Basher51's Bluff and Bluster

On August 16th 70,000 Christian kids gathered on The Mall in Washington DC for a day of worship, fasting and prayer for our country.  It was The Call and similar events are going to be held around the world. 

This is what the event is all about:  TheCall is a divinely initiated, multi-racial, multi-generational, and cross-denominational gathering to corporate prayer and fasting. We believe that our nation is in desperate need of the mercy of God and a great Spiritual Awakening.  TheCall is committed to mobilizing people from all across America to gather together to petition God for His undeserved mercy for our nation in 12-hour solemn assemblies. Just as in the days of Joel, we believe that now is the time to blow the trumpet across our land, to fast, to pray, and return to the Lord with all our hearts.

For whatever reason that apparently does not jive with a media template of what kids should be doing.  In 2000 The Call gathered 400,000 kids on The Mall.  There was no news media coverage, or at least none that broke nationally.  IIRC, one AP reporter wrote a brief dispatch about the event. When I inquired of a local newspaper editor why that was, he told me flat out that if the kids had been protesting or rioting against the government there would have been lots of coverage.  But teenagers praying and fasting, even if there is 400,000 of them, that is simply "too nice an event to cover."  Besides, he said, no local kids were involved.  Baloney, I told him.  My church had sent like 7 busloads of kids and there were other churches from the metro area as well.  He muttered something about there being a weekend and no one to cover it.

This year, about 35 people from my church and perhaps an equal number of other churches went to DC for The Call.  I know that they didn't try to get any media coverage.  I know the reasoning:  The local news media wouldn't cover it anyway. So, trying to get them interested is a wasted effort.  That goes for Fox 6, too. A motorcycle rally and it associated boozy events warrents more coverage than a gathering of Christians on The Mall. (Note:  the Christian Motorcycle Association is going to be at the Harley events. Don't bet on there being any coverage of them.  Too many boozy parties to cover.)  In fact, based upon the past experience with the local news media, I guess that my church was making the correct assumption.  Oshkosh, Wisconsin is the site of Lifest, one of the largest, most successful Christian music festivals in the nation.  It draws 18,000 people a day to listen to a wide variety of music by international Christian music stars.  I know for a fact that the each year the event organizers beat themselves silly trying to get news media, particularly the Milwaukee news media, coverage of the event.  Yet the only time that it has drawn media coverage in Milwaukee outside of a story buried inside the Metro section of the Journal Sentinel was when a young lady was tragically killed on one of the rides.  But you get 25 kids protesting the police arresting one of their friends and there is coverage galore for day upon day.  Frankly, I don't get it and probably never will.  That is probably why I'm no longer in the news biz. 

No, I just don't get it.  I don't get why the media covers college-aged anarchists rioting at the DNC in Denver but doesn't cover many times more people,multi-generational at that, who gather to pray and fast for our country.  Back in 2000 some time after The Call there was a gathering of about 10,000 homosexual activists in Washington DC.  The media covered that like a blanket.  At several of the early Promise Keepers conferences where there were 50,000 to 90,000 men in the stadium worshipping the Lord and dedicating themselves to be godly men, the news media was fixated on the 20 or so feminist protestors outside.  I recall a friend of mine telling me how one paper's coverage of a PK event contained more about the protestors than it did about the men attending the PK conference.

Recently Tom Heinen, the Journal Sentinel's religion reporter, accepted the paper's offer of a buy-out.  He's gone, seeking work elsewhere.  You'd think that some news outfit (attention Fox6!!!) would take on the task of having a reporter on the religion beat.  But then again, that would probably be a wasted effort since it would involve events that are "too nice to cover".

It hasn't even really started and already I'm getting sick of all the Harley hoopla.

Enough already!  Harley Davidson makes a fine product that makes lots of noise and cost a ton.  Great!  I'll grant you that.  Are we going to have to go through this every year???

I've got a living to make.  Let me know when all of this flapdoodle is over.  I'm tuning it out.

Your grumpy neighborhood curmudeon is not amused.

What the deuce does "stay within yourself" mean???  I've heard this phrase about 60 times in Olympic coverage and to me it simply makes no sense.  In both a physical and philosophical sense, even a metaphorical sense, it makes no sense.  If not himself, ho the heck else would a guy stay within?  Even if I wanted to stay within myself, it can't be done even in a spiritual sense.  Add this to the fact that I've heard it said about entire teams  "THEY have to stay within themselves."  What? Is there a fear that a whole team is going to haul off and end up within an entirely different group of people?  Is the US soccer team going to suddenly end up within the Racine bus driver's union?

So, I'm left to assume that this phrase is something that not even the folks using it know the true meaning.  "It's something that I heard another sportsguy say, so I have to say it or I end up sounding like I'm less knowledgable than he is."  I just think that  it is an overused, trite cliche which, like all cliches is now devoid of any meaning other than being somethign that someone says when they don't know what else to say.  But still, overused trite cliches have at their root a nugget of meaning, however much it has been lost or bastardized over time.  So, what does "stay within yourself" mean or, more likely, try to mean?  And if someone doesn't "stay within themselves" what do they end up doing?  Who do they end up staying within?

Russia invades Georgia, a nascent democracy.  Gobs of civilians killed.  Russia thumbs its nose at negotiated cease-fires.  More and more it appears that Russia wants to crush Georgia and control the oil pipelines that run through it.

Where are the "Anti-War" groups?  Here's an interesting blog that researched that question.  The writer of the blog has more time than I do.  Where are the Hollywood lefties who screech about every move by the US military?  Jane Fonda? Barbra Streistand? Whoopi Goldberg? Rosie O'Donnell?  Martin Sheen?  Haven't heard a word from them. The groups that scream about "No Blood For Oil" haven't said anything when Russia invades for what is beginning to appear to be a quest to control major pipelines to Europe.  What about all of the pulpits in the liberal churches in this country?  A quick check of the denominational web sites reveals no mention of the Russian invasion of Georgia.  Are they only anti-war when the USA is involved?  Where are the peace group protests in front of Russian embassies world-wide?

Locally, where are those punks who vandalized the Army recruiting office on the east side?  Indeed, where are the college "peace protestors and activists"?  Not a word.

What's even more distressing is that not one reporter has apparently bothered to call up any of these folks and ask them "You have any comment on the Russian invasion of Georgia?"  You'd think that one reporter somewhere would get some gumption and look into the story of the stunning silence by so-called "Anti-War" groups as pertains to one of recent history's most egregious violations of national borders.

As some of you may know I'm a Disaster Relief Chaplain for Southern Baptist Disaster Relief.  (As I always add, I'm not a Southern Baptist.  You don't have to be part of the SBC to work with their disaster relief efforts.) 

Anyway, I recently received a "warning alert" to be available for the GOP convention in St. Paul this September 1-5.  "Are they expecting riots?" I asked.  The answer was sort of nebulous.  Apparently the American Red Cross, with whom the SBDR folks operate in conjunction, requested that we get ready just in case of trouble and also to deal with the huge numbers of people who will be there.  It is going to put a stress and strain on the local infrastructure.  I wouldn't be surprised if SBDR int he Colorado area has also activated their teams.

Just something that you don't consider when you think of political conventions.  And, yes, I will be available to respond to St. Paul.

Highway 76 does an old favorite of mine called "Big Spike Hammer"  Enjoy!

So my wife and I were watching the Brewers game last night, as we've become fairly avid Brewers fans.  Over the past few games I've noticed Craig Counsell has one of the most bizarre batting stances that I've ever seen. He looks like he's imitating a flamingo mating ritual.  Obviously there is a purpose to it or the batting coach would have worked him out of it.  So, what's going on there?  How does his batting stance work for him?  Does it cause him to delay his swing or does it shorten his swing?

Someone explain the mechanics.  It's one of them baseball mysteries.

Laying aside the Brett Favre hoopla--of which I have heard enough to make me sick of it---this Sunday Gilbert Brown is holding his Hall of Fame Race at Slinger Speedway.  It will be a match race against local TV and radio personalities. 

Any of the Fox6 folks brave enough to give it a try? How about you Brad "Adrenaline Junkie" Hicks?

From what I've heard Gilbert has been practicing at the track and turning in respectable lap times. 

I don't know where I heard this...but for some reason it is stuck in my head today:

"The only people who should use the "royal we" are editorial writers and people with worms."

I just spent time, wasted time, sitting on hold having some recorded voice tell me how much my call was important to them.  If it was so darned important, then why didn't they have a human being tell me that?  After I have labored through an automated call screening system in the quite vain hope that I might get directed to the proper person, can't the companies using these blasted systems at least have the common courtesy to have a human being pop in every now and then to see if there is some way to short-cut the waiting process?  Instead, I get an recording telling me that I'm important to the company.  Well, actually I'm not.

Here's an idea:  HIRE HUMANS!!!  How many of the goofballs that have bought these call screening systems have actually tried to work their way through the system?

Years ago I had the joy of trying to navigate my way through Gateway Computer's system to find the status of my daughter's laptop that had been sent in for a warrenty repair.  I actually ended up going around in a complete technological circle without ever encountering a human voice. I also never got the information that I was seeking and I was never able to leave a message to ask to have someone call me back.  I had to do some fairly hefty dectective work to discover a phone number for Gateway that didn't access the stupid system--or send me overseas to talk to someone who didn't speak English, at least no english that I'd ever heard before.  I finally sent a letter via registered and Express Mail to the VP of Quality Control for Gateway that detailed all of my angst trying to find out what had happened to my daughter's computer.  Ta-da!  A human being (imagine that!) called me back and gave me the information that I requested.  He then apologized all over the place for their worthless call screening system that had no exits whereby you'd talk to a human being.  He then offered to send me a check for $50 as a token of their apology. 

In the end, I hope that something good comes of it.