I realized today how much the culture has passed me by. I was reading a story about a massive toy recall and I scanned the list of items. Pictured right there on the front page of my hometown newspaper was a picture of recalled Barbie and her dog, recalled Tanner. The caption read (and I could not make this up): The recall includes 683,000 sets that contain a magnetic pooper scooper. So it has come to this? Our children are playing with magnetic pooper scoopers? This is an actual review from the Amazon.com link above. “Initially we really liked this set but the dog’s “pooping” function broke rather quickly.” We all know how painful that can be. So exactly how does a magnetic pooper scooper work? In real life Tanner would have to have a very high iron diet to make that work. It just made me happy that my toy buying days are on hold pending grandchildren. That story gave me tired
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Enjoy a gently read blog today. Blessings, Dave I am changing careers. I have decided to start issuing official sounding studies about obvious things. I have a keen sense of the obvious. Why not profit from that? My career epiphany came as I read a study that found that college students are self-centered. Seriously? I am planning to release my first groundbreaking study soon. My thesis is that people stuck in rush hour traffic are less friendly. I am pretty sure I am right. While the conclusion of the study about today’s college kids isn’t shocking the conclusions about the reasons are indeed interesting. According to the study’s lead author, psychology professor Jean Twenge, the reason narcissism is now epidemic can be traced to an unhealthy desire to boost self-esteem. Narcissism is defined at dictionary.com as excessive love or admiration of oneself. The second listed definition smacks of irony. A psychological condition characterized by self-preoccupation, lack of empathy, and unconscious deficits in self-esteem. So
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I love football season. The start of NFL camps got me fired up and ready for some football. I wrote a tongue-in-cheek reference to football in my book When Bad Christians Happen to Good People. I looked at how we assemble our church “team” using football imagery. You start with a couple of All-Conference performers and a few other pretty good players. But you also have several who just started playing and don’t even know the rules or terminology of the game. Add some dreadfully out-of-shape, middle-aged players who have been around for years, who never work out or train, but who expect to get playing time nonetheless. You have a few who just don’t care anymore and don’t want to practice, learn the plays or listen to the coach. But you can’t cut them from the team or even bench them without causing big problems. There are some who try hard but are too weak or injury prone to be effective.
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There is a very smart website called SmartPastor.com. The site links interesting tidbits, articles, blogs and other resources for pastors. The man behind the curtain is a pastor from Loveland, Colorado named Jeff Berg. His bio describes his humble beginnings. Born naked, helpless and unable to fend for himself, Jeff Berg overcame his inauspicious start to become the Pastor of Family Ministries at LifeSpring Covenant Church in Loveland, Colorado.  How can you not root for an underdog story like that? Occasionally Jeff will tarnish his Smart Pastor credentials by linking to my humble ramblings. The last time that Jeff linked to my site he described me in a way that brought tears to my eyes. Dave Burchett, the most entertaining Christian author you never heard of, finished his series of posts, “Sentences that change your life.” I was not prepared for such an honor. But I have quickly scribbled some notes on one of my books that hasn’t sold. So here goes… I
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Today’s blog is guaranteed to generate response that is completely unrelated to my point. So I decided to review again one of my favorite public service films of all time. It was called Duck and Cover and the film featured a turtle named Bert. You can enjoy a couple of chuckles by watching this film here. The film spent nine terrifying minutes telling you a nuclear bomb could detonate at any moment. To be fair, the film primarily advocated finding appropriate shelter. But if such shelter was not readily available the very serious announcer suggested you should duck and cover when you saw the bright flash of detonation. While I guess such an action is better than nothing it seems ludicrous that this would be of much value in the event of nuclear attack. When I took a break from being terrified I wondered about some important questions. Like why does a turtle wear a safety helmet? How could the helmet fit inside the shell when Bert
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Parenthood is a tough gig. We have been blessed with three wonderful sons who are, thank God, grownups. My gratefulness that they are grown relates to the current hyper-competitive race to give babies an edge. Today I read a story that may bring a little sanity to infant competition. Parents hoping to raise baby Einsteins by using infant educational videos are actually creating baby Homer Simpsons, according to a new study reported by The Los Angeles Times. That made me chuckle. Can you imagine spending a couple of hundred bucks on baby DVD’s and junior becomes Homer Simpson. Mommy: What do you say when you drop your bottle?Baby:  D’oh!Mommy: Are you hungry?Baby: UMMMMMM….Donuts! Perhaps the babies don’t literally become Homer but the study did find that for every hour a day that babies 8 to 16 months old were shown such popular series as “Brainy Baby” or “Baby Einstein,” they knew six to eight fewer words than other children. Parents aiming
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Saturday was a fascinating day in professional sports. Two enormously gifted men achieved personal milestones. One superstar received adulation and praise. The other generated a mixed response of praise and open disdain. Michael Irvin was inducted into the Football Hall of Fame this weekend. The other superstar, Barry Bonds, tied the revered home run record of Hank Aaron on Saturday. Barry Bond’s story has been well chronicled. While the accusations have never been proven it is overwhelmingly suspected that Bonds benefited from performance enhancing drugs. Bonds has been defiant, arrogant, angry, and sullen as he relentlessly closed in on the record. Fans have taken to wearing asterisk shirts at San Francisco Giant games to make the statement that any records set should have an asterisk attached to denote that the mark is tainted. Barry Bonds has not made it easy to be a fan of his. But the fascinating juxtaposition from Saturday was the adulation poured on Michael Irvin. Irvin was also once an
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