The word for today is "recidivism", and if you want to know what that means, go look it up in your dictionary, which helpfully defines it as "A tendency to recidivate." No kidding.

I came across this word in an article in the Detroit News, which suggested that religion may or may not effect recidivism among ex-convicts. Without specifying the religion in question, it states that of ten religious prison programs, six produced "a modest positive effect", four produced "no effect", and none produced a negative effect.

The title of this article, however, is "Religion has mixed effect on recidivism". What exactly does "mixed effect" bring to your mind? To a dictionary, as well as the average Joe, I assume, it means "A blend of diverse elements". Too bad Alan Cooperman, the author of this article, didn't check his dictionary first. Or, wait--was that the idea? Anyone casually skimming over this article--or only seeing the headline--will come away with the impression that religion can adversely affect the future behavior of prison inmates. In the interests of downplaying religion, Cooperman leaves the impression that advocates of religious prison programs are naive at best.

Bravo, Alan. You do your job well.

Sneakers -- funny, laid-back, and goofy, you love to
make people laugh and have a good time. You
enjoy comfort and don't care too much about what
people think of you. You like to hang out with
your buddies and just have a good time.


What Kind of Shoe Are You?
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Song for the Asking

Here is my song for the asking
Ask me and I will play
So sweetly, I'll make you smile

This is my tune for the taking
Take it, don't turn away
I've been waiting all my life

Thinking it over, I've been sad
Thinking it over, I'd be more than glad
To change my ways for the asking

Ask me and I will play
All the love that I hold inside

-Simon and Garfunkel

Response to Anna, who couldn't decide whether I sounded Southern, British, or...simply...accent-less:

A Cowboy is Like That

Life is hard for a would-be cowboy. When a western soul inhabits an eastern body, fate has been crossed. The cruelest trick that Chance plays on a man is to bring him into existence some hundred years too late. And he's doomed! Doomed to a life that imprisons his soul--binds it in the unbreakable chains of the 21st century. And his life manifests that hopelessness that only comes to the man who wanted nothing more…than to be a cowboy.

How do I know this? Because I, too, wanted to be a cowboy. I, too, wanted the thrill of being a hero in chaps. I wanted to sing with Roy Rogers, swagger with Dean Martin, and shoot it out with John Wayne.

And why a cowboy? Because they have sand—grit—backbone. Besides that, they have fun! Life is just one big party for the cowboy—standing watch in the freezing rain, eating beans and bacon cooked over a campfire, playing the gee-tar for the cattle, breaking wild broncs—nothing but fun, fun, fun. And they can yodel, too! As we all know, one of the fundamental longings of humankind is to be able to yodel. Yodeling is, for the average Joe, what swinging through trees is for Tarzan. It brings out the elemental in us. Everyone wants to yodel. Somehow cowboys are born with that ability. Yes, the True Cowboy must also ride before he can crawl, shoot before he can talk, and rope a moving object by the age of three, but yodeling is a prerequisite. When all is said and done, there are only two types of people in this world—those who yodel, and those who don’t.

Cowboys do.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be an adventurer; wandering as your fancy takes you, here and there, thither and yon? Well, the cowboy doesn’t have to wonder. He’s a born wanderer. He inherits his wanderlust by the age of five, and by the time he’s fifteen, he’s on his own. His resume is impressive—he works in cow-camps, rounds up mavericks on the side, breaks broncs for three dollars a day, and generally has a new job every three months.

That’s just the cowboy style.

Have you ever wanted to be a dead shot with a pistol? Look no further—any cowboy can shoot the eye out of any fly at 300 paces. What more can you ask of a man? And besides this, the cowboy is notoriously handsome.

Every girl is desperate to marry a cowboy—probably this is what scares him away from matrimony. Even though every good cowboy story ends with a clinch between the handsome cowboy and his blushing gal, the gallant lover never becomes the gallant husband. I think perhaps there is a rule against marriage in the Essential Cowboy’s Handbook. Every cowboy is forever single, forever handsome, and forever twenty. If he were otherwise, he wouldn’t be a cowboy.

So why do I want to be a cowboy? Because they live life with a zest! They are eternally young, eternally noble, eternally chivalrous, bold and daring. And they wear cowboy hats! A cowboy’s hat is the third most important thing to him. The first is his horse, the second is his gun. He’s never found without all three…and if by chance he does lose his gun and his hat, and finds himself tied hand and foot to a tree with hostile bandits advancing with torches…well…then he can always call Trigger. Because the cowboy may get into scrapes, but he always gets out of them too. He’s incorrigible. He never says die, and, of course, he never does, either.

A cowboy…is just like that.

I saw a parrot yesterday.

It was sitting on a branch in front of a little white house. I had taken out my inline skates for the first time this year, and when I bladed down Mulberry Street, and thence behind the new elementary school they're building, I saw It. I heard it first--It was making noises to itself, which is what attracted my attention--and then--there it was, all blue and yellow and squawking intermittently. It wasn't tied or anything of the sort; it seemed rather to belong to the house.

I wonder if the previous owners left it behind: "Three-bedroom ranch, one-and-a-half baths, new appliances; also included: one parrot, with appurtenances".

Happily Ever After...

Yesterday I watched Ella Enchanted at our local theatre, and today I found myself thinking about the story in connection with Free Will.

In case you haven't seen the movie, it's a play on the Cinderella story, but with a notable twist--Cinderella is dominated by her stepmother and stepsisters not through her pure good-naturedness, but through a "Gift of Obedience" bestowed on her as a baby by a thoughtless fairy. As a consequence of this gift, she finds herself doing whatever anyone tells her--in fact, she is the perfect "obedient child", through no fault--or virtue--of her own.

And I thought that here was an example of what many people would consider the perfect gift to mankind--a built-in "goodness" gene. What wouldn't people give to be good without effort--even against their own inclinations? The question has been asked why God couldn't have made us similar to Ella--without the ability to disobey Him. After all, why is Free Will necessary?

If outward obedience were all it took to please God, the "goodness gene" would be the perfect solution. But I think of the verse in 1 Samuel that says: "Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." God isn't concerned with the appearance of obedience--He wants the reality. What, after all, is the point of obedience in the first place? Why would we bother to obey someone we cared nothing about? The essence of obedience is LOVE. God doesn't want hard-wired obedience--He wants it to be a choice. The harder the choice, the more our obedience is worth. He wants us to follow Him because we want to--because we love Him.

Prince Charming, sensing something unnatural about Cinderella's automatous compliance, protests that he "doesn't want her to do anything she doesn't want to do". In a way, that's what God says to us. He doesn't want us to do what we don't want to either--He wants us to want to comply with His will out of love for Him--because, after all, He is our Happily-Ever-After!

Happy Father's Day!


Father's Day Quotes:


Zounds! I was never so bethump’d with words
Since I first call’d my brother’s father dad.

- William Shakespeare

If the man who turnips cries
Cry not when his father dies,
’T is a proof that he had rather
Have a turnip than his father.

- Samuel Johnson


(Okay, so there WEREN'T any good Father's Day quotes! So sue me.)

Caution: Your Bible May Be A Perversion

Good Morning America!

Today we bring you a special letter from Rev. Tim Curtis-Dryden—a letter that gently and lovingly suggests that, well…"your Bible may be a perversion." You didn’t know that your Bible might be perverted, did you? Well, now you know. And Curtis-Dryden would like to make sure you don’t forget it. Here are some excerpts from his letter, which was printed in the Lapeer County Press, a Michigan newspaper:

"Do you belong to a church that does not use the King James Bible, published in 1611, and instead uses one of those modern versions of the Bible like the NIV, NASB, NKJV, NRSV, RSV, etc.?"

Do I see a show of hands, anybody?

"If so, then you belong to a liberal church. A liberal church that is vile in the eyes of God."

Now, hold it, brother--put down that shotgun! Your anger is misplaced.

"Don’t get mad at me," says the Reverend, "take it up with God! While you’re doing that be sure to tell God that He is a liar. God claims His Word is divinely inspired and divinely preserved. "Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven." (Psalm 119:89) …How arrogant can one be to believe that they can improve upon the eternal Word of God?"

How arrogant indeed.

"The modern Bible versions are as vile as they can be! If God’s words are pure, then why does the NIV contain 64,098 less words than the authorized King James Bible?"

Good question. One might also ask why the King James Bible has significantly more words than the original Greek and Hebrew manuscripts, but that would be nitpicking, don’t you think? Oh, but wait, Rev. Curtis-Dryden isn’t finished:

"God was right when He warned us in his Word, "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and the doctrines of devils." (1 Timothy 4:1) My friends…if you are using any Bible other than the authorized King James 1611, then what you hold in your hands is the doctrine of devils. I encourage you to throw these modern perversions in the flames and run from your liberal church!"

Amen--preach it, brother.