Obama should grow a pair

I recently read that President Obama bemoaned the fact that he had not done a better job of reaching across the aisle to build a stronger bipartisan relationship with the Republicans in the Senate. Echos of Neville Chamberlain. Does he really believe that this was remotely possible? The Republican party has become so self serving... their ONLY goal is power, at the expense of America. It's ok if the economy suffers -- in fact, all the better if it does, because American suffering increases their chances of regaining power. I suspect De Toqueville had something to say about this.

I wish Obama would lay the blame for the troubled economy where it belongs:
a) Deregulation of finance
b) The Bush tax cuts
c) The Bush wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

Forget the olive branch. It's time for bare knuckles politics, Chicago style. Something that Barack knows a thing or two about.

Christians without a moral compass

Last year, the local Catholic school, Holy Name, had a problem on their hands. There were too few 3rd grade girls to field a volleyball team. However, the Catholic Youth Organization's rule state that any girl in a church's parish can play on the team, and they asked my daughter, Claire, to help them fill out the team. My daughter is neither athletic nor Catholic, but she agreed.

Now Claire is not the best member of the team. In fact, she may be the worst. But she tries hard, has a good attitude, and probably has one of the best attendance records. However she missed the last practice due to a cold, and when we showed up for the game today, we were told that there was a CYO rule stating that any girl that misses a practice cannot play at the subsequent competition.

When I got home, I looked up the CYO rules for Girl's Volleyball. There was no such rule. Some individual schools have rules concerning unexcused absences, but my wife had sent the coach an email saying that Claire was sick. No, this had nothing to do with rules. This was simply a case of a coach (actually, he wasn't even the coach -- just a parent who is very involved in the Volleyball team), taking matters into his own hands, giving the team an edge by lying to me and my daughter to prevent her from playing.

How pathetic. How stupid. How morally crippled.

As an atheist, I rely on my own moral compass. It seems like some Christians lost theirs when they delegated their morality to the church.