Check out these interesting thoughts about the Second Coming of Christ from J.D. Walt and a student over at Asbury Theological Seminary’s Web Parish blog.
And on a lighter note, my nephew Richard passes along an excellent and funny story about the Talmudist.
Following on Professor Sauer’s excellent post noted here regarding the recent Pacers-Pistons fight at Auburn Hills, the Washington Post’s Richard Cohen has one of the best op-eds that I have read on the affair to date:
Much attention continues to be paid to Artest, as if he is such a mystery. He is a rough kid from a rough part of the world with what are known as anger management issues. These are the same issues that bedeviled the late Lizzie Borden and now afflict road ragers across the land. Artest has a record when it comes to such matters — this is not his first suspension — and he appears (although I am not personally acquainted with him) a couple of cards short of a full deck. It is authoritatively reported, for instance, that while playing for the Chicago Bulls at the usual multimillion-dollar salary, he applied for a Sunday job at Circuit City so he could get an employee discount.
Be all that as it may, you can surely appreciate the sort of anger that erupts in a man when a fan hits him with a cup full of liquid. . . Sure, Artest should not have reacted the way he did, but you can appreciate what angered him — and why. He deserves to be punished, but he is not all that hard to understand.
But Mr. Cohen finds the people who participated in the brawl almost incomprehensible:
But the fans? What is wrong with them? They are idiots, being played for suckers by a bunch of millionaires who own ball teams. Because they happen to live in a certain area, they root for a certain team. Never mind that the players usually don’t live in the area and they would, for either a buck or a whim, go somewhere else. The fans for some reason identify so passionately with a team that they are willing to risk physical injury on its behalf. Freud, I am sure, had a term for such people: jerks.
Being nicer, I see them differently. They are mere fools being manipulated by teams in ways that would make Pavlov salivate in appreciation. The noise, the choreographed cheering, the booming announcer and, not least, the constant acceptance or encouragement of what used to be called poor sportsmanship — for instance, thunder sticks used to rattle players at the free-throw line — are attempts to bond fans to a team that would, in a flash, desert them for a better arena in another city. It works. Vast numbers of people have turned over a piece of their self-worth to a team. They feel good when it wins and bad when it loses and, in some cases, will risk or inflict injury in a cause so worthless that their children should be raised by foster parents for their own good.
I understand wanting to belong to something and I understand a keen appreciation of the game. But the fan, like “the voter” and “the stockholder,” has become so hypocritically venerated that it has become virtually sacrilegious to call him (or her) a chump and an idiot when they go too far. So, please, sportswriters of the world, spare me any more analysis of Artest and throw some light on the world of the fan. It must be a dim one, indeed.
The political activism in business affairs of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (“Calpers”) — one of the nation’s most powerful institutional investor — is leading to a nasty public fight over its leadership.
Sean Harrigan, the president of the Calpers, is expected to be fired today. The move comes amid a growing controversy over Calpers’ boardroom-governance crusades in regard to companies in which it invests and its interference in operational affairs not directly related to protecting its investments.
I’m betting that the primary source of the problem with Mr. Harrigan is his advocacy of a new conflicts-of-interest policy for corporate boards’ outside auditors that prompted Calpers to cast proxy votes against even popular company directors, such as Warren Buffett. Mr. Harrigan also pushed for such out-of-place causes as aggressive investigations into the prisoner-abuse scandal in Iraq and rationalized that move because of Calpers’ small stake in a company that was involved in providing support services in Iraq. Finally, Calpers led the effort to oust Richard Grasso as head of the New York Stock Exchange and campaigned for Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Officer Michael Eisner‘s resignation as chairman earlier this year.
Despite the rather odd approach to corporate governance issues, Calpers posted solid investment returns for the year ended June 30. It reported a 16.7% one-year return on its global investments and a 20.8% return on its U.S. stock holding, which is better than its benchmark index (the Wilshire 2500).
Nevertheless, Mr. Harrigan’s legacy will be of attempting to micromanage the affairs of several companies in which Calpers invested. Such a policy gets a lot of press in the short run, but does not make many friends in the business world in the long run.
You know that the defense attorneys in the Calvin Murphy criminal trial are running out of witnesses when the owner of the tatoo parlor takes the stand.
Murphy is expected to take the stand this afternoon, and he will likely be the final defense witness. The prosecution will probably not offer much in terms of rebuttal, so expect the case to go to the jury by the middle part of next week.
Whatever the outcome of this sad affair, Murphy is through as a local celebrity.