The Songs We Fill Our Heads With

It's almost 10 pm. I have to be at church at 6:30 am to play piano at the 7, 9 and 11 am masses, and I'm blogging for the 2nd time tonight. Why am I doing this? Well, because I have a thought stuck in my head...brought up by a friend at prayer group 2 Fridays ago. Why is it that most of the songs that we listened to, and loved, when were kids have a really screwed up message, if you really listen to the lyrics? What did we fill our heads with as kids?

Today I listen to mostly Christian music or talk radio (sports or conservative). My kids listen almost solely to Christian radio, and I'm thankful for that.

One song in particular has had me vexed (yes, I said vexed) for the past couple of days. When I was in high school, I loved the Crash Test Dummies. One song in particular that I enjoyed was "God Shuffled His Feet". You can listen to the song and watch the video at this YouTube link. I can take 2 possible meanings from this song:

1) Earthly concerns are silly and God, as portrayed in this video, is trying to demonstrate this, by not answering the questions that the people ask, and instead telling them a parable that, sadly, they don't understand. For example, they ask questions like "If you're eye, got poked out in this life, will it be waiting up in heaven with your wife?" God responds by shuffling his feet, glancing around and then telling a parable about a boy with blue hair. If I run with this interpretation of the song, God is saying, things of this earth are not important in heaven, so don't be concerned with earthly things.

2) This option is more cynical. One could take from this song that God is some distant being that is just messing with us, like we're here for his entertainment. Given the video, that is likely what the songwriter or video producer wanted me to take away as the meaning.

Where I get really off is the Crash Test Dummies have another song called, "How Does a Duck Know", and in this song, they seem to marvel at the fact that "everything seems planned out, everything seems so nicely planned out." Someone had to do the planning. When I was a kid, I assumed these guys were men of faith because of these 2 songs. I might be wrong with this assumption, but I think I can still choose number 1 as my takeaway. I was talking with Nuke about this on Friday, and he pointed me to 1 Thessalonians 5:21, "Test everything. Hold on to the good."

So, I'm going to choose to take option 1 as the meaning I get from this song that I loved so much as a kid. Even if the Crash Test Dummies meant option 2, I believe that I can choose to take the good message from it and throw away the rest. I'm also going to stick to my Christian music going forward...at least I'm pretty sure I know what message it is trying to convey.

Have We Gone Too Far?

All week long I've been hearing about the enhanced passenger screening techniques that are now being employed at airports. In about 70 airports there are full body scanners that produce a nearly naked image of the person being scanned. The TSA is also employing full body pat downs more frequently. We are being told, from the President on down, that these enhanced screening measures are necessary to keep airline passengers safe, and these methods are the only means effective against preventing another Christmas Day Bomber.

I'm really not sure how I feel about this. I know I don't want to undergo a body scan or receive a pat down. But I also want air travel to be safe. What I'm struggling with is how much of our lifestyle do we let the terrorists affect? They have definitely made air travel less convenient, and some people are skipping it completely. So from that standpoint, the terrorists have won a small victory, and with each additional security measure that inconveniences Americans, the victory gets a little bigger.

What I really think we need is common sense here. This is going to be controversial, but I really believe TSA agents should be allowed to profile. It's not the 80 year old grandmothers we need to worry about. We handcuff our security agents with our current policies. I realize this is wholly unfair to entire groups of people, and I feel bad about that, but a reasonable person should understand.

I'm really on the fence on this one. I think we have gone too far in some areas, while I believe we haven't gone far enough in others. I guess for now, I'm going drive my car whenever I can. It's gotten to the point with me that air travel is not nearly convenient enough to put up with the hassle. Whenever I can, I prefer to drive, simply because I have control over when I leave and when I get where I want to be. I will still fly for business when I need to, and suck it up as I go through the enhanced security screenings. That seems to be the reality of where we are in 2010.

A Plea for Comments...and Good BBQ

Last week, Nuke did a blog on a "Nobody Reads My Blog" T-shirt, and he got several comments of encouragement. I told him today that I was going to write a blog fishing for comments, just like him, since I've gotten only 1 comment in my last 9 blogs, and it's generally Nuke who comments lately (but not in a stalker sort of way).

Just kidding Nuke...that blog was great. And actually, I've really been struggling with this because I started this blog as a man/nerd diary, but I did hope people would read it and it would prompt them to think, or at least laugh at my wacko thoughts. The lack of comments lately has really bummed me out because I've been really feeling inspired to blog lately, and I have come up with some topics that I think are interesting. Ok...maybe the problem is that my interests are way out there, but I acknowledge that now.

So, I was thinking, what can I write to get people to comment? I even told Nuke I was going to simply post "Please Comment on my Blog if you still read it" but I decided against that. Instead, I decided that I would perform a community service, and hopefully get some comments as well. Anyway, here goes!

I love good Barbecue, and I love a good Barbecue sauce. My favorite sauce is Famous Dave's Rich and Sassy. It's sweet, spicy and smokey. Rich and Sassy is everything you want a Barbecue sauce to be! I eat it on ribs, pork chops and pulled pork to name three. I can't imagine a better barbecue sauce.

But, I am willing to try others! So, if you have a personal favorite BBQ sauce, please post a comment letting me know what your favorite sauce is. Personal recipes are welcome as well. With any luck, all 4 of my readers will post and we'll have 5 good BBQ sauce options. Thanks for taking the time to read my random ramblings...I'll try to keep them random.

Reilly Nails It!

I am so torn on Rick Reilly. Sometimes he drives me absolutely crazy, and other times he writes columns like this one on the Mike Shanahan/Donovan McNabb controversy in Washington. Reilly writes this column using that rare commodity these days, common sense, and I find myself wanting to like his stuff again.

For those not aware, a couple weeks ago, new Washington Redskins coach Mike Shanahan, benched Quarterback Donovan McNabb with 2 minutes to go and inserted Rex Grossman. Grossman screwed up and Washington lost the game. Shanahan initially said Grossman knew the 2 minute offense better, and then later said that he felt McNabb's conditioning wasn't good enough to run the 2 minute offense. Basically, Shanahan screwed up because everybody knows Donovan McNabb is a better Quarterback than Rex Grossman, but Shanahan couldn't admit it...he has a hard time admitting he's wrong, as do most type A personalities.

What caused this situation to blow up is the fact that Donovan McNabb is African American. Yes, it's all coming back now isn't it? This is the same Donovan McNabb that Rush Limbaugh commented on several years back. Rush was summarily fired from ESPN for causing controversy...which is ironically why ESPN hired him in the first place. Anyway, as the race card seems to follow McNabb everywhere he goes, several prominent liberal hippy sports writers started calling Mike Shanahan a racist. Most notably, John Feinstein, who Rick Reilly so eloquently destroys in his column.

(Author's Note: I've read a lot of John Feinstein's work, and he's a very good writer, however, he tends to let his leftward leaning politics sneak into his writing a little too often. That's just my opinion, which I give here on this blog, in case you haven't noticed.)

See, Rick Reilly gets it and John Feinstein does not. Not everything that happens, good or bad, between black and white people involves racism. Sometimes one guy is just stupid and makes a mistake, which happens to wrong the other guy. If it was the white guy who screwed up and wronged the black guy, does that automatically make him racist? No! Absolutely not! Use some common sense here!

John Feinstein should stick to writing about sports and Rick Reilly should keep writing great stuff like this.

A Rare Victory

This blog is probably going to get me in trouble with all my friends who are University of Iowa fans, but I'll just have to deal with the consequences. Today, the South Dakota State Jackrabbits (my Alma mater), beat the Iowa Hawkeyes in men's basketball, 79-69. It's just the 2nd win all time for the Jacks against a Big Ten School...they are now 2-27 against the Big Ten. So, I will revel in this one a bit.

I think I've blogged before that the Jackrabbits men's basketball team has really struggled since moving to Division 1 in 2004. I was encouraged by what I saw today. I know the Iowa team is down this year, so the win isn't as shocking as some might think. Still, the Jackrabbits played tough, fell behind in the 2nd half, then regrouped and won the game. They've lost a lot of games these past several seasons, so to shake that off and win a game against a major conference opponent is a big deal.

Oh, and don't worry Iowa fans, you get your chance for revenge when Iowa women's basketball team travels to Brookings to play the Jackrabbits later this year.