Let Me Get This Straight

Alex Rodriguez injected a substance into his body twice a month in six month cycles for three years thinking that it was an "energy booster."

Note to self: try taking morning coffee intravenously.

Alex Rodriguez describes his three year affair with the substance as the stupid escapades of a "young" and "naive" ballplayer, even though he was 24, 25, and 26 when he took it, had played five full seasons beforehand, and had already played in three All-Star games.

Note to self: you're 32 with an advanced degree and four years into a career. Stop being so stupid.

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[Mara] Einstein and the Theory of [religious] Relativity

iTunes search for "Douglas Rushkoff" produces this CUNY podcast of a forum featuring our search subject and Mara Einstein, who is hocking her book Brands of Faith. She is cogent and unafraid to disagree with such a sage as Rushkoff. I'm interested.

Order the book. Begin reading. Find this:

". . . religion is a commodity product. The majority of religions offer same end benefit for the consumer (salvation, peace of mind, etc.). Though packaged differently, fundamentally they are the same product, no different than buying one shampoo versus another."

What am I into here?

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A Year with the Institutes, Day 37

". . . until human reason is subjected to the obedience of faith and learns to cultivate that quiet to which the sanctification of the seventh day invites us, it grumbles, as if such proceedings were foreign to God's power" (1.4.2).

Reason::faith::quiet

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Three Cheers for Doubt

I can't locate the article online, but February's Los Angeles Times Magazine has a wonderful little essay by the playwright John Patrick Shanley(Doubt). Here's someone who gives voice to my relationship to the world as a kid:

I was not exactly part of my time . . . I picked up what people around me were feeling. I heard what they said, but I did not participate. When people got worked up and started heading in some direction, I watched and walked along beside them, feeling their feelings, maybe even sharing them. But at bottom, they were not my feelings.

And in adulthood:

I was never a true believer. Not in the Catholic Church, not in Woodstock, not in the Vietnam War. I just couldn't get caught up in the whirlwind.

This is something other than skepticism, an orientation I have often been accused of possessing. Skepticism is grounded in a refusal to believe, an intractable resistance to getting caught up in the whirlwind, to use Shanley's phrase. This is inability, not refusal. Boy, do I get that.

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Biden: America Will Do More, but America Will Ask More Too

Say what you will about Biden's rough-and-ready demeanor behind a mic: cowboy this aint. Good news, that.

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Just What the World Needs

More amateur films made on laptops with cheesy effects and sloppy editing. It is the parchment of our age. Enjoy. And happy birthday, ma!

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Windell's Super Bowl Ad (That Never Was)

I bragged to everyone I know about this spot before the game, and it never actually ran. But here it is for your viewing enjoyment.

The schtick is that these are several attempts at one-second ads. My personal favorites: "Tito's here!" I choose to believe that's a reference to the legend that was Jeremy "Tito" Steinmetz who ruled Sterling College from 1995-'99. And "Back Bacon!" I choose to believe that's a reference to . . . back bacon.

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