Today’s news bring us some juicy morsels to chew on and digest, although sometimes you just want to spit them out. Just be careful not to get the juice on your shirt–it stains!
- From the Reading Between The Lines Department: CNN is reporting that Dr. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family (HQ: Colorado Springs, CO) has problems with potential Presidential candidate former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tennessee) (who plays DA Arthur Branch on NBC’s Law and Order). What problems, you ask? Well, according to Dobson, “I don’t think he’s a Christian.” After it was clarified that Thompson is a member of the Church of Christ. But that wasn’t good enough for Dobson. One of his spokescritters is quoted as saying, “We were pleased to learn from his spokesperson that Sen. Thompson professes to be a believer. Thompson hasn’t clearly communicated his religious faith, and many evangelical Christians might find this a barrier to supporting him.”
This really bothers me, perhaps because I’ve recently been listening to Parade about the lynching of Leo Frank. Dobson is subtly saying that only Christians, in particular, his form of Christians, are suitable to be President. Get a Jew in office — you’re in trouble. A non-believer — heaven forfend. I wonder what he makes of President Kennedy; we know he isn’t enamored of Giuliani (Catholic) or Romney (Mormon).
- From the “I’m Just Running In Place” Department: This year’s Boston Marathon is going to have an entrant who won’t even be in Boston to run it. Instead, she’ll be teathered far above Boston, orbiting the Earth in the Space Station. CNN is reporting that Navy CDR Suni Williams will (on the day of the Boston Marathon) run the equivalent distance on a treadmill — 210 miles (338 kilometers) above Earth in the international space station, and tethered to her track by bungee cords so she does not float away. Williams qualified for the Boston race by finishing last January’s Houston Marathon in 3 hours, 29 minutes, 57 seconds. The BAA offered to send an official entrant’s bib and a special finisher’s medal — made without lead, per NASA orders — to the space station. But when this month’s launch of the shuttle Atlantis was postponed, Williams had to be e-mailed a bib that she can print out; the other souvenirs will have to wait.
I think this is neat. I just hope they don’t send beans.
- From the “I’m Sure It’s A Metaphor” Department: The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting how Jay Critchley, a Massachusetts artist best known for the national stir he caused in the early 1990s after he designed a logo of an American flag running along a condom, has created a 3-foot-tall model of the Transamerica tower from hundreds of individual condom boxes that all bear the logo of his company, Old Glory Condom Corp. Transamerica’s reaction: “Transamerica Corporation is not a sponsor of the exhibit, nor does it endorse the products or services of Old Glory Condom Corp. or any other vendor participating in the exhibit. Permission to use the Transamerica logo was never sought by or granted to Old Glory.”
Personally, I think Transamerica is being a dick about this. But that may be stretching it.
