Odds and Ends III (Super Bowl Edition)

Yes, I missed last week's installment, and this week's is late. I have more than enough to make up for the prolonged absence. So here goes:

Super Bowl:

• Well, I wanted to post this article before the Super Bowl, being a Bears fan who believed that Grossman would step up to the plate on the big stage. Sadly, I was wrong, but I still think this article about the true "Worst Super Bowl QBs" is pretty interesting.
• The Super Bowl ads were a little above average this year, but some of them were absolutely priceless. Here's my top 7: Chainsaw, Autograph, Karate, Great Apes, Not What It Seems, Comb-Over, and Auctioneer. What were your favorites?

Serious:

• Nick Cannon raps about his mother's decision to choose life 28 years ago in an incredibly powerful song (HT The Rebelution).
• Alex and Brett Harris wrote a fabulous article for Boundless about why Christians can't multitask, and not in a legalistic sense. I found this particularly convicting, especially as I'm listening to Glenn Miller and Billy Joel right now as I write this post.
• Fred Barnes shows the similarities between Iraq and Vietnam...and they aren't what you think.
• After reading this George Orwell essay a few weeks ago, I was amazed to come across this article by Jonah Goldberg applying it to the modern day. Very interesting.
• Tim Challies thinks about how his children respond to his instruction...and how we respond the same way to God.
• TIME Magazine interviews Al Mohler about his brush with death a few weeks ago and how it has affected his faith--every time I read about him, the more grateful I am that he is representing us to the world-at-large. What a great example.

Funny:

• I've been rediscovering the joys of Monty Python the past few weeks, and here are my favorite sketches: The Argument Clinic, The Ministry of Silly Walks, and Spam!
• FCN gives their version of Bush's State of the Union address last week.
• And speaking of Bush, here's a video of him and Steve Bridges, a George Bush impersonator, at a press dinner last year. Hysterical!
• Pecadillo presents the Ugly Dog Olympics. Did you know dogs could be this ugly?
• And Kevin, who makes it a habit to post very strange articles, has a collection of press releases from 2029 (scroll to the bottom of the post)...so true, so scary, so funny.

Interesting:

• Justin Taylor presents The Dawkins Delusion, an argument for the non-existence of Richard Dawkins. Satirical look at Dawkin's book The God Delusion.
• This guy is amazing...who knew you could keep a beat like that while singing a song?
• GirlTalk discusses why men are happier...and I must agree.

Quotes:

I was reading Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" last week for English, and he just had some amazingly profound statements. Here are three I found especially good (I know they're a little long, but they're worth it).

• History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals.
  
• It is a strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually time is neutral. It can be used either destructively or constructively. I am coming to feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than the people of good will.
  
• As I continued to think about the matter I gradualy gained a bit of satisfaction from being considered an extremist. Was not Jesus an extremist in love? "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice--"Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the gospel of Jesus Christ--"I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist--"Here I stand; I can do none other so help me God." Was not John Bunyan an extremist--"I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." Was not Abraham Lincoln an extremist--"This nation cannot survive eternally half slave and half free." Was not Thomas Jefferson an extremist--"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." So the question is not whether we will be extremist but what kind of extremist we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or extremists for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice--or will we be extremists for the cause of justice?

And that's all for this installment. Coming soon...further thoughts on being an extremist.