Ian Robinson tells you why.

Too bad. I was looking forward to lightening the load a little. I’m all for increasing the ratio of actual oppressed/struggling Americans to delusional celebrities and rich folks who think they know anything about oppresion/struggle.

Postscript: If this makes you mad, a few suggestions:

1)Remember that Thad is increasingly apolitical and, at best, conflicted about the war, yadda yadda yadda.

2) Recognize that this is a Canadian perspective, not GOP propaganda.

3) Lighten up already. No matter what you think of the President, this is funny. Laugh. If you don’t, someone else will end up laughing at you.

Don’t mess with Gloria and Shoats. Especially Gloria. [Suggestion: This story plays best when you give your imagination liberty to animate Gloria. I suspect your imagination won’t do her justice. As you read what she says, remember it’s rural Georgia.]

Me thinks the Norwegians are on to something.

– I’m getting old. How do I know? Aside from thirty storming around the corner in a few months (which honestly doesn’t bother me much), I pulled a gray hair out of each side of my head this week. I’ve had them in my beard for a while, but this was new. I also experienced utter bewilderment at a New Year’s Eve party I found myself at (long story) that involved mass consumption and loud music. After the 14th playing Snoop’s Drop it Like It’s Hot, (my apologies to those who arrived here from a search engine looking for S-N double O-P, D-O double G…you might want to hit the back button and try the next link) I found a back room and went to sleep. Too loud, too silly, and I was too tired. Not that I was ever the beer swilling party machine, but the whole scene just reminded me that I was old (and that I know I’m getting old, which I can’t say for some of the other folks at the party).

– I think it’s time to go public with my belief that Joe Simpson will reap eternal consequences for what he’s done to his daughters, maybe especially the younger one. If you still think the SNL snafu was ugly, then you missed last night’s Orange Bowl meltdown. She got her @$$ booed off the stage, BCS style. It was an odd combination of sad, ugly, and altogether justified. Joe, please. Your daughter was made to do something meaningful, and you’ve hoodwinked her into thinking it’s this. It’s not. Please, rescue her. Be her Dad. Protect her and restore her. Repent and God will forgive you. I just hope your daughters, once they discover the lies they’ve been encouraged to believe and live, will be as merciful.

– I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because they feel like the kind of religious path to right living I’ve come to disdain, and maybe it’s because I’m weak and undisciplined. Either way, I’m not making any promises, but there are a few things I want to make priorities. Maybe posting them publicly will supply some manner of relational accountability sans the yoke of ritual obligation and subsequent failure. I don’t know what any of that means, but here are a few things I want to do and/or change about me:

• Write more, write better, and write more better. This is a long time goal that needs to find life. Maybe it means more writing here; maybe it means trying to get published. I’m not sure. I just believe I’m supposed to be doing this in more meaningful ways, and I wouldn’t mind the opportunity to free myself from the ritual of the desk job, which makes me get old a lot faster. My job is not without meaning or purpose, but I believe I was made to labor long and hard for the Kingdom in some ways that my job doesn’t allow.
• Be a better husband and Dad. Amy and Aiden deserve that, and I’m sure the as-yet unnamed and unknown child growing in my wife’s body does too. I love my family, and I want to love them better.
• Get in shape. As I get old, my shape is changing in ways that I’m not familiar with. I need to exercise and I need to eat better. The back end of that is among the most painful changes I can imagine.
• Love stuff less; love Jesus and people more.

– I appreciate you. I don’t know who you are, but you’re reading this, and there’s really no reason for that. I’m just a guy. Thanks for investing a small percentage of your existence in me, or at least in my words. I hope they will make you think or laugh, and I’d love it if they nudged you toward some kind of deeper interaction with Life and Light and Hope and Peace.

– Over 150,000 people died in the tsunami (that’s roughly 50 times as many people as died on 9/11). Millions more are left homeless, destitute, and hopeless. Children are orphaned, whole economies are destroyed. Do something.