May 2006

I noticed the latest book by Mario Batali, a Food TV chef and all around Iron Chef America kick-ass, is geared toward the NASCAR demographic. I dunno, but it seems to me that you won’t impress that crowd dressed like an effete Italian chef. Wearing a cap with the NASCAR logo will not keep bud drinking, tobacco chewing, red neck NASCAR fans from noticing your yellow socks and orange fucking clogs.

Last week was beautiful. Stunning aquamarine blue skies, temperatures in the low 70s. A breathtaking Northwest spring. I didn’t wear a sweater all week.

This week, on the other hand, has been cold and rainy. It started out with a bang. Sunday’s thunderstorms put on an aggressive light show that lasted most of the night. While the intensity has been tapering off, each day has seen rain and cooler temperatures.

Talk about your bait and switch tactics.

Not only are the Clippers in the NBA playoffs, they’ve made it to round two! This is astonishing because for me the Clippers have always been that other team in LA, the one in the smaller, slightly worn around the edges, Sports Arena. The team that was always near the bottom of the standings year to year, despite spurts of brilliance that invariably sputtered in the second half of the season.

It seemed wrong somehow that they would eclipse and surpass their better heeled and more cosmopolitan brothers, the Lakers, but as I think on it now, perhaps it’s meant to be. Perhaps it really is their time. A reward for years of toil near the bottom of the barrel. At first I was a bit agast, like an English lord confronted with the uppity help, but I’m okay with it now. I can even entertain the thought, if briefly, of the Clippers going all the way. Deep down, I really don’t think that will happen, but it would be cool if it did.

As for the Lakers, well, I’ve been a lifelong fan since the Chamberlain / West days and I will remain so. Nevertheless, I can make a place in my heart for the other LA team taking their shot at glory. Despite the current state of my team, the Lakers have been great in the past and I know they will be great again in the future, but for now, it’s okay by me that they’ve stepped aside and let the Clippers stand in the light for a while.

There’s a lot of stink in the air over the facts behind The Da Vinci Code. I heard Hugh Hewitt on the radio the other day, talking to some scholar who took the time to debunk all of the ‘facts’ and the conclusions in the book. Many a Catholic bishop are getting their vespers in a wad over the book, calling it “shameful and unfounded” and *gasp* “blasphemous”. Dan even got himself sued by the authors of a supposed non-fiction book that put forth the same theory about Christ that Dan uses as a plot device in the novel.

Before I read the book, I saw a Nightline segment on it. This was almost a year ago, now. I remember yelling at Stone Philips (no I didn’t expect him to tell me to keep it down) that it was just a story, fer crying out loud!

Now that I’ve read it, I still feel that way. Certainly, the book raises some very interesting questions about the divinity of Christ and what he did or didn’t do with a certain hot foot washer at the well one warm afternoon. But, the thing that I keep coming back to is this: Does it really matter one bit whether Jesus made an honest woman of Mary? Is it such a crisis to have questions raised about the basis of your faith? It seems to me that there should be more such questions. There should be a little bit of doubt to make devoted christians really think about the foundations of their faith and not just take it on, well, faith.

Of course, it’s easy for me to make statements like these. I’m not a religious person, never have been, but if your religion and your faith in that religion can’t stand up to someone trying to poke holes in it, I would respectfully suggest you take a step back and think about things a bit more.

At the end of the day, the book is fiction, an interesting and entertaining peek into a what if question. If you look for anything more than that, you’re wasting your time. Christianity has been around for two thousand years. At this point, I really don’t think it matters anymore whether Jesus shupted Mary.

The abject poverty and hellishness of life in the third world is not the fault of the people who live there. It is the fault of their governments.