Meet Eddie

I am in London for the week. I visited speaker’s corner today at Hyde Park. A speaker, Eddie, had a notebook full of disturbing images from the American civil rights movement. These images did not speak very highly of those who stood by as these atrocities took place. As many Christians were gathered he began to yell at us. “How dare you gather and speak poorly of someone else’s beliefs.” “Hypocrites!” “You are all hypocrites!” “Apologize!” he continued. “This is what Christian let happen!” Many of the images I had seen before because the event took place in Mississippi, my home state. When he finished, he quietly stepped down off his ladder. It was almost as though the ladder made him a different person when standing on it. Now a much quieter Eddie went to join the crowd as an observer. I walked up to meet him and told him I grew up in Mississippi and that there was much of our history that we should not be proud of. I admitted that the church and Christians were guilty of standing by and doing nothing while men, women, and children were treated less than human. That began a great conversation with Eddie. I can’t say that his views on Christianity or American’s are any different, but Eddie and I for a brief moment saw eye to eye one nice afternoon in London.

Give US...US FREE!!!

Let me start by saying October is by far my favorite time of the year. I love the weather, college football is in its prime, its my birth month (so I get presents), and finally Baseball is at its peak. My mother says the world series was on when she was in the hospital having me, so my love affair with America's Favorite Pastime has truly been life-long. This year has had some extra drama. The Braves didn't make it in, I'm over that already, sort of. But there have been some really good games lately. The Mets blew it, but more exciting than that was the tie for the wildcard game. Last night there was a one game playoff between San Diego and Colorado. I had been looking forward to watching the postseason for a while. I found that TBS had won the bid to air it this year so I was excited.

Then October 1st happened and It seems the only thing that turned cold is the cable companies heart towards me and my tradition of postseason baseball. My wife and I have basic cable. I have learned to survive without ESPN, but yesterday TBS went to what they call extended basic cable which is more money per month and I flipped out. I know they did it on purpose. They knew my love for Baseball, and everyone elses for that matter would drive people to buy more channels. Baseball was meant to be watched and enjoyed, not sold. GIVE US...US FREE!!! I'm calling the cable company today. If and when I ever talk to a live human being I will try to work in that line.

"Thank you for choosing Charter can I have your costumer number and address please?" said the cable company. "GIVE US, US FREE!!!" "Excuse me sir?" "Give US, US FREE!!" "Are you experiencing an outage in your area or has there been a break in your cable service?" "GIVE US, us FREE!!"