the People" and "New Adventures in Hi Fi" (each album a masterpiece of sorts)
for a buck apiece. But I have over 2600 songs on my computer that I haven't even
listened to yet, so what business do I have buying even more? That's just a little
glimpse inside my private life there for you...

But anyway, back to the topic. I'm doing this as a Lenten practice even though I
don't have any tangible sense that it's really important to make such a sacrifice
simply because we are in the countdown to Easter. I just happen to find the onset
of this period of intentional self-deprivation to be a convenient time to see if I
can really follow through on this resolution.

Does that qualify as a "spiritual exercise?" I suppose it could if I frame it in
those terms. I will try to get beyond just the material aspect and do some self-
examination to see if refraining from acting on my acquisitive impulses opens me up
or sharpens my spiritual focus in some way. So I guess that gives me something to
write about here for the next month and ten days?

What say any of the rest of ye?