Anyway, Volume 2 of The Anti-Christ Handbook<\/em><\/a> won\u2019t quite be ready by Prime Day, but I\u2019m working to have it good to go sometime soon.<\/p>\n \u2022 \u201cA Song of Ice and Fire, and Hope?<\/a>\u201d Matthew Civico on the addictive, unnerving story of Game of Thrones. I relate to much of what Civico says there. This story is compelling because we don\u2019t have any idea how it ends. But we can\u2019t yet know what to make of this story because we don\u2019t have any idea how it ends.<\/em> We can have ideas or theories or guesses about what it all means, but we won\u2019t know if any of those ideas are true until we know how the story ends.<\/p>\n \u2022 Good for Bubba Watson<\/a>. Here\u2019s hoping this helps some of the other Bubbas to come around.<\/p>\n \u2022 Christianity Today<\/em> \u2014 a publication that believes gay and lesbian couples are \u201cdestructive to society\u201d<\/a> \u2014 \u00a0reports that Wheaton College has lost its legal battle to opt out of opting out of providing the insurance coverage for contraceptive care that it used to provide before it became a partisan wedge issue to oppose it. \u201cWheaton College May Have to \u2018Outsource Sin,'\u201d<\/a> CT<\/em> says. I suppose that\u2019s appropriate, since they\u2019ve already chosen to outsource biology.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2022 Every year, on July 1, the New York Mets send former outfielder Bobby Bonilla a check for $1.2 million<\/a>. The fact that one of the team\u2019s best-paid players is a guy who retired from baseball 14 years ago<\/em> is dismaying for us Mets fans. The fact that, despite that, he\u2019s\u00a0driven in almost as many runs as their current lineup is even more depressing.<\/p>\n You may read that headline\u00a0and think it means that Bobby Bo is the overpaid beneficiary of a sweet deal. But if you read the story, you\u2019ll realize that the team simply made a promise, deferring payment of what Bonilla was rightly owed based on magical thinking about the future growth of its investments. The story, in other words, is a lot like the so-called \u201cpension crisis\u201d for a lot of public workers. The main difference is that the Mets \u2014 unlike a lot of rat-bastard governors \u2014 are honoring the deal they agreed to.<\/p>\n \u2022 Talking Points Memo offers a succinct refresher on the history of the American ritual of having our schoolchildren recite a \u201cPledge of Allegiance\u201d to the flag<\/a>. I will, of course, take this as an excuse to repeat my objection to this practice: Requiring children to recite a loyalty oath is just plain creepy.<\/em> No getting around that.<\/p>\n \u2022 I enjoyed the conversation here the other day<\/a> involving Worst Song nominees. I won\u2019t try to make any sweeping claims here about all of American pop music, but I can identify \u2014 categorically \u2014 the Worst Song in rotation on the 1970s channel of piped-in music at the Big Box. That would be \u201cAfternoon Delight<\/a>\u201d by the Starland Vocal Band \u2014 a song inexplicably mentioned only in passing\u00a0in the Dave Barry column<\/a> discussed here in comments.<\/p>\n I say this with confidence and authority despite the many other strong contenders regularly playing as background music for our shoppers and our overnight freight team \u2014 \u201cYou Light Up My Life,\u201d \u201cFloat On<\/a>,\u201d etc. What separates \u201cAfternoon Delight\u201d from the pack is the utter incompatibility of its lyrics and its music. Almost no one who can relate to those lyrics can also relate to that music. And vice versa. This is, quite possibly, the least sexy sex song ever recorded. Say what you will about the schmaltz of Debby Boone\u2019s big hit, or about the epic strangeness of the Floaters\u2019 weird masterpiece \u2014 the lyrics and the music go together.<\/p>\n That can\u2019t be said of \u201cAfternoon Delight.\u201d At all. We have a winner.<\/p>\n![\"Starland\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/52\/2015\/07\/Starland-300x300.jpg\")
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