Andrew Sullivan

I must admit: Andrew Sullivan intrigues me. He is Roman Catholic, and he believes in the deity of Jesus Christ. He is a gay man who supports same-sex marriage. He also claims to be a conservative who actively supported George W. Bush in 2000, although his enthusiasm for Bush's policies have waned of late (to put it mildly). Sullivan's latest book is The Conservative Soul. After years of blogging on his own, he joined with Time magazine to create The Daily Dish.

Dr. R. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, recently conducted an interview with Sullivan on Mohler's radio program. The transcript can be found here. Mohler wrote an article about Sullivan just over a year ago, which you can read here.

Hugh Hewitt wrote a rather dismissive article about Sullivan, which you can read here. He begins with this sentence: "Andrew Sullivan may be the biggest wasted talent in all of the English speaking world." Hewitt also conducted a radio interview - albeit before Mohler - and you can read the transcript here.

Mark D. Roberts has a series entitled Andrew Sullivan, Hugh Hewitt, and Retrofitted Christianity.

the only perfect NFL team now

Come on. You know what team it is. I don't have to give a link, do I?

my wife would agree

Your Observation Skills Get A C+

You tend to notice the big things in life... But the details aren't exactly your forte

How Observant Are You?

it's a bird... it's a plane... it's SPACE CHIMP

Your Superhero Profile

Your Superhero Name is The Space Chimp Your Superpower is Nanotechnology Your Weakness is Flirting Your Weapon is Your Plasma Rusty Your Mode of Transportation is Sled

What's your Superhero Name?

lesson learned (?)

You know what? I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt on this whole thing. I'm going to trust that he's telling the truth when he says 'twas a "botched joke." I mean, he isn't the sort of man who can handle stand-up comedy - there are few who can. We knew he was fairly humorless because he proved that during the year 2004.

I'm not going to chide him for messing up his punchline. What I will chide him for is taking so long to finally address it. It took him 24 hours to apologize, something that should have been done immediately, or at least quickly. NBC's Brian Williams said last night that it was the 3rd day of coverage about his remarks.

(If you want to take the time to argue that Kerry's apology is actually a non-apology, fine. Whatever. Waste more time on this if you so desire. As for me, I just don't want to to think about it anymore. )

If Kerry had just made his apology right away instead of dragging his ketchup-covered feet, we would have all moved on by now. Instead, he plodded along and gave us an important life lesson: IF YOU MESS UP, APOLOGIZE FOR IT RIGHT AWAY. DON'T DILLY-DALLY.

You husbands know what I'm talking about...

Halloween 2006

I took the girls around this year. My older daughter, who for days didn't know what she was going to dress as, finally decided on Cinderella - the costume we bought for her at Downtown Disney last year still fit. The younger daughter dressed as a bumble-bee. Yes, they were both extremely cute.

We walked up a block or so and turned back down. Prolly about half the houses we passed had people passing out candy. I was able to meet a couple of our neighbors (for those of you who don't know, we moved into our house about a month ago), so that was very nice. One guy passed out huge candy bars, which excited my older daughter to no end. We saw more than a few "big kids" walking around with bags of candy - a couple of them thought it was too bothersome to dress up in some elaborate costume, so they decided to be "slacker teenager" and "delinquent minor."

The Wife stayed home to give out candy. We had 60+ kids come by. We were able to get rid of almost all our candy, which is a very good thing....

the TTLB, Frank, & me

True confessions time: I like looking at my blogging stats. I know, I know... it's a certain sign of vanity, to be mindful of which people are coming to the blog, who's linking to the blog, and so-on and so-forth. But --- I can't help myself.

Of all the stat-tracking sites, I like the TTLB ecosystem the best. I'm currently ranked as #2174, which puts me in the Adorable Little Rodent camp. Under the "Incoming Links" camp, I've received 5 links from Mark Daniels, 2 links from three folks (Mark Byron, Neumatikos, Right Truth), and just 1 link (on their blogroll, I assume) from 199 people.

Frank Turk, AKA Centuri0n whose blog is ...and his minister's a flame of fire, is currently ranked as #1716, putting him in the camp of Marauding Marsupial. Under his "Inbound Links" section, he has 200 links listed, meaning that 200 sites have linked to his. 37 of these sites have more than 1 link, meaning that not only is Frank on these sites' blogroll, he's also been linked within their postings. Under this section, I am #4 with 7 separate links - Blogdom of God has 16 links, Carla Rolfe has 8 (not a suprise, since she's one of his "sidekicks"), and the folks at Boars Head Tavern are tied with me at 7 (this seems on the surface to be a suprise, since Frank has had some skirmishes with the Tavern-ites, but it's not really). Pyromaniacs, a group blog to which Frank makes frequent contributions, is at #9 with only 5 links. Bizarre, no? I've linked to Frank 2 more times than his group blog...

BTW --- Frank is #1 under my "Outbounds Links" ranking, with Joe Carter (a Mortal Human) at #2 with 6 links.

Reformation Day Symposium

Challies conducted a symposium on Reformation Day (October 31), and he has numerous links to other people's sites where they've written on a Reformation-related topic.

To my family in Florida:

Are you voting for Katharine Harris for U.S. Senator? She's not doing very well, you know. She appears to be suffering from delusions, but we'll see how she does in a week.

She says she's writing a book, a supposed tell-all about the people who have "wronged" her.

2007 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominees

And the nominations go to:

R.E.M.
Van Halen
the Stooges
Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five
Joe Tex
Chic
Dave Clark Five
Patti Smith
the Ronettes

Which of these will make it in, and which will be left out in the cold? Does anyone even care anymore? The only ones worthy of induction are the fellas in R.E.M. (yes, even Bill Berry) and Patti Smith. Van Halen doesn't seem like they've been around long enough, and I'm not sure that their music has had as much impact on the music scene as other bands' (although Eddie's guitar skills are extraordinary).

Sorry, KISS - denied! Again! Maybe if you had kept your makeup on the whole time, instead of taking it off for a while, you'd be rocking Cleveland right now as well as Detroit.

Happy Halloween

Our pumpkins from 2005....

Haven't yet carved this year's duo so I don't know what they'll look like, but we'll see soon enough.

I'll be taking the girls around the neighborhood tonight, so The Wife is the lucky one to pass out candy to the kids. As I've said, The Cute One is going to be a bee, but the Sweet One still hasn't decided...

As a Christian, should I even be "celebrating" Halloween and taking my girls trick-or-treating? Isn't it "the Devil's holiday" or "the Devil's birthday?" While I don't subscribe to those particular notions (I don't think the Devil has any sort of holiday, much less one that involves tasty pie filling...), I think it is important to think "Christian-ly" about Halloween. Tim Challies has some nice thoughts about it here - he views Halloween as a way to reach out and connect with one's neighbors.

Christianity Today has more on Halloween.

Honestly....

I usually don't get caught up in the world of Hollywood with its who's-dating-whom, who's-adopting-whom, and who's-divorcing-now obsessions, but I do feel a bit sad about this.

SpitBox

A new community blog has come ---- the SpitBox.

It's run by Dustin, my nephew-in-law, and Los, so check it out.

7-0

Still perfect: Colts & Da Bears

How did the Seahawks and Bengals do??? Hmmm... maybe we shouldn't discuss it.

Happy Birthday to the Cute One

You're two years old now! You've only been with us for a short time, yet it's hard to think about life before you entered. It certainly wasn't as fun!

May you have many more!

Incidentally, this picture was taken on Halloween 2005. She's going to be a bee this year.

"It’s often a haunted house attraction dressed up with some kind of mental illness theme..."

This article on MSNBC explores the prevalance of psycho-killers - and other mentally ill persons - in the horror film genre. It mentions the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and the program StigmaBusters. The article also mentions one of my favorite "haunts" as an adolescent - Paramount's Kings Island.

This article in the Chicago Tribune has more about this very topic.

this is what I'm reading right now

I've already mentioned that I'm in the midst of reading John Eldredge's Wild at Heart. I read several reviews of the book before I start reading it, and I have to say that much of what the reviewers said was on point. I'll finish the book before I give it a final judgment, though.

I'm also reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals, now in paperbook form. If you haven't heard of the book (it's a #1 New York Times bestseller), it focuses on Abraham Lincoln and the men who helped him guide the country - the North, anyway - during the Civil War. This is the second time I have purchased the book. I bought it shortly after it was published, started reading it, took it on vacation, and lost it. I'm very excited to now have this book again, and I plan to keep a good watch on it.

I have to say, I love it whenever D.K. Goodwin comes on the TV screen. I know she's had issues with plagiarism in her past works, but that hasn't stopped me from reading what she's written. I don't know why, but I'm intrigued by her voice and her face. She's not particularly attractive, but she certainly isn't unpleasant-looking. She just seems so very knowledgable. If she ever does a book-signing in my area and I hear of it, you can bet I'll be there.

this is where I am right now

I know, I know... some of you are looking at the title of this post and thinking, "oh, man, Brownie's gonna commit one of the more deadly blogging sins - talking to us about where he is and what he's doing... like we even care." Some of you may be even ready to push that "Next blog" button near the top of your screen, but of course you're likely to arrive at a blog in which the writer focuses solely on what (s)he had to eat for the day. So, you might as well stay here for the moment.

WHAT I'M THINKING ABOUT RIGHT NOW:
Are you tired of all the political ads you've seen, and you're so ready for the first Tuesday in November to come and go? I certainly am. Almost every other ad on TV is for two specific races: Marion County prosecutor (which engulfs the Indianapolis area) and the 9th congressional district of Indiana. Republican Carl Brizzi, the current county prosecutor, is running a campaign of "experience" against his Democratic opponent Melina Kennedy, who hasn't prosecuted a single criminal but she wants the job anyway. "Millionaire" - and Republican incumbent - Mike Sodrel is running to keep his seat in the House, hoping to keep Democrat Baron Hill from taking back the seat he held for three terms.

Brizzi's ads initially focused on the work he did as prosecutor. He has obtained a 57% conviction rate, which equals the national average. So, Brizzi is doing as well as most other county prosecutors are doing. More recently, though, Brizzi ads have been "warm and fuzzy," featuring his wife and children - and what appears to be a dream kitchen - with him as he talks about his desire to protect others. Kennedy's ads seem to say that it doesn't matter whether she has experience or not, it only matters that Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson wants her to have the job, too.

Sodrel won his seat two years ago by taking it from the incumbent, Democrat Baron Hill. Sodrel's ads paint Hill as some type of flaming liberal, apparently voting to have abortions paid for with tax dollars and to put a violent video game into every child's home. Hill believes that being a millionaire is a big negative for Sodrel, and that a "change" is warranted, even though that "change" involves voting in a guy who already had the job for six years and was turned out in 2004.

So tiring...

WHERE MY BODY IS RIGHT NOW:
We are staying with the in-law's in Danville, Illlinois, for the weekend. The Cute One's second birthday is in a few days, but we'll be celebrating it with The Wife's family tomorrow evening. We'll return home Sunday afternoon.

WHAT I ATE TODAY:
1 tall Java Chip Frappuccino from Starbucks
1 chocolate cream cheese muffin from Starbucks
Several pretzel sticks
Several Colby cheese cubes
1/2 turtle cheesecake from Fazoli's (from Thursday night's dinner)
Several glasses of Classsic Coca-Cola
1 Whopper Jr. from Burger King
Two chicken nuggets from Burger King
2 homemade soft tacos, made by The Mother-in-law
2 oatmeal rasin cookies and a brownie

"Politics is easy. God is challenging."

David Kuo, author of Tempting Faith, has a Q&A session with folks contacting the Washington Post. Kuo is currently a contributing editor to Beliefnet.

Here is a sample question with Kuo's response:

Washington, D.C.: Unlike many of Bush's opponents, I believe his professions of faith are genuine, and that religion is a central part of his life. But I also believe that if he were to spell out his beliefs in detail -- something he's always avoided -- many of his admirers would be shocked to discover that he's far less socially conservative than they've allowed themselves to imagine. Can you offer any insight as to whether I'm right or wrong on this?

David Kuo: Great question and one that I cannot ultimately answer. His faith is obviously real and so is his deep personal compassion for other people who are hurting. But his religious image is so tightly controlled for the evangelical market it is amazing - information about his daily devotional reading (or even that he does it) is used to help reassure Christians that he is one of them. That is just kind of weird.

He isn't alone in using his faith, however, look at recent comments by John Kerry about the increasing importance of his faith. It is as if this idea has reached maturity that if you want to be President of the United States you must also be pastor-in-chief.

the politics of the [End Times]

Jason Robertson, one of the fellas at the Fide-O blog and a self-proclaimed amillennialist, discusses premillenarian politics. He gives "ridiculous" quotes from, among other people, Jerry Falwell and Tim LaHaye.