We're supposed to sing about Piratey things

This Sunday at Bible Bowl, we're teaching the last three chapters of Judges. If you haven't read them in a while, they are an example of just how evil Israel could be. I'm not repeating the content here, mostly because everyone who will be reading my blog owns a Bible and can read it themselves. But our skit for the evening is "A Pirate Adventure." It was really entertaining reading it Sunday evening, because everyone uses a different accent, and because the person who wrote the script generally includes a few spelling errors for our entertainment. (For example, in one of my lines, I say, "Not even a bite!" However, the script reads, "Not even a bight!") I am naturally using a Scottish accent, because it tends to lend itself to moments like these (my apologies to any Scots reading this whose ancestors were not pirates), and also because that way I can say pretty much anything I want and none of the children or other teachers will understand. Well, except for Chad, of course. We have the evening off from actual teaching, which is a relief because we haven't had a week off yet. Actually, we got the week off because I wrote the review questions for these chapters, and told everyone else in no uncertain terms that there was no way I was teaching them. And they took me seriously.

Now that I have my links going at the side, here's a quick rundown of what they are: Google news-- duh. South Plains is the website for the church we currently attend. AIM is the abbreviation for Adventures in Missions, a program that allows college students to experience missions firsthand (and of which I am a graduate!). Know Truth is a website run by a couple of friends of ours, which talks about absolute truth and the existence of God. LOTR caption page has a lot of stills from the LOTR movies, along with some very funny captions about those pictures. Some are stories, some are stand-alone, and some are a bit questionable, just by way of warning. And the last one is for Best Smileys, the index of the emoticons I use-- there are a lot of good ones on there.

Now that we are over a week past the end of the Olympics, and the Paralypmics are about to start (on March 10), the hype is (more or less) forgotten, the soveniers are bought and, most likely, stashed in a corner somewhere, and our TVs are long since tuned to something else. And while I enjoy the Olympics, I only mention them here because I am still so encouraged by people like Joey Cheek, Clara Huges, and Yang Yang A. who used their Olympian status to bring attention to Right to Play. And I didn't see interviews with either Clara or Yang, but Joey Cheek used a lot of his interview time talking about Right to Play and why it is a good cause. So thanks to these athletes, and the others who donated who haven't been mentioned by name, for bringing some sense of dignity and what has been called "the Olympic spirit" back to the reputation of the athletes. Unfortunately, some others of the athletes really gave them all a bad name this time around. And I'll be adding the Right to Play website to my list of links shortly.

This post is getting kind of long, but what can I say? I'm long-winded. Today was the primary election in Texas. An acquaintence of ours from church is running for judge, and the results so far are very much not in his favour. But, the only ones posted are from early voting and they were expecting turnout today to be higher than turnout all through early voting. So I'm keeping a pretty close eye on the results as they come up. Turnout locally was expected to be pretty high, due to a rather heated, and pretty ugly, campaign for a Texas House seat. The incumbent is well on top at the moment, and I'm pretty happy about that because the challenger went negative-- and I mean way negative-- first. So I have to say, it totally serves him right should he be defeated.

And, finally, we saw Hotel Rwanda on Sunday night. That is one powerful movie, one which certainly earned all its nominations and awards. I was warned to take some tissues with me to see it, which it turns out I didn't need, but it was pretty close. If you haven't seen it yet, by all means, do so. But be prepared; it is a close look at one of the most horrific moments in recent history. I can't speak for everyone who was watching, but I know I felt this; when the U.S. failed to help these people, and in fact wanted to pull out the few UN peacekeepers who were there... to say we messed up is inadequate. We blew it. Completely. I hope we've learned from our previous foreign policy mistakes, but as we all know, the only thing people ever learn from history is that no one ever learns anything from history. Rwanda is now one of the most stable countries in the world, but what a terrible price they had to pay to get there.

Well, I finished this abnormally long post on a down note, I'm afraid. But if you've stuck it out to get to the end of this post; thank you. You deserve a medal.