Tim Ellsworth

Owen Seaton pointed me to a column by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in which blames Hurricane Katrina on Alabama Gov. Haley Barbour’s role in killing the Kyoto Protocol.

“Now we are all learning what it’s like to reap the whirlwind of fossil fuel dependence which Barbour and his cronies have encouraged,” Kennedy wrote. “Our destructive addiction has given us a catastrophic war in the Middle East and–now–Katrina is giving our nation a glimpse of the climate chaos we are bequeathing our children.”

I’m not entirely sure if Kennedy is serious or not. If it’s satire, it’s poorly done. I’m guessing he’s serious. And, as Owen astutely pointed out to me, it really doesn’t matter. If a conservative had said this, the mainstream media would be soiling themselves.

Regardless of his intentions, it’s pretty tacky of Kennedy to be politicizing a natural disaster like this. What a lowlife.

Florida Marlins outfielder Jeremy Hermida hit a grand slam in his first big league at-bat tonight, becoming only the second player in Major League history to do so.

Not a bad debut for the rookie.

Oh, and the Marlins still lost to the Cardinals 10-5.

UPDATE: The last time this feat was accomplished was 1898, when William “Frosty Bill” Duggleby did it.

My column this week is about Tom Herr, former second baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals, who chose his family over his pursuit of a managing career. Now that his sons are both gone from home, Herr is taking advantage of his first managing gig with the Lancaster Barnstormers.

In the poll referenced below, conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, the findings also revealed that a declining number of people see the Democratics as being friendly to religion.

According to the poll, only 29 percent of respondents considered Democrats friendly to religion, down from 40 percent only a year ago.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe creationism should be taught alongside evolution in public schools, according to the results of a poll released yesterday.

Today’s Boston Globe contains a story about whether evangelical Christians will support the presidential candidacy of Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a Mormon.

Notice the divergent viewpoints from Southern Baptists:

SBC president Bobby Welch said, “‘It would be extraordinarily hard for mainline denomination people in the South to openly and strongly politick or be involved in a Mormon’s run for office.”

David Dockery, president of Union University, however, said that while there may be key doctrinal differences between Mormons and evangelicals, “I don’t see that that would be an issue [in a presidential bid] because he would share many of the same views on political and cultural issues, especially related to life and family, the economy and the environment.”

Dockery is correct. I for one would be happy to support a Mormon for president if he shared my political opinions and convictions, as it seems that Romney does. I’d certainly rather support a conservative Mormon for president than a moderate or liberal Baptist.

What do you think? Will Romney’s Mormonism keep many evangelicals from supporting him?

Go to www.bugmenot.com if you need to get a login for the Boston Globe story.

St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Chris Carpenter became baseball’s first 19-game winner last night as the Cardinals beat Florida 6-1. He has a sparkling 2.29 ERA to go along with his 19-4 record, and is making a strong case to win the National League’s Cy Young Award.

Maybe Boston Red Sox pitcher David Wells should concentrate on lowering his mediocre 4.44 ERA instead of shooting off his mouth so much. What an obnoxious jerk.

UPDATE: After meeting with Bud Selig, Wells has apologized for his previous remarks.

The amount of parental involvement in the lives of college students is increasing, and some colleges are becoming frustrated by parents’ pushiness.

Such parents have earned the title “helicopter parents” for the way they hover around their children, even after they move away to college.

“We noticed what everybody else noticed. We have a generation of parents that are heavily involved in their students lives and it causes all sorts of problems,” said Dean of the College Adam Weinberg. College, he said, should be “a time when you go from living in someone else’s house to becoming a functioning, autonomous person.”

I was talking to our dean of students this weekend, and she told me she gets calls all the time from parents asking how often the cleaning service comes to clean up the dorm rooms. Um, that’d be something the students are responsible for, thank you very much.

One of the reasons given in the story for such intrusiveness by parents is the “tight bond between Baby Boomer parents and their children.” I’m not sure I buy that. Sounds to me like the problem is rooted in a lack of parenting skills. Because parents are so overbearing and meddlesome, their kids aren’t learning how to be independent by doing things for themselves.

Despite another solid outing by Roger Clemens, the Astros failed to capitalize Sunday and lost to the Dodgers 1-0.

Clemens pitched six shutout innings, but for the eighth time this year Houston didn’t score any runs for him. Clemens has a 1.51 ERA this year, but has only 11 wins to show for it.

- Hurricane Katrina is preparing for her assault on New Orleans. Get coverage of the impending disaster here and here.

Some are predicting the hurricane could leave 1 million people homeless. Keep the folks down there in your prayers.

- The FDA is delaying its approval for the “morning after” pill, not because of a sudden moral awakening, but because the agency isn’t sure how to keep the pill away from girls under age 17.

- Podcasting is becoming increasingly popular among pastors and churches. Today’s New York Times includes a story about the phenomenon. It’s a positive development overall, although the headline for the story — “Missed Church? No Worries. Download It to Your IPod” — leaves much to be desired. I was expecting a story about churches who are de-emphasizing attendance since the sermon is available digitally, but thankfully, that wasn’t the case.

Pepper Martin played for the St. Louis Cardinals and was a member of the colorful Gashouse Gang back in the 1930s. He started as an outfielder but later in his career moved to third base. A prankster off the field, the joking stopped when Martin was playing the game. He was fiercely competitive.

Doug Feldmann, author of Dizzy and the Gashouse Gang, tells the following story about Martin:

As he made the switch to third base later in his career, he began to develop a sore back. Knowing this, opposing teams began to bunt on him incessantly. This continued until he became so angry he called time-out in the middle of a game, and called first baseman Rip Collins to the pitcher’s mound for a conference.

“Ripper,” he said, “the next time those bastards bunt, forget about the bag and back up the runner. I’m gonna plunk him right in the noggin.”

And sure enough, the next opponent to bunt dropped like a ton of bricks about two-thirds of the way down to first, the victim of a rocket shot to the head that came from across the infield. Word soon after spread around the league about the fate of would-be drag bunters in Sportsman’s Park, and the strategy ceased to exist.

Keep in mind this was before players started wearing batting helmets. Ouch.

August 27, 2005

Dear Daniel,

Today was Freshman Move-In Day on campus. This morning I helped a lot of new students move their stuff into their dorm rooms, and this evening I went to a worship service on campus for all of the incoming freshmen and their parents.

After the service is when the families say their emotional goodbyes to one another. As I was leaving the service tonight, I ran into the Hays family, who I met earlier this summer. I had the privilege of being in their house and visiting with their son Josh, who is now a freshman at Union.

Like most parents, I’m sure Tom and Debbie Hays are struggling with Josh moving away from home. He’s their oldest son, so it’s the first time they’ve had to experience this. But Josh’s 10-year-old brother Lucas was having an especially difficult time with his older brother leaving for college. As I stood there talking to the family, tears were freely rolling down young Lucas’ face. Lucas has a big heart and loves his big brother, and he’s going to miss him. It broke my heart to see how upset Lucas was, and I had to fight back the tears myself.

Read the rest of this entry »

A man who was sexually abused by a graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary is suing the school. Aaron Babb says if the seminary had informed authorities of the actions of one of their students, he might never have been abused.

In 1988, DTS officials learned that one of their students, Jon Gerrit Warnshuis, had molested a 12- or 13-year-old boy. Rather than making the matter public and turning it over to authorities, the school allowed Warnshuis to undergo counseling and later graduate from the seminary.

Warnshuis went on to become pastor of Oak Hills Evangelical Free Church. The seminary never informed the congregation about Warnshius’ past, and Warnshius proceeded to molest Babb and two other boys at the church. Police suspect he may be guilty of molesting dozens of children.

This raises an interesting question. Was the seminary obligated to inform either the authorities or the church about Warnshius’ actions? They violated no law by not doing so, because mandatory reporting of such offenses weren’t required until a law was passed in 1995. And yet, if they had notified the authorities and the church, one could argue that these cases of molestation could have been prevented.

Brett Maragni at Semper Reformanda pointed me to a story about the Daily Egyptian, the student newspaper of Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Ill. The paper was the victim of a hoax perpetrated by a local woman, who hired a 10-year-old girl to pose as the daughter of a soldier who was supposedly killed in Iraq. Only, there is no such soldier.

Here’s are links to the Daily Egyptian’s coverage of the hoax:

http://www.dailyegyptian.com/fall05/index.html
http://www.dailyegyptian.com/fall05/kodeehoax

UPDATE: In its own story about being tricked, here’s how the DE story begins:

Over nearly two years, the Daily Egyptian told the story of a precocious little girl whose mother was dead and whose father was fighting in Iraq.

Members of the newspaper staff befriended the girl known as Kodee Kennings and she was given an occasional column in the DE. The column, at times funny and at times heart-rending, talked about her father in the military, her fears about monsters under her bed and her life with her guardian, Colleen Hastings.

None of it was true.

The Daily Egyptian and its readers were taken in by a bizarre, elaborate hoax.

There was no Kodee Kennings. There was no Colleen Hastings. And there was no father named Dan Kennings in Iraq.

The woman who created this elaborate hoax, Jaimie Reynolds, says she didn’t act alone, and that the reporter who initially wrote the story about Kodee Kennings asked her to help him with the ruse.

The reporter, Michael Brenner, denies the charges.