Bits and Pieces

• For Father's Day, my family gave me a book I've been asking for: Guests of the Ayatollah, about the Iran hostage crisis that ultimately sunk Jimmy Carter's presidency (who says all things don't work together for good?) by Black Hawk Down author Mark Bowden.
  
  The first 80 or so pages I've read are outstanding. Amazingly, I read several chapters out loud yesterday to my kids (13 and 12), and they were riveted to it.

• Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation argues compellingly that President Bush's recent, sudden "support" of the Federal Marriage Amendment was a half-hearted, cynical ploy to throw an artificial bone to his conservative base, whom he knew would roll over and chew on it without demanding any real substance.
  
  He writes:

  Did the Majority Whip in the Senate twist arms until it hurts on the Marriage Amendment? No. Did the President talk with Senators, trading things as he did with the drug benefit? No. Was the Right angry about this? No. I asked one of the most visible and important leaders of the pro-family movement if he had conscience problems attending the event at the White House, since he and the rest of us were props in a non-effort to pass this Amendment. Without hesitation this major leader said, “Not at all. I felt we had to enforce what little this President did.”

  Would that this president truly cared as much about traditional values as Bill Clinton did about abortion rights.

• In watching the NBA Finals, I've noticed that when one team goes on a roll and the other team naturally calls timeout, Hubie Brown constantly needs to tell us what a "good timeout" it was, as if a chimpanzee wouldn't know to call timeout in that situation.
  
  My son and I have really started having a good time with this. Last night he said, "You know, this series has had a lot of poorly-played basketball, horrible shooting, and terrible free throws, but we've seen some really great timeouts. I've just enjoyed the good, fundamental timeout work we've seen from these two teams."
  
  He's a real chip off the ol' smart-aleck block.

• Of course, all of that was before Josh Howard actually cost Dallas Game 5 with the worst timeout since Chris Webber.

• Okay, the MJ comparisons are still way overdone, but I'm starting to see a little bit of what the Dwyane [sic] Wade hype is all about. And I've only recently noticed that he doesn't know how to spell his own first name.

• I was out of town on Thursday and Friday. Here's what I did at work on Thursday (scroll down the Thursday, June 15th). When I grow up, I want to be George Grant. And I'm not even kidding. This guy has forgotten more this morning than I've ever known. And he couldn't be a more enjoyable guy to hang out with.
  
  And here's what I did on Friday. The folks at Answers in Genesis couldn't be nicer either. I really have a great job. Though after looking at these photos, I'm finally now convinced that I really need to lose some weight.

• Now that the World Cup of soccer has had a few days to really get going....nope, still don't care.