In the news and other musings

Brittney Spears has managed to do what no one thought possible: make Kevin Federline look like a responsible adult.

Several key figures in the baseball doping scandal, including Roger Clemmens, have been "invited" to testify before Henry Waxman's House Oversight Committee. Interestingly, Waxman insists that everyone appearing before his committee give their testimony under oath, opening them to charges of perjury if they don't tell the truth.
I don't see this as a positive development. It looks like grandstanding by Waxman, a guy well known for enjoying the TV cameras. More importantly, this is the wrong venue in which to deal with the problem. Congress has a big job, and it isn't overseeing professional sports. As disturbing as the baseball situation is, the country has more pressing issues for Congress to attack. Furthermore, baseball needs to deal with baseball. I have very little confidence in the commissioner's office, but if the investigations and resolutions don't come from baseball's leaders the problems will never be fully resolved. Waxman's committee doesn't have any enforcement powers, can't set new policies and procedures and won't be around to measure compliance six months from now.
A much better course is for the press to continue to press, for Mike Wallace and others to dog these guys, to do some real investigative reporting - not just of the players but of the owners and the commish's office. Make this the sports news story of 2008. I think Selig and the owners would be forced to deal with the issues and the player's union would be out-leveraged.
IMHO

For me, presidential politics is like basketball, or maybe hockey. The season is so long that I don't pay very close attention until we get to the playoffs. I think they started in Iowa last night.

It was 71 degrees here today so I decided to do a longer bike ride than I would otherwise. And it brought back to mind a nagging question. The computer on my bike gives me several pieces of data, among them: current speed, elapsed time, miles ridden and average speed. These are all udated constantly as I ride.
I can think of two ways to figure my average speed. One is to divide the elapsed time by the miles ridden. Another is to use an increment - say,2 seconds - and keep a running average of the speed of all those increments. Which do you suppose the computer uses? Would the results be any different? Does it make any difference?
Hey, you've got plenty of time to think about this kind of stuff when you're out in the middle of nowhere pedaling your little heart out.

I spent some time this morning studying the next section of the Genesis narrative on Abraham. In one of my commentaries the author quotes from a poem. He prefaces his quote by saying that it was also quoted by King George VI in an speech to the English citizens during a particularly bleak period in the early days of WWII. I thought it was great, and especially appropriate for this time of year. So allow me to be the next person to quote this poem by M. Louise Haskins:

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
"Give me a light, that I may tread safely into the unknown!"
And he replied: "Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way."
So I went forth, and finding the hand of God, trod gladly into the night.
And he led me toward the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.

Pam and I talked about it, and I asked my mom in a phone conversation yesterday, but the three of us aren't certain. Dad certainly knows but he was out of the house at a dr. appointment when I called.
To the best of our recollection the date was Jan. 3, 1971. If I have the date wrong, my memory of the events is very vivid. I was home from college for Christmas break and sleeping in the same room as my younger brother, a H.S. senior at the time. Dad came into the room to wake us up and tell us that our sister Kathy and her husband Don were overdue on their flight from his childhood home in Wisconsin back to their place in Holland, Michigan. A strong winter storm had unexpectedly swooped up Lake Michigan, and the assumption was that their single-engine Cessna had gone down in that storm. The hope was that they'd gone down in the Upper Peninsula, where their chances of survival, while slim, would provide something to hang on to. If they went down over the lake the outcome was certain.
The Civil Air Patrol spent almost a week searching for them once the storm had passed, but no sign of them or their plane was ever found.
Kathy was two years older than me. At the time of their death she was 5 months pregnant with their first child. Don was the youth pastor at a church in Holland, MI but he had been called to be the pastor of a church in southern Illinois, and packing for that move was to begin when they returned.
I will never forget the events of the next few weeks. Our family of six was now a family of five. Don was as good as they get, and because they lived 20 miles from the college the two of them looked after Kathy's geeky and immature younger brother with a compassion that was very welcome. After services in Seattle I returned to what seemed like an especially lonely campus.

Parents are supposed to die before their children, and this break from that rule was especially difficult for my folks. I lost a sister, they lost a child. As I watched them grieve I learned at close quarters what it means to live out the truth that, no matter what comes into the life of God's children, and no matter how painful it is, the Christian can have confidence that he does all things well, and gives grace to help in time of need.

If you had asked any of us on December 31 of 1970 what the new year would bring, none of us would have imagined that it would deliver a grief beyond words, a sadness that still lingers. But M. Louise Haskins had it right. We put our hand into the hand of God and walk ahead. Don and Kathy - and their unborn child - finished their walk and reached the breaking of the day.
I'm really looking forward to seeing them again! We just have a little further left to walk.