A hypocrite looks in the mirror

An actual conversation late yesterday afternoon:

Me: I know you're a huge Husker fan T, but I'd had enough by the 3rd quarter and shut off the game. I was so ticked off.

T: Me too. I can't believe the way they played against Oklahoma State...and another thing...

(5 minutes of mindless trashing of coaches and staff by two "fans" who obviously think they know a thing or two about coaching major college football)

Me: I'm not even going to watch the Missouri game on ABC this Saturday. I vowed to ignore the rest of the season and enjoy other things during my weekends.

T: So have I! In fact I'm selling my tickets to the NU/Missouri game and not going because I'm so disgusted.

<sounds of birds chirping…autumn wind blowing through the leaves...somewhere a happy child is laughing>

Me: Sooooooooooooooo.....how much you asking for those tickets?

Be careful who you gesture to

Good grief. Remind me to keep my gestures to myself. We should anyhow out of courtesy, but now add the threat of crossbow-wielding-drunken-nutjobs to the list of reasons why. "The receiving end of an obscene gesture." I can understand being upset if on the receiving end of a punch to the face...but an obscene gesture? Methinks the man too sensitive. A sensitive crossbow-wielding-drunken-nutjob. Sobs all over himself and then comes out bows-a-blazin'.

LITTLE ROCK - A man who allegedly shot a crossbow at a motorist after being on the receiving end of an obscene gesture has been charged with committing a terroristic act.

Wayne Allen Dierks, Jr. 26, was arrested Sunday and is also charged with possession of an instrument of crime, driving while intoxicated and driving with a suspended driver's license.

The incident began when a motorist cut in front of Dierks' sport utility vehicle. Steve Gilgenbach, the motorist, said that Dierks then began pursuing him in his SUV, yelling and cursing at him and then fired the crossbow, shattering Gilgenbach's rear window.

"It sounds funny to tell it, but it wasn't so funny after I found out it will cost $400 to replace the window," Gilgenbach told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for a Tuesday story.

'It was a drive-by crossbow shooting," said Gilgenbach.

[snip]

Gilgenbach said he called authorities and followed Dierks until the police arrived. But Dierks pulled into a parking lot and "aimed the crossbow at me again," he said.

After Dierks' arrest, officers found a crossbow with a scope, four crossbow bolts and a cooler containing 11 unopened beers and one opened can. Dierks registered 0.12 on a blood-alcohol test, above the legal limit of 0.08.

Aerosol Art & Bratz Girls

As Frederica Mathewes-Green points out in her review of the movie Open Season, beauty is a virtue in our world today that is often overlooked, scorned, scoffed at or worse...ignored. We take it for granted. We sweep it out of our lives in the hustle and bustle. The noise of the world overpowers the gentle and serene. And we are the worse because of it. I wonder sometimes if the crassness hasn't contributed to the violence we see in our schools, now more than ever it seems. Mathewes-Green touches upon this:

There’s an innate human craving to identify an “other” whom you can hate with a full, free, undivided hatred. But till recently children’s entertainment did not feed that urge. In fact older stories, like Kidnapped or The Count of Monte Cristo, used examples of unjust treatment to show a hero responding with mercy and renouncing revenge. Does it really prepare our children for a global culture when today’s stories instead celebrate self-righteous glee and violent revenge?

I talked this over later with Hannah’s mom, and she brought up one of her own pet peeves: Bratz dolls. These are plastic gals who have huge cartoon-goldfish lips. They wear torso-hugging, midriff-baring clothes, enormous platform shoes, and a sly expression. They’re for girls 4 to 7 years old. When Hannah first saw them she said, “Why would anybody want a doll that’s ugly?”

Megan said, “There’s something creepy about the popularity of these dolls. Shouldn’t little girls want things that are beautiful? Why do they reject beauty and wholesomeness at such a young age?”

Indeed. Why do they? Probably because it's all they see presented to them by the adults in their lives...or at least Madison Avenue marketeers. As someone who will be having his first daughter this coming February, the whole other half of the Toys R Us store scares me. I took a peek into those formerly ignored aisles last week and what I saw there concerned me greatly. Having two boys I've never had to look. I did look and now see the uphill battle that is before us. And yes, I saw a bevy of Bratz Girls. Ugh.

Facing The Giants is but one example of a movie made by people with a vision for the lesser beauties found in everyday life. But despite the economics of fact (something that is NOT ignored in Hollywood) showing that moral family movies outdraw violent sex-filled ones by almost 7-to-1 at the box office, they still insist on shoving that crap down our throats.

Another example of someone pushing back against the grain is Paco Rosic. In Waterloo, Iowa, this young Bosnian immigrant and "graffiti artist" has been spending months creating a beauty in the middle of the country. He is recreating the Sistine Chapel using Krylon spray paint. I've been to Waterloo. I may need to go back. You can visit Paco's extensive website and see more of this amazing work he calls "aerosol art".

Paco Rosic, a young Bosnian immigrant and graffiti artist, has spent the past four months producing a detailed replica of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel in the small city of Waterloo, Iowa. Arching his back, he paints over his head just as Michelangelo did. But instead of working with a paintbrush like the great master, Mr. Rosic used 5,000 cans of Krylon spray paint, a favourite weapon of graffiti artists. He calls it the Sistine Chapel de Paco.

“For me, this was my dream, I wanted to do it,” he says, his voice echoing in the vast space below his creation. He got the idea at age six when his mother showed him a picture of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.

“When I saw this piece, I wanted to know how it felt. When I was painting, it felt like I met [Michelangelo].”

[snip]

“This is our Field of Dreams. It will bring people here,” said Scott W. Smith, an Iowa producer who made a film about Paco’s creation earlier this year. “Many people can’t go to the Vatican; most people can’t go to the Vatican.”

The ceiling will serve as the centrepiece of Galeria de Paco and Coffee Shop. Mr. Rosic’s parents, Jacky and Anna, will run the kitchen. There will also be a jazz club and a studio.

The Bosnian-born Mr. Rosic spent the first 12 years of his life near Sarajevo. The family left the war-ravaged country for Germany in 1992, where Mr. Rosic became a hip-hop dancer and graffiti artist. They resettled in Iowa in 1997.

Pilgrammage to Galeria de Paco, anyone?

Appropriate Punishment?

Remember this idiot?

A Fayette County T-ball coach was sent directly to prison Thursday for offering one of his players $25 to intentionally hit an autistic teammate with a ball during a pre-game warm-up last year.

Fayette County Judge Ralph Warman sentenced Mark Downs Jr. to serve one to six years in a state prison and banned him from supervising any youth sports teams when he is paroled.

Downs was taken to the Fayette County Prison, where he will await assignment to a state correctional facility.

Jurors found Downs guilty last month of corruption of minors and conspiracy to commit simple assault for a June 27, 2005, incident in which a player said the coach offered him cash to throw a ball at Harry Bowers Jr. during warm-ups for a play-off game so that Harry would be unable to play.

At the time, the child with autism was 9, the other child was 8. Mark Downs is a husband and father to four children, including twin girls who played on the team.

Warman could have sentenced Downs to a maximum of five to 10 years for the pair of first-degree misdemeanors. The judge called Downs' acts "extremely outrageous and extremely reprehensible."

During the trial, Keith testified that Downs told him to "try hitting him harder in the face" after an initial practice toss bounced off the ground and hit Harry in the groin. Keith said his next throw smacked Harry "straight in the ear."

The president of the Autism Society of Pittsburgh said a prison term is appropriate for a coach who showed a "win-at-all-costs" attitude.

Win-at-all-costs? I'm about to say something that will likely get me pilloried, but isn't this prison sentence a bit extreme? Do NOT get me wrong. If this is true than the guy is a complete slimeball and should be punished. But he had a good reputation as a coach prior to this incident. And how in the world does his serving one to six years in prison for solve this? I think this is too much. I'd much rather he be forced to serve time working with autistic kids or something, but prison? I don't agree. While his acts were outrageous and reprehensible, I agree with the sentiments of Daniel Torisky, president of the Autism Society of Pittsburgh:

"More appropriate would be for him to be subjected to the same pain and embarrassment that he arranged to be given to this autistic boy."

Now this would be more appropriate in my mind. And as a coach and father myself I'd be the first guy in line with a couple of baseballs, awaiting the judge's order to proceed with the punishment. Put Mr. Down's head in my strikezone...but first I need to bounce one or two off his groin. Just until I'm warmed up, and you wouldn't have to give me $25 either.

For Wayne

While in the process of closing an old email account I've had on Yahoo since 1998, I came across the following email that I had saved. It was dated Oct. 18, 1999, and is a copy of one I had written to my friend Wayne's email account...less than a week after he had been killed.

Wayne was an example of the kind of man I can only hope to be. We had become fast friends while I worked in a national organization's office here in Nebraska for which he served on the board of directors while residing in Ohio. We had travelled to various seminars and conferences together across the country, and while he was 20 years my senior you'd have never known it. A consumate Cleveland sports fan, he also loved his Ohio State Buckeyes. On one Monday after he'd spent the weekend in town at a BOD meeting I arrived at my desk that morning to find a neatly folded OSU football t-shirt on my keyboard. I joked that it would make a great waxing rag for my car and promptly had a Nebraska Cornhuskers red winter stocking cap delivered to him for "those cold Ohio winters that come after yet another disappointed Buckeye season". After Wayne's death I wore that shirt to honor him until it became so threadbare it fell apart. And as Wayne could tell you...I hate Ohio State. And the metallic Cleveland Browns Christmas tree ornament that Jane and Brenda gave to me the next year is, to this day, a permanent fixture on our tree.

He was flying in for a few days before leaving for Australia for a two week competition for which he was the American national team's coach. He was excited and I'd never known him to be so happy. He had emailed me the day before with his flight information and I was so excited to surprise him with my Cornhusker gifts I went the following day to meet his flight. He never stepped off. He never would. I was to learn that while driving home on the busy Cleveland expressway his van had been clipped in the right rear bumper by a young girl in a sportscar...driving too fast and talking on her cell phone...and with no insurance. In one of those freak things that happens, it was enough to cause his rear axel to snap and his van careened out of control, flipping over several times and killing him. He left behind a loving wife, a son and daughter from his first marriage, a step-daughter, and more friends than many. Two years after his death, his son had a son named Zachary Wayne in his grandfather's honor.

And so tonight while cleaning out an old inbox I take a trip back seven years...almost to the date...when grief hit me hard. It was not the first time and certainly wasn't the last. I miss him terribly to this day, yet thinking of him never ceases to bring a smile to my face while a tear wells up in my eye. My wife and 3.5 year old son came home that night to find me sitting alone in the dark on our patio, rocking back in forth in a patio chair and weeping fiercely. Nolan seemed to understand instantly that daddy was sad, and said nothing while just holding my hand as we both looked up at the stars and the moon in the sky...looking for Wayne.

October 18, 1999

Dear Wayne,

I awaited your arrival last Friday at the airport here in Lincoln as was disappointed when you didn't step off the plane. I was wearing the Ohio State t-shirt you gave me last year under my Husker sweatshirt of course, and holding a gift for you to read on your flight to Australia, the new book by Tom Osborne - Faith in the Game.

The clerk told me you were not on the flight and it showed the reservation had been cancelled. I drove home to call Jane and check to be sure all was okay, figuring maybe you'd decided to forego the trip because of the long flight to Australia soon pending.

I was so unprepared for what she told me. She told me you wouldn't be coming... You'd have been so proud of her Wayne. Where I should have been lifting her up in her time of need, she lifted me up. Such strength!

Wayne, I'll never forget you. Whenever I see an Indians or a Buckeyes score, or especially one from your Beloved Browns, my thoughts will turn to you and I'll smile. Of course, those won't be the only things that turn my thoughts to you and what you meant to all of us...

Godspeed Wayne. Save me a seat next to you in Heaven where we can watch an Indians-Red Sox game and enjoy peanuts and each other's company. That's a day I'll be looking forward to!

I love you Wayne and I'll miss you.

Why Am I Catholic? - Video

This is a very cool video put together by Michael and Katerina. The story behind why they created it can be found here, and you can download an 18MB version or a 40MB version as well. I think it would be cool for RCIA classes, etc. Give a look.

We made this video/slideshow for a Confirmation Retreat earlier this year to accompany a "Why am I Catholic?" talk. The slideshow gives six reasons for being Catholic: 1) the Eucharist, 2) the Church, 3) the Sacraments, 4) Mary, 5) Marriage (actual and spiritual), and 6) Communion of Saints.

The video is filled with images and quotes from saints, popes, and theologians associated with each point. This can be a good resource for talks, RCIA, youth groups, adult study groups and more! The song for the video is "Jesus Christ You are my Life," the theme song from the 2005 World Youth Day.

Hail Holy Queen

With this being October, it is the month when Catholics are exhorted to especially try to pray the rosary, which St. Pio of Pietrelcina called “the strongest weapon against the evils of the world. Bookmark Fr. Z as he is using the month of October to work his way through the Mysteries of the Rosary, offering insights from the Fathers of the Church and others. (Hat tip: Amy)

If you’ve gotten away from it, or had trouble praying the rosary - sustaining the images from the Gospels for the 15-20 minutes it takes to do the five decades - this is a good time to renew your acquaintance with this beautiful prayer. I’ve personally burned “hot and cold” with the rosary - sometimes it is contemplative prayer to which I feel called, other times it makes me restless - but I am going to try to pray it daily in October. For my money, you do better if you don’t skip the Apostle’s Creed at the beginning. There is a wonderful meditation in that prayer alone and it gives you the springboard you need to get through the mysteries.

There are good instructions, here and some nice artwork for mediation, here. Download the rosary for your computer, here.

Pretty In Pink

According to modern science, and the ultrasound held last Thursday, it will indeed be a little girl that is added to our family around Valentine's Day.

I am at once thrilled, and suddenly grayer at the temples, upon hearing the news. :-)