What Comes Around Goes Around…

A little less than a year ago, Rick Warren was taking some heat from evangelical pundits and conservative talking heads.  You see, he had put on this AIDS awareness conference at his church and invited Barack Obama to speak.  This had them completely and totally up in arms; they were just utterly beside themselves with flabbergastment (That isn’t a word?  Tough.  It is now.) over the fact that Rick Warren would open up his pulpit to one so blatantly evil and immoral as Barack Obama.  It seems they were just a little bit miffed over the fact that Barack Obama is a pro-choice Democrat.

Well, it seems that Barack Obama is now finding out what it was like to be Rick Warren back in December 2006.

Donnie McClurkin is an African-American gospel singer who is opposed to abortion and homosexuality.  In 2004 he campaigned for George W. Bush, but this time around he has decided that he wants to campaign for Obama.  So he has signed on to participate in this gospel tour of South Carolina that Obama is putting on.

But when liberal bloggers got wind of this little bit of news–surprise surprise!!!!!  Their reaction was every bit as vitriolic as that of the conservative pundits who slammed Rick Warren for inviting Obama to speak at his AIDS conference.  You can go over here and read for yourself some of the things that they had to say about Obama.  And some of these are real doozies, so prepare yourself.

After reading all of these and seeing the venom that liberals can bring against one of their own who dares to reach out across political lines, I don’t feel quite so bad about being a conservative evangelical.  Imagine that.

Shame on you, liberal bloggers!!!!!  You’re just as bad as we are when it comes to denouncing one of our own who dares to associate with those who think and believe differently.

There is no way to unify this country if people on both sides refuse to be in the same space as those with whom they disagree. It is fine to disagree and be vocal about your disagreement, but you absolutely can’t make progress without even talking to each other. Both sides need to stop being intolerant and threatened by those who are different from them. We need more Rick Warrens on the conservative side and Barack Obamas on the progressive side.

Amen to that.

Liberal bloggers, I’ll tell you just like I told those conservative pundits who ripped Rick Warren for inviting Obama to speak at his AIDS conference:  Get over it.

OH SNAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was sitting here at my computer working on some stuff for school.  I had promised that I would not watch the Florida game today because I wanted to give Georgia the best possible chance of winning, and so I was attempting to keep myself as distracted with other things as possible.

And then I felt it.  I noticed that my feet were starting to feel a little cold.  At first I had assumed that this was due to the cold weather tonight and the fact that I had been sitting in one place for a little too long.  But then I reached down and felt the ground, and noticed that it felt unusually cold to the touch.  Surely it was not that cold outside.

So I clicked over to ESPN.com and found the answer.  Hell was freezing over; Georgia had beaten Florida.

Florida has beaten Georgia so often (15 of the last 17 years prior to today) that anytime Georgia wins it elicits a collective gasp and cry of “OH SNAP!!!!!!!!!!!” from the entire country.  As a matter of fact, the last time Georgia beat Florida they fired the coach–a full week in advance because they could see it coming.

I will enjoy this while it lasts, and long for the day when a win over Florida no longer elicits a collective gasp and cry of “OH SNAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!” from the rest of the country.

Please Beat Florida…PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today there will be no scathing diatribe against some aspect of evangelical Protestant-dom that is not to my fancy.  No paean to Queen Gorgo and 300.  No deconstruction of crazy things that people can do in Speedo bathing suits.  No speculative rumormongering about football coaches on the hot seat.  No ruminations about classes, tests, projects, the pleasures of insomnia and the rush that you get from running around like a freerange chicken with its head cut off trying to get classwork done on time, the thrills of attempting to negotiate one’s way around the street preachers who occasionally show up on campus to berate the students for all manner of sins real and imagined, or other facets of my life as a second-time-around college student.

No, today there will be nothing like that.

Just a simple appeal.

An appeal to any Georgia football player or coach who may find a little bit of free time amid the mad rush of pregame preparations today (perhaps on the bus ride to the practice facility or to the stadium) to bust out the old laptop and go bopping around the blogosphere and happen to wind up in this little neck of it.

As a former Redcoat I am well aware of the craziness and zaniness of pregame preparations, especially in Jacksonville.  I saw a different side of it, to be sure, but I know all about getting up bright and early in the morning and getting moving several hours before kickoff, dress rehearsals, final run-throughs, that bus ride to the stadium on game day, grabbing a bite to eat for lunch whenever you get the chance, and all the other facts of pregame life.  I get that whatever time (if any) you may have for bopping around the blogosphere today is drastically limited.  So I will just cut right to the chase.

Please beat Florida today.

PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Beautiful

How beautiful…the sight of desperately needed rain descending upon the Atlanta area.

Florida-Georgia Reflections: The Cold One

There is a small blessing in mediocrity, and it is this:  When a team like then-No. 5 Michigan drops its home opener to Appalachian State, or then-No. 1 LSU goes up to Lexington and chokes, or then-No. 2 Southern Cal gets knocked off by Oregon State, it elicits a collective gasp and cry of “OH, SNAP!!!!!” from the entire country.  But when Georgia goes up to Nashville and barely escapes with the win, hardly anyone outside of the Bulldog Nation so much as bats an eyelash.

Well, at least we were off this week.  No Big Orange smackdown, no harrowing escape from the Music City, just a chance to relax and watch the insanity that is the 2007 college football season from the role of bemused observer.

That hasn’t been the case the week before the Florida game.  Not for a long time.  The last time that happened, George Bush (the elder) was still the president.  Ray Goof was still the coach at Georgia.  80s music was still somewhat popular as a current phenomenon, not a retro fad.  And who was Britney Spears?  Who was Bill Clinton?

That’s right, folks.  The year was 1991.  The score was 45-13 Florida, and that is looking an awful lot like a reasonable prediction for this year’s game as well.

With it now being the week before Florida-Georgia, I thought that I would crank up the time machine and offer a reflection about some Florida-Georgia weekend past, and with the scheduling being what it is, I thought that 1991 would be a good place to start.

The Bulldog Tooth Bonus Feature: Coaches on the Hot Seat (2007 Edition)

Well folks, it’s about that time of year again, right about the time that the grand old coaching carousel starts to crank up again.  Round and round the coaches go, where they stop nobody knows…

And it seems that the coaching carousel is cranking up earlier than ever these days.  It used to be that coaching changes would take place during the offseason; usually during the first month or two after the end of the regular season.  But Florida started the ball rolling in this direction back in 2004 when they fired Ron Zook midseason in order to preempt the competition in the Urban Meyer sweepstakes.  It worked for them; Notre Dame moved quickly once they realized what was happening.  They brought a massive PR nightmare upon themselves for breaking their time-honored tradition of letting coaches stay through the end of their first contract at least, and especially for doing this to their first ever black coach, but that didn’t stop them from firing Ty Willingham.  Everyone knows that they did it to clear the decks for Urban Meyer.  They then made a ginormous offer to Urban Meyer, but Florida was a step ahead of them at every stage in the process and Urban Meyer wound up as the head coach at Florida.

Now all sorts of rumors are swirling at Nebraska, Arkansas, Michigan, and other such places.  The rumors at Nebraska especially have heated up with the firing of AD Steve Pederson (remember folks, you heard it first right here on the Bulldog Tooth!!!) and there is intense speculation that Bill Callahan and others will not survive the season.  We shall see.

So then, let’s bust out the trusty old bulldog tooth and see what it has to say about who’s staying, who’s going, and who’s doing other things that I would prefer not to mention on this blog.

My First Bulletin Board!

Take a look at this, people.  I can design a bulletin board!!!

(You know the drill.  If you want to see a larger version, just click on the picture.)

I am taking a class in preschool curriculum this semester.  As part of that class, I had to spend 35 hours observing and helping out in a real live pre-K classroom, and teach a real live lesson along the way.  The theme during the time I was there was apples, and my lesson dealt with foods which come from apples and the stages of growth of an apple tree.  The bulletin board was part of the lesson, and it dealt with foods that are made from apples.

Well, We Won…

Well, we won.

By a field goal.

On the last play of the game.

Against…

…VANDERBILT?????

The win was such a momentous occasion that Georgia players rushed to the middle of the field and celebrated with all their might, as if they had just qualified for the BCS title game.

The celebration so upset coach Mark Richt because it happened right on top of the opposing team’s logo and it looked to all the world as if the Georgia players were trying to rub it in, that he dropped what he was doing, rushed out to the center of the field to break it up, then apologized profusely to the opposing team’s coach during their postgame handshake.

The celebration was triggered by a win over…

…VANDERBILT?????

By Any Means Necessary: Amy Welborn on the Evangelical Circus

Let me recommend to your attention this piece by Amy Welborn, one of the finest Catholic bloggers out there, as she takes a look at the crazy circus world of evangelical Protestant-dom from a uniquely Catholic perspective.

Read it, people.  No comment by me is necessary.

The Bulldog Tooth Bonus Feature: A Look at Some Games All Involving Teams Better Than Georgia

Well, after that stinker in Knoxville last week it is safe to say that the prospects for the remainder of Georgia’s season are unrelentingly bleak.  Florida beats Georgia every year, and no one has really been able to stop Tim Tebow for very long.  Auburn beats Georgia every other year, if not more often.  Vanderbilt and Kentucky are itching to make it two in a row over Georgia, and Kentucky is actually a very dangerous team this year.  Ouch.

I could go crazy with depression if I continue to focus my attention on Georgia’s prospects for the remainder of the season.  I don’t want that, and I don’t want to subject you to that.  So let us now turn our attention in other, more positive directions.