In the bedroom that serves as my office there are two bookcases that sit on either side of my prayer table: the one on the left for Tracey and her Star Trek memorabilia collection, the one on the right for all my books.

One look at my bookcase reveals the eclectic nature, I suppose, of both my interests and the life-path I have trod. The two bottom shelves are reserved for very large and bulky books, like a couple of Bibles given me over the years, a coffee table book on Mississippi River plantations, The Beatles Anthology, and a number of books on popular music. The second to the botton serves as a transition to the shelves above it - a few more books on popular music separated from several books on theology by a basket containing various supplies for burning incense.

On the three shelves above that one contain a cornucopia of books on faith and religion, and it’s amazing to me how a at the various titles brings back memories of my spiritual journey. There’s Henri Nouwen’s The Genesee Diary, Kathleen Norris’ The Cloister Walk, and Thomas Merton’s The Seven Story Mountain - the first books I bought after my religious awakening back in 1994 when I first heard God’s call to the priesthood. And, practically every book Nouwen and Merton ever wrote in paperback. There are also lots of books on Anglicanism and Anglican church history - a biography of Thomas Cranmer, several books on the Oxford Movement, a 3-volume set of Richard Hooker’s Laws of Ecclesiastical Authority (neither of which has ever been opened), and everal books by Anglican theologian N.T. Wright; these books reflecting those formative years spent learning about the Church and faith as I discerned my priestly calling through Don and Eunice Schatz at Life/Work Direction and the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts’ ordination process.

And there are the books associated with the four years we spent in Kentucky. Scattered among these particular shelves are the few remaining books associated with my two semesters spent at Louisville Presbyterian Seminary - while only eight years ago, it seems like two or three lifetimes ago to me! (All the others - 50 or so, easily worth hundreds of dollars - I donated to a certain student in financial need just before we left Louisville for Massachusetts.) Strange to think that for six months I actually played full-time seminary student. While these books don’t do much for me anymore (I can’t imagine a late-night relaxing session in a cozy nook drinking deeply of Barth’s Church Dogmatics!) they do represent an unforgettable and incredibly exciting period in my life.

Finally, there is the top row, reserved for the “good stuff” - my Harper Collins and Harper NRSV Study Bibles, the Bible I received on my on my confirmation back in 1967, several Episcopal Church prayer books, the box of “flash cards” recalling my semester of Ancient Greek, my purple and green prayer table linens, and the New Testament on tape (narrated by Gregory Peck, no less!). Looking at that particular box, I still remember all those daily 1-hour commutes from Louisville to Frankfort and back when we first moved to Kentucky, and those 45-minute drives between Louisville and Elizabethtown, where I went to church. Mr. Peck was a welcome companion during those long drives, and every now and then, when I hear a certain passage read from a lectern (like Jesus’ parables, for instance) I still hear them in Peck’s voice.

For more than six years these books, once enthustically devoured, poured over, their pages annotated, highlighted, and/or and dog-eared as deemed essential to my spiritial formation, sat unused and neglected (at various times boxed and in storage) as the light of my faith and my calling (not to mention me) flamed out following my unpleasant dealings with the Episcopal Church back in 2001. Arriving here in Arizona back in the fall of 2003, the books were unboxed and arranged in the bookcase, but for all the attention both it (and the prayer table) received in our first years here they might just as well have been back in storage in Massachusetts.

In the past year, however, the rekindling of my faith and interest in theology and Catholicism has brought me back in contact with these once-neglected but never forgotten friends, and revisiting them - whether for a full re-read or just a few page browse - I find it both comforting and reassuring that God has brought us back together again.

Because sometime life (and blogging) demands it…

———————–

Happy Mother’s Day to the best mom in the whole world. I love you, Mom!

Monday night I shut the computer down.

Tuesday morning the power button on the computer is blinking yellow. No power. Tried switching the cords, switching the outlet, unplugging and replugging the power supply. And still the damned blinking light on the power switch.

They call it the “amber alert”.

Several calls to Dell support and a visit from the local computer quack have confirmed the need for a new power supply and motherboard. Fortunately, the disk drive appears to be OK. Damned good thing, too - we’ve never backed up any of our data in our lives.

The effects of this event upon our household are truly devastating, for the world’s most powerful solitaire machine has been reduced to a state of deadness akin to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential aspirations and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’ brain cells. Tracey can’t play her 40 Thieves game, there’s no e-mail, and no access to the CD burner (meaning Tightwad’s Flower Power collection I was hoping to bring back with me to Massachusetts next week is on hold). Sorry about that, Tightwad…

Good thing I have this doohickey called a laptop in my home office, as otherwise we’d be cut off from the outside world - no computer, no Goodboys Nation weblog posting, no food, no water, no FOX Business Channel. Um… well, maybe I’m overstating things a little bit there.

Seriously, however, I’m beginning to question the quality of our Dell XPS 400 - in less than 1 1/2 years we’ve had to replace a fan and now the power supply and motherboard.

Maybe it’s time to start backing our data up after all?

Episcopal Church Bishop John Shelby Spong is damned lucky he lives in an enlightened 20th/21st century. Were he writing the kinds of books he has written four or five centuries ago he would have been burned at the stake or met some equally unsavory end like other heretics of his kind did. (Not I would ever have sanctioned such treatment for those like him, but you get the point.)

In my bookcase for several years I have kept two of his books - “Born Of A Woman”, and “Resurrection - Myth Or Reality”. (Not that I ever subscribed to any of his writings, but when you’re immersed in the priesthood process in a very liberal Protestant denomination you have to cover all your bases - no matter how unsavory they might appear to be.) In both books you’ll find the same old tired claptrap all too common in today’s post-modern (actually, anti-religion, anti-Christian) marketplace of ideas, dragged out once again for its intended “enlightened” audience. Read any of Spong’s garbage and you’ll see the same common thread found in virtually every anti-Christian screed of its kind: all the Gospel stories are myths promulgated by Jesus’ disciples to forward their own agenda, or, Jesus’ disciples were caught up in the whirlwind of his ministry, or they were delusional or uninformed saps, or these are simply stories passed down from an ancient, oh-so-unenlightened and - oh yes - male-dominated time in human history.

Unfortunately, Spong is not the exception in today’s Episcopal Church but the rule. From its petty, angry, and delusional Presiding Bishop on down, ECUSA’s power structure is polluted with apostate heretical believers who worship not at the altar of Jesus Christ, defending and promoting the Church’s traditional and orthodox teachings, but at the altar of post-modern socialist liberalism all in the name of tolerance, acceptance, and diversity.

The unfortunate truth of the matter is that a heretic like John Spong is only able to sell the number of books he can because of his position as a bishop in the Episcopal Church, something he NEVER fails to emphasize on the jackets of his books - as if that’s supposed to mean something these days, right? How shocking!! Listen, if Spong were a ditch digger or an accountant his books would gather dust on the shelves. (Which, BTW, makes him not only a heretic but a hypocrite as well.) Never mind the fact that he ran the diocese under his care (Newark) into the ground; never mind that he should have been ex-communicated from the Church years ago for taking a very handsome salary for a position whose teachings he couldn’t ascribe to; never mind that he will get his own just reward when his time on earth is through.

But I digress…

Last week, I was looking at my bookcase and reorganizing it a bit when I saw these two books and thought to myself why on earth they were still there. After all, there is absolutely nothing in them I would ever, ever subscribe to in belief or practice - after all, one must look to one’s own soul. But what to do with them? I don’t believe in throwing out books or even burning them - I mean, there’s something about a book, especially a hardcover, that deserves a certain amount of respect, right? And it was then that the idea popped into my head.

So how do we deal with heretics in the Richard household? Well, since I’m a guy who resists the idea of promoting physical harm in any way - even for heretics like John Shelby Spong - I sought a more subtle, yet meaningful solution to my problem. And that’s why I chose a course of action any humble defender of the faith could do with a clear conscience: I donated those two books to creatures who would “digest” Spong’s message and give it all the respect his warped teachings deserve…

I donated them to Marble Junior and Cosmo.

Believe me, their appetite for the good bishop’s writings knows no bounds!

A few thoughts on te Beantown Nine a little over a month into the season:

* Manny Ramirez is one very bad dude at the plate. Now that he’s come out of his homer drought (thanks in no part to Terry Francona sitting him down for a couple of days two weeks ago while he was en fuego), expect his homers to come in bunches and him hitting his 500th on the present road trip. You could see Manny being just-this-much-away from pure during the weekend series with the Rays.

* Even though he had a rough outing tonight, I love watching Craig Buchholz pitch. If he stays healthy, he’s going to be a phenom.

* Alternatively, I can’t stand to watch Daisuke Matsuzaka games, which seem to take freakin’ forever. The good news is that when he’s on the mound at the start of an inning, I can vacuum the house, do the rabbit cages, and wash my car all and still be done to see him go 3-2 on the fifth batter of the inning just before he strikes him out, leaving the bases loaded without being scored upon.

* I can’t wait for the Julio Lugo era to end. Yeah, yeah, the Sox became World Champions with him at shortstop last year, but he does nothing for me.

* On the other hand, watching centerfielder Jacoby Ellsbury and 2nd baseman Dustin Pedroia in the 1-2 positions in the lineup is a treat. Just as it is to watch both of them field their positions. The day is coming in the not-too-distant-future that both will be All-Stars.

* Doug Mirabelli? Doug Mirabelli? ‘Nuff said…

* That new camera angle on NESN’s Fenway Park broadcasts right behind the pitcher’s right shoulder is fantastic. You can really see the movement and rotation on the ball.

* Speaking of NESN: it’s hard not to take the broadcast team of Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy for granted, but they are the best in the game. Don’t believe me? Listen to some of the other broadcast teams out there. The guys who do the Florida Marlins are very good, as are the ones who do the Tampa Bay Rays. But the clowns who do the Diamondbacks broadcasts really bug me - they call every ballplayer by their first name as if they were one of the family. And don’t even mention the Yankee broadcasters.

* Speaking of NESN: I love Dennis Eckersley on the pre- and post-game shows. He calls it like it is, is not afraid to admit when he’s wrong about someone (Dustin Pedroia, for example), and he still talks and thinks like a ballplayer. But Ken Macha does nothing for me. And I love Jim Rice’s ties.

* Speaking of NESN: OK I’m missing Tina Cervasio on the NESN broadcasts, but, like Red at Surviving Grady, my eyes are more than willing to give her replacement Heidi Watney every chance in the world to succeed. And I’m guessing fellow Goodboy Ben “The Funny Guy” Andrusaitis feels the same way…

It’s been a true marathon for the Democratic nomination for President; seems like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have been slogging it out for years - actually, come to think of it, they have. Hard to believe that less than six months ago, Hillary Clinton was not simply the de facto Democratic nominee, but plans were being prepared for a Democratic national convention in Denver that would be more of a coronation than anything else.

And why not? Hillary had the so-called White House experience, the name recognition, the backing of the party base, the money, and a clear road to the nomination. Given the relative inexperience and lack of name recognition of her competitors, while not impossible, it was difficult to imagine any scenario where Hillary! wouldn’t be the nominee. (Note to readers: I’ve written enough about her candidacy and its inherent dangers to be a virtual Nostradamus - just search for “Hillary” in the archives.) The race for the nomination was most certainly hers to lose, and to do so would require serious missteps politically on her part - something fairly unlikely given the Clinton’s past political track record.

But her ill-advised comments supporting, then not supporting, then er, somewhat supporting then-NY governor Elliot Spitzer’s plan to give illegals drivers licenses in that first debate began a series of hiccups that cast the first doubts on both her and her campaign’s political chops. When Barack Obama went on the attack, both she and her campaign seemed slow to respond; it was as if they truly believed in her “inevitability” as the nominee. And her campaign wore that badge of inevitability like a cloak and then got stupid, spending an inordinate amount of cash to win the Iowa caucuses when they would have been better off paying it lip-service and allowing Obama to win by default so they could focus on the Super Tuesday primaries.

They say a campaign staff and strategy reflects a candidate’s personality. And the Hillary! campaign wore her personality like a cheap suit in its arrogance and lack of honesty. Having never dreamed that she’d be in a battle for the nomination after Super Tuesday, the campaign clearly had no strategy. It ran out of cash. She used her cheatin’ and philanderin’ husband to make a series of ill-advised attacks on Obama when things got tough, pulled him back when those attacks proved to infuriate African-American voters, then ran both him and daughter Chelsea out to pimp for votes at the last minute - all of which served only to diminish the actual candidate running for President. When Hillary! got caught embellishing a trip she had taken to Bosnia as First Lady, it not only made voters question her honesty, it reminded them of the many problems she and her husband had telling the truth during their White House years.

More than anything, however, what killed Hillary’s campaign in the end was the shocking discovery that the puppy-dog love affair the liberal mainstream media had for her husband didn’t extend to his spouse. Once Obama showed he had the chutzpah to run a solid and effective campaign, all that was left on the Hillary bandwagon were hacks and flacks left over from the Clinton White House years. Obama became the MAN, larger than life itself, and Hillary! was now intruding on the left-wing’s hopes and dreams for the 2008 election. And with her unfavorable ratings never dropping below 48-50 percent, there simply was no room for her to either reinvent herself or go negative on Obama.

Tonight, with North Carolina solidly in the Obama column and Indiana barely in Clinton’s, she finds herself further behind both in terms of the popular vote and delegates. She can talk all she wants about continuing her “fight for the American people” (I’ll hurl later), but you can bet there are more than a few Party faithful pushing behind the scenes to have her concede the nomination. The math is against her more than ever, Obama’s victory in North Carolina proves that he has put (at least for Democrats) the Jeremiah Wright controversy behind him, and the uphill climb she already faced before tonight only gets steeper.

So it’s a time to rejoice. The Hillary! campaign for the Democratic nomination is done like dinner, and I have to admit I’m enjoying every minute of it. Couldn’t happen to a more unlikeable, arrogant, unqualified, and phony (not to mention Socialist) candidate. It was already satisfying to know that a Bush wouldn’t be occupying the White House for another four years - I’ll get to him another time - but knowing that a Clinton won’t be there either is a reason to celebrate.

A few things that have been nagging at my cranium lately…

Bad enough the flying experience is awful these days, but now airlines want to keep you in the skies longer to cut costs.

…And if they ever allow cell phone use on planes, count me completely out.

Question: who’s the biggest sleazeball - Madonna or Roger Clemens?

Maybe it’s just me, but this endless weeping and gnashing of teeth by conservative cable and radio talk show hosts like Hugh Hewitt and Sean Hannity, not to mention bloggers of a similar political stripe over Jeremiah Wright’s overheated rhetoric smacks of racism to me. These priviliged white breads have never walked in the latter’s shoes (no matter how fancy those shoes might be) and should therefore stick to what they know from their own caucasian perspective.

Put me down as a new devotee to the Dave Ramsey Show on Fox Business Channel. As someone who has spent too many years drowning in debt and paying the minimum on credit cards, Ramsey is like a breath of fresh air - for him it’s all about getting debt free (house included) and Tracey and I are starting to breathe some of that rarified air. We’ve still got a long way to go, but at least the ship is finally pointed in the right direction.

Big Brown was magnificent in winning Saturday’s Kentucky Derby and should be a strong contender for the Triple Crown. Of course, the colt’s victory was overshadowed by the tragedy of filly Eight Belles breaking down after crossing the finish line and having to be euthanized right there on the track.

As much as I love the sport, I’m afraid the AP’s Richard Rosenblatt is right - the sport of big-time horse racing has a image problem right now, and it’s hard to see what can be done. For example, this past Saturday my wife watched the race with me but she was more concerned with seeing all the horses finishing safely than she was about her pick actually winning. And to see Eight Belles go down as she did, it’s not likely she’ll watch another race again. I’m sure she’s not alone in that regard.

But what to do? Spread the Triple Crown qualifying races further apart? Enforce standards that require a certain amount of down-time for horses in order to qualify for Triple Crown events? Perhaps the synthetic tracks they’re trying out at tracks across the country is the answer - who knows? As far as the Derby itself is concerned, I suppose you could reduce the chances of something happening by reducing the size of the field - after all, twenty is a lot of horses, and in a field that size you’re just increasing the odds of something happening.

But I don’t think it has anything to do with training or how the horses are treated - after all, this is a big-money sport where a lot of dough-re-mi is invested, and my guess is these horses are treated in accordance with the investors in mind. Once they’re through racing, that’s another matter, but in preparing for a stage like the Triple Crown that these horses are treated pretty darned well if not like gold. After all, these horses have been bred, born, and trained for this very thing.

At any rate, it’s certainly a complex issue, and without a doubt something the industry as a whole has to take a good hard look at.

My good pal Jerome sent me this e-mail today:

FRET NOT, oh Shank of the west, for the gods of DirecTV are not ripping you off!!

Yes, you can watch EITHER channel to watch the game because you have subscribed to BOTH!!!

And indeed, I have confirmed what Jerome says because I can also get the YES Network (one notch up the dial at 622) and watch all the New York Yankees games I want.

Like that will happen, right?

But a big “thank you!” to Jerome for making me feel so much better about myself! And he’s right, that is some nice flexibility DirecTV offers. Now if I only didn’t have to work so hard to get all my promised rebates…but that’s another story for another time.

(Part 2 of a two-part post)

Last Thursday - I don’t remember the team the Sox were playing - Cleveland? Anyways, the Sox were losing and I put my glass of Bolla Chianti down and grabbed the flicker. The MLB “Extra Innings” channels are up in the 700 series, so I lazily began working my way down towards my intended destination of 359 (the Fox Business Channel), planning a brief stop along the way at 370 (EWTN) to see what was going on in the Roman Catholic universe.

So there I am, flicking…flicking… and all of a sudden, I’m watching the damned Red Sox game on 623. “That’s strange…”, I say to no one in particular (after all, Tracey’s still at work, Cosmo the rabbit is in the next room vegging out, and the other rabbits Marble Junior and Half-Pint are in the rabbit room/office down the hall doing likewise), “I shouldn’t be getting this game.” I flick up a channel, and there’s the same 623 number again, but this time with the “Not a subscriber to this channel” screen I had gotten that first time I checked to see if the NESN games were still blacked out as they were when I had Dish Network.

I reach for my glass of wine, take a sip, another sip, then sit up straight. I flick down, the channel shows 623 and the Red Sox game. I flick up, the channel shows 623 and the “not a subscriber” message. Down. Up. Down. Up. The same thing. “Well this is freakin’ weird”, I think to myself. I make a mental note to check what happens the following night when the Sox play Tampa Bay.

The next night, it’s game on, and I’m ready with the flicker. And the same thing happens - I punch in 623, and I get the “not a subscriber” screen. I flick up one channel, and it’s 623 and the damned Red Sox are playing - not well, but playing still. And it was then I began to realize just what had been going on. I walked down the hall, past the rabbits, and go into the spare bedroom where we have DirecTV but on a regular (i.e., non-HD) box (the TV there is our ancient-but-still-working-fine Sony). I turn on the TV, punch in 623…

..and there are the Sox, playing in living color.

“Son of a bitch!”, I say to no one in particular, “I just blew $170 bucks!”

(It was then I was reminded of that great scene in “The Sting” where Robert Shaw discovers that the horse he had just placed $500K on to win was actually going to finish second. He ambles up to the window and starts shouting to the teller, “There’s been a mistake. I want my money back!”)

You see, it was then I realized just how much of an idiot I am, for three - no, four - absolute truths all of a sudden became apparent to me:

1. For those with HD receivers, there are two NESN 623 channels, one in HD (available when one orders DirecTV’s HD package - which I don’t have), one not. If you have a HD receiver and punch in 623, you’re automatically directed to the HD channel; if you don’t, you just go to the single non-HD channel provided.

2. Unlike with Dish Network, NESN’s Red Sox games are NOT blacked out on DirecTV. Don’t ask me why this is so or was so, it just is… Or was.

3. That first time I checked to see if the Sox games were blacked out on NESN, I got the NESN HD channel; that message saying I wasn’t a subscriber meant just that - I wasn’t a DirecTV HD package subscriber. It never occurred to me there might have been two NESN channels with the same channel number.

4. I had wasted $170 on a sports package I never needed in the first place.

Ah yes, The Great White Shank truly is an idiot. Or maybe I’m being too hard on myself. After all, how was I - or anyone, for that matter, supposed to know there were two NESN channel 623s? How does that make sense?

In the meanwhile, I don’t really consider myself out $170 - after all, I’ve paid for the privilege of being able to really enjoy those Tampa Bay Rays or Milwaukee Brewers broadcasts. Sigh.