Rick Warren will give the Invocation at Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration. VanderKloot, the inspiring, humble, intelligent pastor of Faith Lutheran Church in Springfield, Illinois, whose daily emailed inspirations I often share with readers of my blog, gave the invocation at the big rally with Obama and his then-newly announced running mate, Joe Biden, held at the old Illinois State House on the Saturday before the Democratic National Convention. I had hoped that Mr. Obama would ask...

as noted here and here on November 26.

A little background on those shoes hurled at President Bush at an Iraqi press conference seems in order. In traditional Mideast culture, the foot is considered the filthiest part of the human body. This is reflected in a book in which I spend quite a lot of time, the Bible, and it plays an important role in an annual event on the Christian calendar. Maundy Thursday–maundy being an Old English word meaning commandment, used for the Thursday before Easter because it was then that Jesus gave a...

Or are they one and the same? I mean him and him. We’ll know for sure if, in a surprising twist, Samwise Gamgee is appointed to Barack Obama’s vacant US Senate seat. [This bit of blog trivia was crossposted at my otherwise depthy personal blog.]

Talk about whoppers! This one would make Rod Blagojevich blush. A day after Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe claimed that the cholera outbreak in his country had been thwarted, in spite of confirmation from numerous sources it was claiming more victims, a member of the Mugabe regime claimed that cholera had been planted by Britain: Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu described the outbreak as a “genocidal onslaught on the people of Zimbabwe by the British.” In the meantime, the same...

How does a lying thug like Robert Mugabe stay in power? Clearly, he’s supported by other lying thugs. In fact, press reports from earlier this year indicated that in the wake of the 2008 presidential elections in Zimbabwe, Mugabe was preparing to concede his loss and step down from office. But his military sponsors told him that he would, under no circumstances, concede. So, the lying thug who has oppressed and murdered thousands of Zimbabweans while he and his henchmen robbed his countrymen...

The Supreme Court will not hear the complaints of those claiming that President-elect Barack Obama isn’t a “natural born” US citizen, as the Constitution requires our president to be. Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961, two years after the state was admitted into the Union. Marc Ambinder wrote about this several days ago. The entire “case” against Obama’s status as a “natural born citizen” was without merit. It’s good that a conservative Supreme...

Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg has spoken with New York’s governor regarding the Senate seat which may be open soon, should Hillary Clinton’s nomination for Secretary of State go through.* Her cousin, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has confirmed that she is interested in the post. Kennedy may be qualified for the US Senate. For one thing, unlike Clinton, she’s actually lived in New York. In fact, she’s played an important role in raising money for the public schools in New York City. But...

I was in a Virgin Records Store earlier this week. (It’s a place where I sometimes peruse, although I can’t remember ever buying anything there, by the way.) As I looked around, this CD caught my eye: Imitation is, of course, if not the highest, one of the highest forms of flattery and obviously, this LP cover art from Def Leppard, a band I have managed to totally avoid through the years, pays homage to the Beatles. The Sparkle Lounge, I’ve since learned, was released in April...

I don’t ask this impudently. My favorite conference, the Big 10, has its problems. I’m willing, in fact, to admit that the Big 10 is down this year. But really, how do fans Big 12 teams expect their favorites to do in the post-season BCS bowl games? This weekend’s five matchups in the Big 12 saw a total of 371 points scored, 102 of those in what was supposedly the elite game of the day, Oklahoma at Oklahoma State. What do you make of a conference where the average total points per...

The war in Europe was over and the Allied commander, General Dwight D. (Ike) Eisenhower, was extremely ill, at home on leave. Doctors had ordered him to rest. But, in the face of an enormous humanitarian crisis that threatened millions in Europe with starvation, the leader of Europe’s liberation from Nazi Germany, testified about the need of relief from a war-weary United States. Read the story here. The account, written by William Lambers, ends this way: We didn’t forget about Europe...

There must be some years when being part of the editorial crowd charged with selecting the “person of the year” at TIME magazine live in happy confusion: a lack of clarity created by a swirl of candidates for being named the person (or planet, or group of people, or machine) which “for better or for worse…has done the most to influence the events of the year.” In some years, TIME’s editors have used the choice to highlight trends that weren’t led or catalyzed...

[UPDATE: Please note that I neither endorse nor condemn the Citi bailout here, only comment on the opportunities presented by the financial crisis we now face.] My grandfather, a small business entrepreneur, used to say, “Borrow a thousand dollars from the bank and the bank owns you; borrow a hundred thousand from the bank and you own the bank.” The times were simpler then. But if you add a few zeroes, as represented in the sometimes shaky yet astronomical loans made by major US lending...

Ann Althouse headlined a link to a news story this way: “Surgeons thought Rosemary Alvarez had a brain tumour, but on operating they found the worm.” Somehow, that made me think of this scene from ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’: Come to think of it, the Althouse headline, taken from the body of a BBC report, also looks like the lead-in for a Monty Python sketch. [This has been crossposted on my personal blog.]

Howard LaFranchi has some informed speculations. Those with whom LaFranchi spoke speculate that, owing to our own financial crisis, the one precipitated by falling oil prices in Iran, and the upcoming Iranian presidential election in which incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is, by no means, a shoo-in, Obama will take deliberate approach to confronting and eliminating Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The new president is, according to LaFranchi’s reporting, likely to seek new sanctions against...

Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe and his military henchmen will do anything to maintain power in their country, even preside over the unnecessary deaths by starvation and disease of hundreds of thousands of their countrymen. After losing a presidential election but declaring victory, Mugabe et al entered into a power-sharing standoff with actual winner Morgan Tsvangirai. Since then, a major new Zimbabwean humanitarian crisis has been brewing. The BBC reports that “nearly half the population”...

We read or hear the names of a plethora of countries every day. But I have to confess that as closely as I try to follow world news and foreign affairs, I can’t always identify the locations of some countries. In this era of globalization and of the projection of US power and influence, it seems sort of important for we Americans to be more aware of the world around us. After all, people in Yemen, Bahrain, and other places can’t avoid us or the influence of our culture. Today, the Middle...

For any incoming President, building a Cabinet team can be a bit like piecing together a puzzle. Even if you don’t begin with a nod to identity politics, pledging as Bill Clinton did during his transition to the presidency, to have a Cabinet that “looks like America,” presidents want to have teams that bring not only competence, but also allow them to placate various groups and interests. Yet, there’s more at play in putting together a Cabinet than completing a checklist. As...

Mitch Mitchell, drummer with the Jimi Hendrix Experience, has died. Here’s Mitchell on drums, along with John Lennon, Eric Clapton, and Keith Richards, doing one of Lennon’s White Album tunes. I love Ringo Starr’s drumwork on the original recording and in a way, Mitchell and Starr represent diametrically opposed approaches to drumming. Starr has always claimed to hate drum solos, insisting that his job as the rhythm section is to provide a backbeat. Mitchell, on the other hand,...

In June 2006, my denominational body required me to fill out an eighteen page document called Mobility Papers. Filling it out was a pain, but a necessary step to be taken after my wife and I had determined that, after what was then nearly sixteen years at our second parish, I needed to open myself to the possibility of being called to serve another congregation. I don’t deal well with paperwork and frankly, it took me longer to fill out the Mobility Papers than it does for me to fill out our...

And, by whom? “Your success here is assured. You’ve got youth, energy, humor, looks, and fun. That’s exactly what the English like.” What struck me in these words is how easily someone could have written them to one of the young Beatles. They had all of those attributes bundled in with their talent and so won over their fellow Brits, as their Command Performance before the Royals famously underscored. And the act about which the words above were spoken, in fact, became favorites of the...

Once upon a time, Republicans believed in limited government, civil liberties, restrained spending, and foreign policy realism. But, in courting the Religious Right, the party changed course dramatically. That change has been especially pronounced during the administration of George W. Bush. With the loss of the White House and the larger Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress that came about last Tuesday, will the GOP try to go back to the past to secure a better future?

I will probably blog more about this, but it’s is really intriguing. He won Jews and Roman Catholics and posted higher tallies from evangelical Protestants than John Kerry. Read the whole thing. [This has been crossposted at my personal blog.]

Did Sarah Palin lose the 2008 election for John McCain? It should first of all be said, that even before the meltdown of the financial markets in September, the 2008 presidential election was the Democrats to lose. President Bush’s approval ratings were in the tank and most people blamed the Republican Party for a host of perceived ills. And while I always believed that John McCain, because of his penchant for working with people from across the aisle, his strong record for frugal spending,...

John McCain delivers a classy concession speech with deep historical sensibilities and personal grace. [This was cross-posted on my personal blog.]