Tough

Here is a question:

Labor of Love

Let’s say you are a defensive linebacker. Let’s say the other team just scored a touchdown. Then they try a two-point conversion.

Let’s say you intercept a pass on their conversion attempt. You run the ball back to the OTHER end-zone.

How many points does your team get?

Two points, chief. Two points.

Did you know that? I have been a football fan all my life, and I did not know it until yesterday.

John Isner

Speaking of college football, Florida beat Charleston Southern 62-3.

Impressive victory. But the Gators did not cover the spread, which was 63 points.

Yesterday was quite a day.

I was sorry to see Andy Roddick knocked out of the U.S. Open so quickly. On the other hand, we tall guys have to stick together. (John Isner is 6′ 9″.)

…It’s time for some new Bests.

The overwhelming winner of the First-Anniversary poll was: “This blog is best enjoyed with a cold one.”

…Happy Labor Day! The “labor of love” is your patient indulgence of this tedious blog, written by one of the worst priests ever ordained.

…Here is a mysterious saying of Christ:

The Russell Files, Episode 1

When I was a kid, my dad liked to watch “The Rockford Files.”

It will take a few posts to cover “The Bertrand Russell Case.” So, if you would like, you can imagine James Garner’s answering machine message and sweet Pontiac Firebird as these little essays come your way…

…Bertrand Russell styled himself a philosopher, a man of relentless reason and openness to truth. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950.

Half a century later, his essays read like mean-spirited hatchet jobs. He credits “religion” with only one contribution to history–standardizing the calendar. He dismisses Jesus Christ as a deluded and malicious crank–if He even existed at all.

Russell does not support his arguments with evidence, and many of his assertions are simply untrue.

On the other hand, he occasionally raises an interesting question. For instance, at the beginning of “Why I am not a Christian,” he confronts the problem of defining the term ‘Christian.’ He acknowledges that the term has been watered down, and he calls the bluff of non-dogmatic, liberal Protestants who more or less insist that a Christian is a “good person.”

City College of New York

Russell’s work IS offensive to pious readers. He is a propagandist of anti-Catholic prejudices and a P.R. man for Darwin and Freud. He provided a generation of “cultured despisers” of Christianity with its half-baked ideas.

When the Board of Higher Education of the City of New York appointed Russell as a professor of philosophy at City College in 1940, was it an affront to the common good? More to come on this question…

…At the Legg-Mason Tennis Classic, Del Potro and Andy are going at it in extreme heat, in front of a long-suffering crowd, including Brooklyn Decker Roddick.

Roddick looked like he had the match in hand. The tall Argentinian was wilting in the heat.

But Delpo just broke Roddick to win the second set, and now it’s anyone’s match.

Breakfast and Lunch at Wimbledon

Pete Sampras, Manual Santana, Rod Laver, Bjorn Borg, Ilie Nastase

Roger managed to pull out a victory in a Wimbledon Final that was even longer than last year (more games; less elapsed time–no rain delay this year).

Andy Roddick

Of course I couldn’t watch every minute of the match. I had to go to church.

But I can tell you this: Roddick won more games than Federer. Roger won two sets on tie-breakers. In fact, Roddick held serve every game he served (38 games)–until the 77th game of the match.

On the other hand, Roger had 50 aces. Fifty. He won his last three service games on something like fifteen serves.

In other words, this match was what happens when an irresistible force meets and immovable object. Awesome.

I always will be a Federer fan. Nonetheless:

1) The runner-up this year lost with more class than the runner-up last year.

2) The top prize for the day goes to Rod Laver. As soon as the sun began to shine on the royal box at Centre Court, Laver produced a straw hat with a green ribbon. He nestled it smartly on his head.

Every Day is Dependence Day

Quote of the day from Mary Carillo:

The Williams sisters love each other. They inspire each other. They each claim that they are as good as they are because of the other one.

Yet here they are at Centre Court at Wimbledon, trying to make the other one cry.

Many things do us proud. It does our nation proud to have three out of four Wimbledon finalists be Americans, two of them sisters. (Serena won it! by the way)

But on Independence Day let’s remember that we are dependent on God for everything. Our nation is dependent on God for everything. To God be all the glory!