Superbowl is for Sissies IV

Posted: February 3, 2013 in Uncategorized
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Salaries for Team Members of San Francisco 49ers:

Alex Smith $9,500,000
2 Justin Smith $8,208,333
3 Vernon Davis $8,017,667
4 Patrick Willis $6,537,000
5 Dashon Goldson $6,212,000
6 Frank Gore $6,000,000
7 Carlos Rogers $5,500,000
8 Michael Crabtree $5,359,000
9 Isaac Sopoaga $4,955,000
10 Anthony Davis $4,413,667
11 Donte Whitner $4,383,333
12 Ray McDonald $4,050,000
13 Jonathan Goodwin $3,716,667
14 David Akers $3,566,667
15 Aldon Smith $3,269,091
16 Mike Iupati $2,958,863
17 Ahmad Brooks $2,850,000
18 Mario Manningham $2,550,000
19 Randy Moss $2,500,000
20 Joe Staley $2,000,000
21 Andy Lee $1,963,000
22 Delanie Walker $1,905,000
23 Tarell Brown $1,804,187
24 Brandon Jacobs $1,575,000
25 Ted Ginn Jr. $1,375,000
26 A.J. Jenkins $1,263,188
27 Larry Grant $1,260,000
28 Colin Kaepernick $1,164,610
29 Brian Jennings $1,096,000
30 C.J. Spillman $1,083,333
31 Clark Haggans $1,000,000
32 Leonard Davis $950,000
33 Alex Boone $930,000
34 Navorro Bowman $665,562
35 Ricky Jean Francois $625,750
36 Chris Culliver $613,750
37 LaMichael James $603,250
38 Kendall Hunter $558,750
39 Tramaine Brock $540,000
40 Tavares Gooden $540,000
41 Darcel McBath $540,000
42 Anthony Dixon $510,000
43 Kyle Williams $509,837
44 Daniel Kilgore $505,075
45 Joe Looney $496,301
46 Bruce Miller $480,613
47 Scott Tolzien $469,166
48 Eric Bakhtiari $465,000
49 Perrish Cox $465,000
50 Demarcus Dobbs $465,000
51 Will Tukuafu $465,000
52 Ian Williams $465,000
53 Trenton Robinson $417,625
54 Garrett Celek $390,000

Salaries for Team Members of the Baltimore Ravens:

Haloti Ngata $10,400,000
2 Ed Reed $9,571,428
3 Joe Flacco $8,000,000
4 Anquan Boldin $7,531,250
5 Ray Lewis $5,600,000
6 Ray Rice $5,000,000
7 Vonta Leach $4,333,333
8 Marshal Yanda $3,650,000
9 Bryant McKinnie $3,200,000
10 Lardarius Webb $2,615,000
11 Sam Koch $2,200,000
12 Michael Oher $2,035,000
13 Bernard Pollard $1,950,000
14 Dannell Ellerbe $1,927,000
15 Cary Williams $1,927,000
16 Jameel McClain $1,900,000
17 Jimmy Smith $1,695,672
18 Matt Birk $1,625,000
19 Jacoby Jones $1,600,000
20 Bobbie Williams $1,325,000
21 Corey Graham $1,300,000
22 Brendon Ayanbadejo $1,058,333
23 Courtney Upshaw $963,000
24 Sean Considine $890,000
25 Paul Kruger $865,000
26 Billy Bajema $825,000
27 Ma’ake Kemoeatu $825,000
28 Terrence Cody $820,000
29 Torrey Smith $770,224
30 Ed Dickson $760,833
31 James Ihedigbo $700,000
32 Dennis Pitta $663,667
33 Kelechi Osemele $608,340
34 Jah Reid $605,810
35 Arthur Jones $584,500
36 Tandon Doss $568,140
37 Morgan Cox $540,000
38 Bernard Pierce $528,986
39 Ramon Harewood $514,723
40 Gino Gradkowski $511,000
41 Chykie Brown $501,140
42 Pernell McPhee $501,140
43 Tyrod Taylor $491,327
44 Christian Thompson $465,146
45 Anthony Allen $465,000
46 Sergio Kindle $465,000
47 Albert McClellan $465,000
48 Asa Jackson $426,140
49 DeAngelo Tyson $401,898
50 Bryan Hall $390,000
51 Deonte Thompson $390,000
52 Justin Tucker $390,000
53 LaQuan Williams $390,000

Superbowl is for Sissies III

Posted: February 3, 2013 in Uncategorized
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For some reason sporting events, including college events and national professional events, have become events that showcase the military. I’m glad we thank our men and women who serve in military service. But that isn’t the only profession that contributes to the common good. Perhaps it is because sporting events symbolize the conflict of oppositions. I don’t know. But I vote for Doctors without Borders for next Superbowl.

I just recently attended a University of Missouri basketball game in which new National Guard recruits were commissioned on the basketball floor right before the game began. Why? I’m glad they were. But why there and then? Next game I vote for all those new graduates who have a agreed to do a three year term in the Peace Corps.

Give us the sports. Let’s honor our folks in military another time. They are not the same nor do they automatically belong together.

Superbowl is for Sissies II

Posted: February 3, 2013 in Uncategorized
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What used to be a sporting event is now an entertainment event. Television did it. We craft everything around television. The athlete, the fan, the sport is secondary. Get in line after number 1: The networks that are making a killing, right after the snack and beverage industry.

You are entertaining us to death.

No thank you.

Superbowl is for Sissies

Posted: February 3, 2013 in Uncategorized
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Part I: The patriotic opening that used to be a collective expression of a whole people, i.e., the singing of the national anthem, has turned into a performance opportunity for a soloist or group: an expression of the entertainment culture. We passively receive the performer’s offering. Well, done. You really sing good, thanks. Pass the popcorn. Hell of song, let me tell you.

And They Used to Just Jog

Posted: February 1, 2013 in Uncategorized
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Trapped in a van that transported our little conference group to an attraction, I found myself sandwiched between two ardent runners. As I am not an ardent runner I found it interesting to listen to the lingo of those who are, the insiders.

In addition to the regular running and rank and file marathons here, there and everywhere, a new breed has risen from the pavement: Specialty Runs.

These creative competitions include mud runs, the locations and times of which you can see hand painted on sign boards by the side of the road. Enterprising mud run organizations move about the country locating mud running sites. They water them down and create mud pits and water hazards. You run around the track until you’ve just had too much fun and have to hose off and go home.

A much simpler, dryer version is the obstacle course run. These are for the ex-marines or those who always fantasized about being a super hero. They run like horses or monkeys, leaping or climbing, showing the world not only how fast they are but how strong. These people like to dress in camo. Yes Sir.

The folks who didn’t play enough dodge ball in elementary school all line up for he so-called color runs. You wear clothing you don’t give a damn about and let people shoot paint balls at you. There’s the color – on you. The more color the less you dodged or dodged well. Nimble people arrive at the finish line looking bland, like tofu. The slow and clumsy look like an artist’s palette.

Another specialty run involves the stairwells of tall buildings. After the designated building is chosen the competitors see how many times they can run up and down the stairs in a certain amount of time. They choose to do this even though the building is not on fire or falling down. I haven’t run stairs since Jr. High Basketball practices.

My favorite, hands down, is the zombie run. Along the running course zombies randomly appear out of nowhere. They are UG-LY. You dodge and evade the slow-moving menaces. As I understand it you get to choose if you want to be a runner or a zombie. Give and give alike is the guiding motto. I suppose the zombie run is a spin off the Walking Dead. Now that’s a morning jog, even without the crossbows.

By the end of our van ride I was grinning like a cat watching goldfish in a bowl. How could I be so lucky as to hear all about the exploits of these obsessed runners and all the peculiar things they do for pleasure without having to take a single step myself, to live vicariously through their stories of mud and stairs and zombies? Now that’s good. If I make myself I’ll make the important decision to walk all the way out to the driveway to get the paper. But don’t worry – I’m not overdoing it because my runner friends are doing it for me. Unless, of course, a zombie pokes his head out of the neighbor’s hedge. That’s different. I might be run then, but not for exercise, mind you. I just don’t like those critters. And if I overdo I might end up looking just like them. So I might run faster if one really shows up. Otherwise probably not.

“Stop the van!” Was it a mud run locale? A tall building with just the right stairwell? Obstacles or paint balls? A staggering zombie in our path? No, much more important than that: one of the last Krispy Kreams known to man. I bolt past the runners like an Olympian. I was fast, really fast.

From the Ridiculous to the Absurd

Posted: January 31, 2013 in Uncategorized
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The Second Amendment secures certain rights, but not absolutely so. The right to bear arms is one of those. It arose in a time when citizens defended themselves in militias and able bodied men kept their weapons in their homes. They would also assure that they were armed against occupying external forces. That was a remarkably different time than our own. What that cannot mean in our own time is that private citizens are armed like law enforcement or our military. That degree of armament should be governed for the sake of the entire citizenry.

Does this mean that people shouldn’t have their hunting rifles and shotguns, handguns for personal protection? Of course it doesn’t mean that. But friends, as a friend, please lock ’em up if you have them. I’m amazed I didn’t kill someone in the home of my childhood. I played with loaded firearms scattered around our house. I understand now why more fatalities occur as the result of unmonitored firearms in homes – accidents involving children and domestic violence – than out on the streets. The beast is inside the front door, not outside on the porch.

And … your second amendment rights are not more important than the life of my child, or my life, or of my neighbor’s life. It’s a right, but not an absolute one. It’s a freedom, but not an absolute freedom. Like everything else it has limits.

Universal background checks are not unreasonable, but a sign of sanity. Screen out, as far as is possible, those who shouldn’t have access. Will that keep the guns out of all the hands of the crazies and criminals? No it won’t. But it is the right, reasonable, and sane policy for a civilized society. It will discourage and screen out and that’s good enough. We have to be licensed to operate a vehicle on our public roads. Why should the standard be any less for gun ownership?

If guns were the solution to all the violence problems we’re experiencing right now we would have already solved them by now. With 300 million weapons distributed broadly across the nation we haven’t found a way forward yet. Arming every teacher and student in our schools isn’t going to do it. Rather, that kind of approach will destabilize even more. It’s just common sense.

It’s ridiculous to believe that high power assault style weapons and their accompanying accessories should be available to ordinary citizens. The carnage they can inflict is immense. You don’t need them to hunt or for common protection. The only purpose for weapons like that is to mount a siege against either law enforcement or the military. Preparing for anarchy is not the way forward. Get serious.

This is, of course, highly politicized. Rank and file citizens – gun owners or not – are much more moderate about all these issues. They should speak up and decry the fringe positions at the extremities.

Now a special word to my good friends who belong to the NRA, because I have some and you are reading this: There is a difference between the explicit objectives of your organization – gun safety, sportsmanship – and the political agenda of the board of directors of the NRA. They don’t represent you well. I suspect it’s time for you, as members, to speak to your own board. After all, you are the ones paying the dues and allowing them to do what they do. Just take a minute to consider who sits on that board. They are the CEOs of the gun industry. They have a vested interest – economically – in selling their product. They want to remove as many barriers to making profit as is possible. So whatever else the NRA ostensibly says about its mission, the primary focus is lobbying congress. They do it for their financial interest – not yours, the law-abiding citizen gun owner, or the public at large. They will create every argument possible to make the most money and do. They are using you. If I were an NRA member I would start talking about that. I would expect them to cease and desist fostering extreme positions that are so out of step with the typical citizen or sportsman. And then I would probably take my shotgun and go home and redirect my money elsewhere. Suspend your judgement for a minute and take a close look for yourself.

This is not the wild west; it has become worse. The answers that worked before are not working now. As we regain just a modicum of sanity we will need to think about this differently. The golden mean is never easy to achieve, but it is called golden for a reason. Time to find it.

Of Presidents and Their Legacies

Posted: January 30, 2013 in Uncategorized
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It is a season of presidential biographies for me. I’m not reading them in chronological order. As a matter of fact they are lining up in the opposite order. First there was Kennedy. I’ve just finished Ike. And now I’ve cracked the cover of a new FDR. But speaking of Ike …

Evan Thomas has written a laudable book on president Eisenhower, one based on direct interviews as well as secondary print sources, and its title is Ike’s Bluff (Little, Brown and Co, 2012) You discover why it was so named as you read.

Ike was swept into office following his triumph as the supreme allied commander in the second world war. If you might characterize his leadership style the word restraint comes to mind. He had just experienced the horrors of war and those impressions left him full of resolve – to avoid war if at all possible. He was neither lured into large or small conflicts. And yet it was precisely his willingness to engage in the most horrific option, nuclear war, that may have insured the peace with the rise of the cold war. In a time when the United States had the only viable nuclear armament program that was a position that could be taken. It would change, as he and others would discover, with the proliferation of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems. Mutual suicide would be the result and war, nuclear war, would become the new enemy. But until that time Ike never tipped his cards – to anyone – as to whether he would use the extreme option. It is possible that only he could lead with such a bluff, never tipping his cards or divulging that he would never do so. It was Ike’s bluff. In the same way that only Nixon could go to China, so only Ike could fend off the Soviets – who knew his prowess from their own recent experience. He almost acted as his own secretary of defense.

Simultaneously he discouraged small brush fire war involvements. Go the distance, use massive force if you must. But don’t get mired in intractable no-exit wars. As a result neither small nor large conflicts became the way for his military advisers – some of whom were wanting to do both.  The presidents who immediately followed him – JFK and LBJ – did not escape the pressure Ike resisted and fell instead into the pit of Vietnam.

In public, Ike communicated a calm, controlled, grandfatherly security that was right for the time. His health was terrible and a life-long struggle. And he played more golf than one can imagine. It was a different time and leaders governed differently.

You could say that his second term ended with a whimper and perhaps it did. Certainly he ran out of strength and and lost the determination to contain the “military-industrial” complex that was a wicked stew. As one very close to the Pentagon, arms industry and congress he knew how the dance went. He had always challenged military excess and unnecessary weaponry. He knew how his peers inflated risks and asked for more than was necessary. And he directly challenged, in terms of nuclear capability, how much is enough. How many times do you need to obliterate your enemy, to shake the rubble one more time? But he grew weary like we all do. A new wave of leadership was on the way with the charismatic John Kennedy.

Future presidents consulted with Ike after he left office, especially about his specialty – war and peace. One of those bittersweet moments was when JFK came to Ike after the botched Bay of Pigs, an episode masterminded and pushed by the CIA. Jack Kennedy confessed that he had screwed it up royally. What could he have done differently? Ike asked him one question: Did you have all the players – military, intelligence, political – in the same room at the same time and ask them the right questions in front of one another, or instead speak with them privately, one-on-one? Of course, the answer was apparent. Kennedy had been duped by the CIA absent other input. But that’s all Eisenhower said. He did so because he knew the system so well and was duly suspicious.

That’s what made him a very good president at exactly that time. Each epoch of history requires leadership with its own courage and wisdom. Leaders often fail in rising to that occasion. But Ike did his best and we were probably better for it.

On the Way and Back Again

Posted: January 27, 2013 in Uncategorized
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I recently traveled to the West Coast for a conference. The airports provided locales for unexpected conversations both going and coming. You never know what you’ll find out unless you listen.

On the way I indulged in one of my pure luxuries – a shoe shine. I seldom polish my shoes or polish them well. When I have a layover and some extra cash I contribute to the local economy. While the zapatas were receiving some luster I talked to the shoe shine guy. He had just been to the hospital to visit his mother and in fact missed several days of work because of it. There’s hadn’t been very many customers so he was glad I stopped by. I asked about his mom. She is aged and her health fragile. He didn’t know if she could pull out of this one. Somehow we started talking about our fathers, too. And in both our households the fathers were spiritual leaders of the outside things and the mothers of the inside matters of heart. As I’m paying I ask for his mother’s name. It’s Anne, he says. Ok, she’s on my list, say I. And so she is. Anne.

On the way back I have an even longer layover because flights had been cancelled due to weather. Somewhere in my five hour wait I decide to eat so I choose from the array of restaurants. Mexican wins and I order the fish tacos. I always rate the fish tacos wherever I go. Some are good and some are better. These weren’t so good as fish tacos go, but clearly edible. My server is Cheryl. I know because I asked her name. She reached out her hand and shook mine, asking for my name. Tim, thank you. That made it official. She asks what I did for a living. Well, you know, a pastor. Oh, a pastor, she says, thank God for you guys. You matter. In fact she goes right on, my mom just died of cancer and I took her home from Phoenix to Chicago to die, to be near family and the burying grounds. I was there at the last, there for the mystery of her last breath. What a holy moment, I say, and she nods. She says that because there’s not a whole lot to help children understand death she’s going do try to write some children’s books to help that. I say God is probably calling her to this mission and don’t give up on it. Cheryl is crying and other wait staff think maybe I insulted her or something. No, it’s fine, she says. I’m just teary eyed.

And I coasted on home, but where is that, really? Home is wherever people have a conversation about matters of the heart. God shows up with shoes and tacos, moms and kids. Just watch and wait. It will find you. And you don’t have to be in an airport on a layover. Any old place will do.

Finding Your Voice

Posted: January 25, 2013 in Uncategorized
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GenGood friend, Genevieve Howard, has a wonderful blog called Light To Grow In. Take a look at her reflections. You may want to subscribe to receive a weekly post.

She recently interviewed me about the art of speaking and then blogged about it. You may find it interesting:

3.000 Sermons Later: A Pastor Talks About Speaking

Legacy in the Flesh

Posted: January 17, 2013 in Uncategorized
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MLK III

Martin Luther King III

The 20th annual Columbia Values Diversity Celebration was held this morning, a schedule change from the typical Martin Luther King, Jr. day. This year’s gathering included a knock-down community gospel choir with narratives from the life of Dr. King. In addition, and as a real treat, the eldest son of Dr. King, Martin Luther King III, was the speaker. In my mind, the fact that he is neither the luminary nor orator his father was is quite beside the point. Really, who could be? Rather, he functions as a kind of walking symbol, the carrier of his parents’ legacy.

As he recast some of the vision of his father we were reminded that though we have made headway on issues of race, there is always room for growth. Poverty and all it cousins, on the other hand, is just as dire as ever. Issues of war and peace continue to plague us. And our culture of violence has continued to gather its feverish steam. Mix in lots and lots of guns into a culture of violence like ours and you have a formula for disaster.

It pleased me that the organizational diversity award was given to Job Point, a group that focuses on locating meaningful work for persons with disabilities. Our recognition of and inclusion of vast diversity in our society must include race, religion, class … but also the way we view and include those with disabilities. Such battles are slow to come and even slower to win. But with legislation like the Americans with Disabilities Act and even smaller scale efforts like our own All God’s Children, progress is made – one small step at a time.

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