{"id":6696,"date":"2012-03-16T18:46:37","date_gmt":"2012-03-16T22:46:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=6696"},"modified":"2012-03-16T18:46:37","modified_gmt":"2012-03-16T22:46:37","slug":"rumbling-through-this-promised-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/03\/16\/rumbling-through-this-promised-land\/","title":{"rendered":"Rumbling through this promised land"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Today is Patty Griffin\u2019s<\/a> birthday. Here she is singing Springsteen<\/a>:<\/p>\n<\/iframe>\n* * * * * * * * *<\/p>\nHall-of-Fame manager <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Connie_Mack\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Connie Mack<\/a> was, for decades, one of the fiercest enforcers of the so-called \u201cgentlemen\u2019s agreement\u201d that kept Major League baseball white-only.<\/p>\nMack won 3,731 games in 53 years as a manager. And he lost 3,948. Loser.<\/em><\/p>\nMack retired in 1950, three years after Jackie Robinson broke baseball\u2019s color line, but Mack\u2019s Philadelphia Athletics team wouldn\u2019t integrate for yet another three years.<\/p>\nThey named a stadium after Connie Mack in Philadelphia. Then they tore it down. It makes me happy that the former site of that stadium is now home to a Charismatic <a href=\"http:\/\/www.decministry.org\/default.asp\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">mega-church congregation<\/a> where people of many races and ethnicities worship together.<\/p>\nIt also makes me happy to learn that Mack\u2019s great-grandson \u2014 a Republican member of the House of Representatives from Florida now running for the U.S. Senate \u2014 once <a href=\"http:\/\/politicalwire.com\/archives\/2012\/02\/21\/macks_history_of_bar_brawls.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">got the snot beat out of him in a bar-fight<\/a> with a black ballplayer. Connie Mack IV, who witnesses say was visibly drunk, mistakenly thought it was a good idea to start a fight with journeyman slugger Ron Gant. According to witnesses, <a href=\"http:\/\/wonkette.com\/466903\/florida-sen-candidate-connie-mack-iv-totally-sober-when-he-struck-pro-ball-player-in-the-gants\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Mack fought dirty, but still lost<\/a>.<\/p>\n* * * * * * * * *<\/p>\nAlso in Florida Republican politics, the legislature there is considering a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.workingamerica.org\/blog\/2012\/02\/23\/attack-on-servers-wages-in-florida-sparks-backlash\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">plan to lower<\/em> the minimum wage for tipped employees<\/a>. Democrats should make sure this one is a roll-call vote \u2014 forcing proponents of the measure to vote \u201cAye \u2014 I support reducing the wages of the people who handle my food when I\u2019m not looking.\u201d<\/p>\nA poll to find out if <a href=\"http:\/\/tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com\/2012\/03\/poll_new_yorkers_approve_of_nypds_treatment_of.php\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">most non-Muslim New Yorkers approve of the NYPD\u2019s mistreatment of Muslims<\/a> might as well just ask those folks: \u201cSo, are you a self-centered jackwagon who believes in double standards?\u201d That a majority answer \u201cYes\u201d is depressing, but not necessarily newsworthy. (See also: Polls on marriage equality.)<\/p>\nCharles Kuffner has a good roundup of <a href=\"http:\/\/offthekuff.com\/wp\/?p=43971\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">the pros and cons of the \u201cHomeless Hotspots\u201d at SXSW<\/a>.<\/p>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/crooksandliars.com\/susie-madrak\/moroccan-girl-forced-marry-her-rapist\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Susie Madrak asks<\/a>, \u201cSo why aren\u2019t fundamentalist Christians, who claim to follow the literal interpretation of the Bible \u2026 picketing seafood restaurants, screaming at people to turn back and save their souls before they eat the unclean food?\u201d<\/p>\nIt\u2019s a rhetorical question (read the whole thing), but I\u2019ll jump on that as an excuse to refer back to my answer to that question: \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2004\/07\/16\/the-abominable-shellfish\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">The Abominable Shellfish: Why some Christians hate gays but love bacon<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\nIn Christianity Today<\/em>, Dean A. Anderson looks back fondly on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/ct\/movies\/commentaries\/2012\/originalleftbehind.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">the 40th anniversary of Donald W. Thompson\u2019s A Thief in the Night<\/em><\/a>. He manages to do so, somehow, without ever mentioning Donald W. Thompson. Odd. (The Godfather<\/em> came out 40 years ago yesterday \u2014 think anyone will do an article on that without ever mentioning Francis Ford Coppola?) Fortunately, Randall Balmer has already provided us with a terrific profile of the idiosyncratic auteur \u2014 the Russ Meyer of the Rapture \u2014 in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Mine-Eyes-Have-Seen-Glory\/dp\/0195131800\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey Into the Evangelical Subculture in America<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.religionnews.com\/faith\/leaders-and-institutions\/bishops-dubious-over-obama-contraception-compromise\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">This Religion News Service headline is five words too long<\/a>.<\/p>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/freethoughtblogs.com\/dispatches\/2012\/03\/02\/illinois-nazis-i-hate-illinois-nazis\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">This blog post headline from Ed Brayton is perfection<\/a>.<\/p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/2012\/03\/is-not-being-a-jerk-the-heart-of-christianity.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">James F. McGrath on Rule No. 1<\/a>.<\/p>\nStuff Fundies Like on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stufffundieslike.com\/2012\/03\/love-defined\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">what ignoring Rule No. 1 looks like in practice<\/a>.<\/p>\nJason Pitzl-Waters tells us about \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildhunt\/2012\/03\/that-time-kirk-cameron-infiltrated-a-druid-ritual.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">That Time Kirk Cameron Infiltrated a Druid Ritual<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thereformedbroker.com\/2012\/03\/14\/how-to-quit-a-job-without-publishing-an-op-ed\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">People who work in wirehouses shouldn\u2019t throw stones<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe <a href=\"http:\/\/ergofabulous.org\/luther\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Lutheran Insulter<\/a> does an impressive job of creating a random-Martin-Luther-insult generator while scrupulously avoiding the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/On_the_Jews_and_Their_Lies\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Luther insults that really need to be avoided<\/a>.<\/p>\nHow long does it take for the UK\u2019s Advertising Standards Authority to recognize a dirty joke? <a href=\"http:\/\/consumerist.com\/2012\/03\/uk-regulators-sofa-king-mad-at-sofa-king-ad.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Sofa King long<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Today is Patty Griffin\u2019s birthday. Here she is singing Springsteen: * * * * * * * * * Hall-of-Fame manager Connie Mack was, for decades, one of the fiercest enforcers of the so-called \u201cgentlemen\u2019s agreement\u201d that kept Major League baseball white-only. Mack won 3,731 games in 53 years as a manager. And he lost […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n<title>Rumbling through this promised land<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Today is Patty Griffin's birthday. Here she is singing Springsteen: * * * * * * * * * Hall-of-Fame manager Connie Mack was, for decades, one of the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/03\/16\/rumbling-through-this-promised-land\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rumbling through this promised land\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Today is Patty Griffin's birthday. Here she is singing Springsteen: * * * * * * * * * Hall-of-Fame manager Connie Mack was, for decades, one of the\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/03\/16\/rumbling-through-this-promised-land\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"slacktivist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-03-16T22:46:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/03\/16\/rumbling-through-this-promised-land\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/03\/16\/rumbling-through-this-promised-land\/\",\"name\":\"Rumbling through this promised land\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-03-16T22:46:37+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-03-16T22:46:37+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\"},\"description\":\"Today is Patty Griffin's birthday. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Rumbling through this promised land","description":"Today is Patty Griffin's birthday. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6696\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}