Headline Washington Times: Bush coaxes Frist to take third floor vote on Bolton

James Lileks relates a conversation with his daughter about a thunderstorm raging around their house.

“What if the power goes out? I hope the power doesn’t go out.”

“Don’t worry — I have flashlights and radios and a backup stove.”

“But the internet could go out.”

Oh, bless you. “Yes, it could, but it’ll be back. We don’t need it all the time,” I said, lying.

I’ve known people who have gone weeks (literal seven day weeks of twenty-four hour days) without an internet connection due to ISP or computer problems. Somehow they have survived, so I know it is possible to get by for short periods of time without connectivity. They didn’t even look pale or have the shakes. Somehow they covered up their suffering quite well.

Could I do the same? Sure! I’m not addicted to the internet. I could give it up any time I desire. I just don’t desire to give it up right now.

The Telegraph has been working overtime on researching this breaking story. Congratulations to them for this major exclusive.

Headline Telegraph: French women DO get fat

At Friday’s game, one of our girls hit the ball up the third base line. The girl playing third (we will call her Utah) fielded it cleanly, turned around, stepped on third, and did a little dance. “I got an out, didn’t I?” she asked her coach.

“Well,” he told her, “you did a good job fielding the ball, but there wasn’t anyone on base. So you didn’t get anyone out. You should have thrown the ball to first base.”

Utah was stunned. “How was I supposed to know that?” she asked.

“We keep yelling, ‘The play’s at first!’” he told her. “That’s what it means. You should throw the ball to first base.”

“Oh. Sorry!”

Shortly after that, one of our girls hit a popup to third, and Utah caught it. It’s unusual for anyone to catch anything at this level, so she did a good job. But then, she jumped on third and did a little dance. She looked at her coach and asked, “Did I make a double play?”

“Nice catch, Utah,” he told her. “But you didn’t make a double play. There wasn’t anyone on third.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

It was fun to watch Utah. She played with great enthusiasm and some skill. But she was a little unclear on the rules.

Q.37. What benefits do believers receive from Christ when they die?

A. When believers die, their souls are made perfectly holy and immediately pass into glory. Their bodies, which are still united to Christ, rest in the grave until the resurrection.

I have been to several funerals recently, and in all of them the pastor has made a statement about how the body that is here in the casket is not the person we knew. It is just the place where the person we knew lived, and they have now gone on to a new and better residence.

These were funerals for Christians but the statement that the body is just a shell that the real person lived in is not a Christian idea. This is based on a Greek idea that the physical world is evil and the spiritual world is the real world. This idea was “Christianized” in Gnosticism (from the Greek word gnosis - knowledge) and teaches that our highest goal is to be freed from our physical bodies.

But the Christian concept of a person is that we are both a body and a soul. One of the tragedies of death is that it separates the body and the soul. We are not complete as a human without a body. If we are complete without a body, why will God resurrect our bodies at the end of time? Why will there be a resurrection? There is a resurrection because the body is part of who we are, and we are made by God to be both body and soul. Thus, the catechism tells us that the body, though resting in the grave, is still in Christ and is awaiting the ressurection and the reuniting with the soul. Our salvation is not complete without the resurrection. The body must be resurrected to make us complete in glory.

1 Corinthians 15:51-57

⁵¹ Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, ⁵² in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. ⁵³ For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. ⁵⁴ When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
⁵⁵“O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”

⁵⁶ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. ⁵⁷ But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

I always carry a mobile phone for work. I don’t get a lot of calls on it, but this weekend was an exception. I got numerous calls. The first call was at the second ball game of last night. (Thankfully they didn’t call when I was on the mound for the coach pitch game. “Sorry, I can’t talk. I’m working on a no-hitter.”)

Toward the end of the other game, I got a call about a task that needed to be done Friday night. While I was talking, my daughter was batting. She’s in a fast pitch league where the pitchers really get a lot on the ball. This pitcher drilled my daughter right in the head. So my conversation went something like this: “It will take me about fifteen minutes to get home and check on that…. Oh, no. My daughter just took a pitch to her face.”

It was a scary moment. She was hurt bad enough that she had to come out of the game. But it turns out that the ball hit her helmet and deflected down into her face. She has a fat lip, but no loose teeth or other damage. (Thank God for His mercies. It could have been very bad had it been a direct hit on her face.)

I stuck around for a little while longer and found that my daughter was shaken up and in some pain, but she was going to be okay. But I ended up having to go home to take care of the work issue. I left with confidence that the game was well in hand. My daughter’s team was up by three. As the home team at the top of the last inning, all they had to do was get three outs and the game would be over. They got the first two batters to strike out, and I had to leave. Just get the last out and it will end the game.

It turns out I missed a rather dramatic end of the game. After I left with two outs, the other team loaded the bases and then got an inside the park grand-slam that put them up by one run. They finally got the third out, and in the bottom of the inning, my daughter’s team scored two runs to win the game. All that excitement happened with me at home and my daughter on the bench with an ice pack on her lip.

Today I got a couple more phone calls. Some of them required me to do a little work. But my favorite call of the day came as I was up in the oak tree in our front yard, trimming limbs. The electric, phone and cable lines all run through that tree. Every year I trim the branches back so there is nothing touching the lines to the house. I was up in the tree, trimming away, when the work mobile phone starts to ring in my pocket. I juggle the saw and pruning shears, and manage to answer it just before it rolls to voice mail. We’re talking, and the caller asks, “Are you not at home? I hear cars in the background.”

“No,” I told him. “I’m at home. I’m just in a tree in my front yard trimming limbs…. Whoops!”

I had been trying to keep hold of the shears and saw while holding the phone. But I lost hold of the saw and dropped it; hence the “Whoops!”

When he called back later for some follow up issues, the caller told me he hated to interrupt my day again. “Last time I called, I thought I almost made you fall out of the tree.”

I explained to him that the “Whoops” was for the saw I had just dropped and wasn’t due to me falling out of the tree.

I almost told him that dropping a saw is no big deal. Even the blind man picked up his hammer and saw. But I refrained.

So my work phone calls this weekend involved bean balls and falling saws. Maybe the next time they call I should let the voice mail pick up.

Take me out to the ball game

I was the starting pitcher again last night at the coach pitch game. I didn’t have my best stuff, so some of the girls were hitting me pretty well. But there were a few of them who just can’t seem to hit me, and that killed any rallies. The girls only scored a couple runs off of me. The girls from the other team were really beating up on their coach. They racked up over twenty runs in the six innings. I’d hate to have his ERA.

There was something very wrong about the field last night. It’s a little thing, and it surprises me how much it bothered me. But it really was disconcerting. Home plate didn’t line up with the pitcher’s mound and second base. The flat part of the plate should be perpendicular with a line from home, through the pitcher’s mound, and on to second base. But the perpendicular from home ran about ten feet to the left of pitcher’s mound (when standing on the mound facing the plate). And to make it worse, the batter’s boxes were drawn to align with home plate, and so they were crooked also. When standing there preparing to pitch, I felt like I should move over ten feet, but then the first base and third base lines would be wrong. It was a very strange feeling. I don’t think it effected my pitching much, but that field just didn’t feel right.

Headline Pittsburgh Tribune Review: Detour ahead: VFD hits the road to test response times

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The terrorist who cried, “Wolf!”

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