Your Faith Is in Vain

"Religious liberals, who want to have their cake and eat it too, claim the name of Christian while doing a striptease of the supernatural," Andrée Seu writes. She argues compellingly that it would make more sense for them to "just deny the whole Bible and be done with it."

America's Dwight Schrute

Aaron D. Wolf discusses the syncretism of America's Pastor.

Quote of the Day

"A lie has speed, but truth has endurance."

—Edgar J. Mohn

30 Years Ago Today ...

... my friend Mark Nichols and I, seventh graders at Madison Junior High School in Bartlesville, had a friendly disagreement on who would win the 1979 national championship game that night between Magic Johnson's Michigan State Spartans (my pick) and Larry Bird's Indiana State Sycamores (Mark's pick). It's safe to say neither one of us had a clue what an historic game that would be, or how Magic and Bird would go on to revitalize the NBA and forever be linked in basketball history.

Nor did I realize in 1979 that more than two decades later I would go on to establish some fond basketball memories of my own thanks to a certain graduate assistant on that Michigan State team -- none other than Kelvin Sampson.

Well, fast forward 30 March Madnesses, and occupying the coveted real estate on the cover of Sports Illustrated -- two weeks in a row, no less, and the fourth time this season -- is an acquaintance of Mark's that both he and I are cheering for this time (a guy who is at OU, at least indirectly, because of that former graduate assistant at Michigan State).

Incidentally, between Blake Griffin and the Stoops-era gridders, the frequency with which OU is gracing the cover of SI is starting to get embarrassing. Just not as embarrassing as Mark picking Bird to beat Magic.

Homeschooling Gave Blake Griffin a 'Foundation'

There's a very moving story in The Kansas City Star about "a quiet little boy who blossomed into a 6-foot-10 behemoth with a million-dollar contract waiting for him after college." Bill Reiter reports that Tommy and Gail Griffin

had a son, Taylor. They'd take him to day care, and he'd sit quietly and wait to be dropped off. Then they had a second son, Blake, and this time he didn't follow his brother's example. He'd wail and cry. He wanted to be with his family.

"He'd always start out the same way," Tommy said. "He'd put his arms out and start crying. So Gail's crying the whole way in the car. It broke her heart every time."

As a result, they settled on a decision: They would homeschool their kids. Gail waited until the end of the semester and then quit her job teaching. In the quiet comfort of their home, using the dining room table as the schoolhouse, they instilled their values in their children. Home became a shelter from what the Griffins view as an America less and less open to the presence of God in our lives.

"Home school helped them a lot," Tommy said. "Because it gave them a foundation. We've deviated (in America) from our past to where we are right now. Here's a nation founded on the opportunity for freedom of religion, and every time you look around, there’s people saying God has to be taken out of this, out of this."

This, too, shaped that little boy into the Blake Griffin now leading the Sooners: Faith paramount to life.

"Our plans are good, but God's plans are better," Tommy said.

Spring Break Pics

'Sound and Good Judgment' Watch

In the recent presidential campaign, University of Oklahoma president David Boren endorsed Barack Obama for president, citing Obama's "sound and good judgment."

Not sure those are the words I would have chosen. Even setting aside for the moment Mr. Obama's unsound judgment in matters of personnel and policy, cracks about Nancy Reagan's "séances" and the bowling prowess of Special Olympians don't exactly inspire confidence in the man's judgment.

'Evangelicalism's Latest Success Story'

"The global economy is being remade before our eyes," TIME magazine declares in a new feature called "10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now." Number three on the list: The New Calvinism.

Calvinism is back, and not just musically. John Calvin's 16th century reply to medieval Catholicism's buy-your-way-out-of-purgatory excesses is Evangelicalism's latest success story, complete with an utterly sovereign and micromanaging deity, sinful and puny humanity, and the combination's logical consequence, predestination: the belief that before time's dawn, God decided whom he would save (or not), unaffected by any subsequent human action or decision.

Calvinism, cousin to the Reformation's other pillar, Lutheranism, is a bit less dour than its critics claim: it offers a rock-steady deity who orchestrates absolutely everything, including illness (or home foreclosure!), by a logic we may not understand but don't have to second-guess. Our satisfaction — and our purpose — is fulfilled simply by "glorifying" him.

OU: Pay No Attention to That Article on Our Website

Thought experiment. The head of the OU College Republicans drafts a press release saying, "The University of Oklahoma will join hundreds of institutions from across the country in celebrating 'National Teach-In for Economic Freedom' to show the President and the Congress that people are ready to enact a bold economic policy that prioritizes income-tax cuts, spending reductions, and a rollback of harmful environmental regulations." The College Republicans take this press release to Catherine Bishop, OU's vice president of public affairs, and ask her to post it on the OU website. Would she do it?

To ask the question is to answer it.

Not only would OU refuse to post it, they would remind the OU College Republicans in no uncertain terms that no mere student group is allowed to speak for "the University of Oklahoma."

And yet, on February 3 OU posted on its website -- at www.ou.edu/web/landing/Articles.html, to be precise -- an article which led with this sentence: "The University of Oklahoma will join hundreds of institutions from across the country for the 'National Teach-In for Global Warming Solutions' to show the President and Congress that people are ready to pass a bold climate and energy policy that prioritizes renewable energy, green job creation, and an aggressive cap on carbon emissions."

"Great moments in fundraising," I chuckled to myself as I read about OU's fondness for "an aggressive cap on carbon emissions." And I included the article's opening sentence in OCPA's monthly periodical under the wry headline "OU Lobbying for Anti-Petroleum Legislation."

Well, apparently that didn't sit well with David Boren, because today in The Oklahoman President Boren trots out a few crimson herrings about his pro-petroleum voting record in the U.S. Senate and insists that, notwithstanding the article on the OU website, OU isn't lobbying against the petroleum industry. As Randy Ellis reports (‘University of Oklahoma President David Boren defends university as friendly to energy’), "Catherine Bishop, OU's vice president of public affairs, said the article didn't represent an official position of the university. ... A student group called OUr Earth organized and led the event, university officials said."

Did you catch that? An article which says “the University of Oklahoma will ... show the President and the Congress" -- and which is posted on the university's website -- doesn't represent an official position of the university.

See why PR people get paid the big money?

Look, it's no secret there's a left-wing bias at OU. I'm under no illusion that I can change it, but as a taxpayer and an OU graduate the least I can do is point it out.

Ten years ago, an enterprising student went to the Cleveland County Election Board and checked the voter registrations of OU professors in 19 departments (mostly in Arts and Sciences: economics, history, political science, etc.). He discovered 208 Democrats and 36 Republicans.

Last year, 93 percent of all political contributions from OU employees went to Democrats. And of course David Boren himself, citing Barack Obama’s "sound and good judgment," endorsed Obama for president. (Congressman Dan Boren, by contrast, dubbed Obama "the most liberal senator" in Congress and declined to endorse him.)

Public opinion surveys in this state consistently show that somewhere in the vicinity of 18 percent of Oklahomans describe themselves as somewhat or strongly liberal, while 67 percent call themselves somewhat or strongly conservative. Again, I can’t stop OU from sticking a finger in the eye of all these Oklahomans who are paying the freight. But at least I can shine a light on it.

I can inform taxpayers (and state legislators) of Darwinian propaganda festivals and OU professors who support unrepentant terrorists. Taxpayers and legislators deserve to know about academic programs devoted to the promotion of feminism and about the distribution of condoms at performances of "The Vagina Monologues." They deserve to know about scholarly articles entitled "Towards Queering Food Studies: Foodways, Heteronormativity, and Hungry Women in Chicana Lesbian Writing."

And they deserve to know when OU is lobbying for anti-petroleum legislation.

Down with Facebook!

So writes Matt Labash in a very funny cover story in The Weekly Standard.

But there is one promise I've made to myself. And that is that no matter how long I live, no matter how much pressure is exerted, no matter how socially isolated I become, I will never, ever join Facebook, the omnipresent online social-networking site that like so many things that have menaced our country (the Unabomber, Love Story, David Gergen) came to us from Harvard but has now worked its insidious hooks into every crevice of society.

For the five or six Amish shut-ins who may not yet have heard of this scourge (your tenacious ignorance is to be admired, and I'd immediately friend you if I was into Facebook and you had electricity), Facebook is an online community where colleagues, friends, long-lost acquaintances, friends of friends or long-lost acquaintances, and perfect strangers find and "friend" each other based on their real or perceived affinity.

The Black Panthers Were Right

"A recent report by the Guttmacher Institute shows that black women now have abortions at five times the rate of white women," Tom Bethell writes in The American Spectator.

"As an African American, I am saddened by evidence that black women continue to be targeted by the abortion industry," said Bishop Martin Holley. "The loss of any child from abortion is a tragedy, but we must ask: Why are minority children being aborted at such disproportionate rates?"

An answer of sorts was given years ago by the Black Panthers, a militant group (since defunct), who were vehemently opposed to abortion. When New York State legalized abortion in 1970, the Panthers warned that the "oppressive ruling class" would use the new law to unleash a black "holocaust." ...

Bishop Holley says that abortion is the leading cause of death for blacks, with 13 million abortions so far. That is one-third of the present African-American population. With most Planned Parenthood clinics concentrated in inner cities, it is reasonable for Bishop Holley to believe that blacks are being targeted.

How things have changed. In the 1960s, activists forced the closing of a Planned Parenthood clinic in a black Pittsburgh neighborhood and threatened riots if it were reopened. In Cleveland, a family planning clinic was firebombed and several others were closed in response to threats.

Are blacks really being targeted? Well, Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger was a eugenicist who advocated the sterilization of "genetically inferior races." Of course, she didn't want "the word to get out that we want to exterminate the Negro population," so she enlisted black ministers to help "straighten out that idea if it occurs to any of their more rebellious members." I'm sure Sanger would be pleased to know that even today you can make a donation to the Planned Parenthood office in Tulsa and target your gift toward the killing of a black baby:

Obama's Approval Rating ...

... is lower than Bush's in the same period of 2001.

Now He Tells Us ...

... what he meant by change.

Fears Factor

Susie and I recently enjoyed a wonderful dinner event featuring Dr. J. Rufus Fears. The write-up is here.

If You Say So

Fred Barnes, in the March 9 issue of The Weekly Standard:

When Barack Obama met with TV anchors at a White House lunch last week, he assured them he likes being president. "And it turns out I'm very good at it," he added.

Happy 11th Birthday, Mary Margaret

You get more delightful every day!

Not That It's Just Free Babysitting or Anything

Jacqueline Sit of News9 reports that some parents in Moore camped out for two nights outside a public school to make sure their children secured one of the 20 openings for a full-day kindergarten class next year.

"I'd like the full day, but there's half day alternative. And we'd still have to pay out of pocket for daycare outside of the half day kindergarten. Ideally, I'm trying to get the full day. That's why I'm here on a Saturday night," parent Matthew Wells said.

Not Ready for Prime Time

Our community-organizer-in-chief is finding this to be a tough gig.

And It Ain't Pretty

Dr. Peter Jones, a professor at Westminster Seminary California (and a boyhood friend of John Lennon), reports from the National Pastors Convention.

Government-Approved Prayer

Wow. More troubling news about our new president.

Well, That Didn't Take Long

The Club for Growth has already endorsed my friend Kevin Calvey for the 5th District congressional seat being vacated by Mary Fallin.

Highly Motivated Teachers

"If you want your child to get the best education possible, it's actually more important to get him assigned to a great teacher than to a great school," philanthropist Bill Gates said earlier this year.

Of course, as Michael Smith points out in The Washington Times, homeschoolers have been saying that all along.

Obama's Trillion-Dollar Tax Hike

"As the Dow keeps dropping," The Wall Street Journal notes today ('The Obama Economy'), "the President is running out of people to blame." After only five weeks in office,

it's become clear that Mr. Obama's policies are slowing, if not stopping, what would otherwise be the normal process of economic recovery. From punishing business to squandering scarce national public resources, Team Obama is creating more uncertainty and less confidence -- and thus a longer period of recession or subpar growth. ... The market has notably plunged since Mr. Obama introduced his budget last week, and that should be no surprise. The document was a declaration of hostility toward capitalists across the economy.

The hostility is especially evident in Obama's trillion-dollar tax increase. As our friends at Americans for Tax Reform point out, Obama's budget "raises taxes on the family energy bill, small businesses, family farms, your retirement nest egg, housing, charitable contributions, and nearly all large U.S. employers."

Honestly Now, Just Write Your Own Headline

The OU student newspaper (the paper which celebrates National Condom Week by attaching a condom to the front of the newspaper) reports today that the school library is now "one of the preferred campus rendezvous points for men seeking casual sex."

Just one more example of what Marvin Olasky calls "the tragedy of American college education."

Thank You Sir May I Have Another!

If 11 grand per student just isn't enough, you can always donate more money to the government.