EDIT: Obviously this was written prior to the first-round elimination of Chicago.

Maybe I’m a bad Chicagoan (as in someone that actually lives within the boundaries of the city of Chicago and has been living here for going on five years), but I’m really not that excited about the city possibly hosting the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games.  The announcement is supposed to come later today and it’s pretty telling that everyone being interviewed at the rally today hails from suburbs and other places outside of the city.  I have to think that anyone that actually pays attention to the massive waste and unconscionable tax rates in this city would balk at the idea of hosting a multi-billion dollar event, but it seems I am mistaken.

Don’t get me wrong – I really enjoy the Olympics and the idea that the games would be in my own city is pretty exciting, but I can’t help but question the true motivation of the committee members and the biggest financial backers of the bid.  After telling us multiple times that we, as taxpayers, wouldn’t be responsible for financially hosting the games, it quickly became apparent that we were lied to as Mayor Daley agreed to put the city on the hook for the games.  Meanwhile, the biggest financial backers of the games are getting caught in their dreams of destroying impoverished neighborhoods to make way for multi-million dollar stadiums.

But I can picture the games – a little less than seven years from now – hundreds of thousands of spectators heading to Chicago to watch the games.  They’ll take the expressways past the outer neighborhoods, which have been ignored for going on two years by the privatized streets and sanitation corporation (my guess is that Daley will back alley a deal to sell our streets and sanitation work to a private company for a couple hundred bucks and a some shiny beads).  The neighborhood streets will be crumbling, and trash will be overflowing, but the city has asked the private company to focus on sites near the games.

Thousands will be depending on the CTA trains to ferry them to and from the games, but the bloated CTA will be overrun as the spectators grow outraged at the 8.00 fare and the rickety transit system that hasn’t seen the needed safety updates that engineers have been insisting on for years.

After the continued lack of a new contract for the Chicago Police Department, Daley again sneaks in a hundred year contract that brings in a privatized police force to handle the masses (the contract will be awarded in exchange for a 20 pack of Bic pens and $50 in lottery tickets).  Alternative media outlets will run videos of games protesters getting beaten and shoved into unmarked vans.  Local and national mainstream media will avoid these stories, choosing instead to focus on the games.

The privatized fire departments and emergency medical services will be directed to focus all of their efforts on the games, leaving the poorest neighborhoods to handle their fires and emergencies on their own.  Again, the mainstream media ignores the plight of the voiceless residents on the far south and west sides of the city.

Months later, as the multi-million dollar stadiums (that sit on ground that once provided housing for thousands of now displaced residents) sit empty, a few editorials will pop up pointing out the enforced sacrifice of the poorest city residents.  The biggest backers of the Olympics will have made their money off of their investments in real estate and will have moved on.  The completely privatized city services will be investigated and a special prosecutor will release findings of rampant abuse, but nobody will really care and story won’t gain traction.  Daley will happily ignore his city’s citizens (as he has done successfully for going on 30 years), knowing that his reputation was solidified with a successful Olympic games.  The billion-dollar debt will be looming over city residents, as many lack the resources needed to move out of the city and out from under the 30% sales tax and inflated home values.

Honestly, this is a worst-case scenario, but for a city that continues to put its residents on the hook for ridiculously corrupt business deals, I don’t think it’s that far fetched.  I guess we’ll find out though.

I’ve been playing rec league softball in the city for a while.  I’ve met amazing people throughout the spring, summer, and fall seasons over the past four years, including my wife.  I’ve played all over the north side of Chicago with great people from all kinds of backgrounds.  The leagues, though, are mostly white and mostly in ‘safer’ neighborhoods.  Our teams have been sponsored by bars (yes mom, bars… saloons… taverns) each season and again, the patronage at all of the bars could be described as mostly white.

This summer has been a bit different.  For the first time, the best option we could find was a league in my neighborhood – a neighborhood that has a decent mix of ethnicities and a rough reputation for violence.  There is some truth to the violent crime numbers in my neighborhood, for sure, but as with most things, perception is far from reality.  Overwhelmingly, violent crime in my neighborhood are gang v. gang.  If you aren’t looking for trouble, you probably won’t find it.  Regardless, the perception by most fellow Chicagoans that I know is that my neighborhood is violent (not counting my fellow northwest folks).

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a bit of trepidation heading into the season.  Most of my teammates are not from my neighborhood, and it felt as if I was opening up a piece of myself to them.  I can defend my neighborhood against the negative characterizations most of them know, but now I actually had to show them there was truth behind my words.  I started playing nightmare scenarios in my head – a teammate getting robbed, harassing onlookers, anything that would reinforce the stereotypes that my teammates may have.

Much to my relief, we were almost all the way through the season and it was going really well.  We won most of our games and, as far as I could tell, it felt just like any other league we’ve played.  From where we played we could see a basketball court with mostly young black men playing organized basketball, a mixed group of younger kids preparing for the upcoming football season, and lots of families of all ethnicities enjoying summer evenings in the park.  We’d get the occasional passerby to stop and watch us play, but I can guarantee our skill level was nowhere near the groups playing on the fields just north of us.  The teams playing just north of us were much more organized, much more competitive, and mostly Hispanic.  They were playing underhand 12″ inch softball just like us, but it was fastpitch, they had full uniforms, and were built like real athletes.  I mean these guys were really fun to watch, which was pretty obvious based on the number of people that turned out to watch their games.

Back on our field though, the crowd was usually non-existent.  Any cheering came from one of the two teams playing (or both).  The main exception came last Wednesday night – the final night of our league.  We had an early game that, if we won, would lead to a second game: the championship.  During our first game, a couple of Hispanic teenagers passing by decided to sit in the mostly-empty bleachers and watch for a while.  They instantly took to our team, cheering for our good plays and giving us nicknames of real ball players.  We had a good time joking around with them and ended up winning the first game pretty easily.

Now, to set the stage, I have to give a little background.  We were really excited to be in the championship game, but it did mean playing a team we had lost to twice in the regular season.  In a league with mostly fun, positive teams, we were going up against everything I hate about rec league softball.  They were ultra-competitive and loved to talk smack.  It was easy for them – they won every game by a large margin and I think they had fun trying to get a rise out of us.  They made the girls on their team tryout and were often drunk by the end of their games.  All in all, they were just not fun to play.

Fast forward to last Wednesday, the championship game, when we somehow score eight runs in our first at-bat.  Scoring eight runs in the game against this team would have been amazing, but just in the first inning – that was unbelievable.  I figured we’re going to head out on defense and give up just as many, if not more, but I was wrong.  After a few innings of play, we were dominating this undefeated team, and their frustration was building.  The kids I mentioned earlier were still yelling and cheering, and it was obvious this was getting under our opponents’ skin.

It started with friendly banter, but words and tempers escalated quickly between the two teenagers and the team we were somehow beating.  The straw came from their catcher – a woman behind the plate that no doubt had heard everything the two kids were saying.  She turned to one of the kids and basically said, “put on a shirt you fat wetback.”

A white woman with a Wicker Park bar sponsor had just called a Hispanic kid a wetback in Humboldt Park.  The teenager was livid (rightfully so).  He unleashed a barrage of insults on the player and didn’t let up.  Some were funny, but most continued to escalate the situation.  When the rest of their team found out about this, a few of the more vocal players decided to hurl back their own insults – mostly referring to the teenager’s chubby physique and, sadly, his ethnicity.  I think you have to know Humboldt Park and the history behind the somewhat forced westward migration of Hispanics in this city to understand the tension in the air.  A team of white softball players hurling racial insults against a Hispanic teenager in Humboldt Park.

The situation finally died down enough that we could get back to the game and try to ignore what happened, but it didn’t go away completely.  After several of us talked to the teenager, he agreed to brush it off and keep his cheering to more supportive tones, but I’m frustrated we had to do that in the first place.  Part of me wants to go back in time and completely stop the game – to go sit in the stands with the teenager and share in his righteous anger rather than ask him to brush it off.  I wonder how many times he has been told to brush off similar situations – to stay quiet when his gut reaction is to unleash his anger at the harsh words pointed in his direction in our ‘post-racial’ Chicago.

I wonder what happens to that righteous anger and frustration after it has been kept down time and time again.

Imagine my surprise this week when I finally realized that the war has started.  I come back from a weekend of celebration and worship to find that there is a war raging and the target is Christianity.

fox news shows the truth

Wait… that’s Christian America.  The war is against Christian America.

Nevermind.  I’ve just been reminded by fox news that there is no difference between the two.

My favorite example so far was the ‘hit piece’ above that recently ripped apart the University of Maryland’s student senate for voting to take a Judeo-Christian prayer out of the graduation ceremony.  Imagine that – a public university made up of students representing multiple religions removing a part of a ceremony that only represents the beliefs of a portion.

Oh, thank goodness fox news is there for me.  This senate is made up of “liberal professors and activist students.”  Those dang profs and crazy students in Maryland… why must you hate Christians?

These are the same students who are showing porn at a closed event.  Oh the whore horror (ha!).

Do you want to know what the real war on Christianity is?  It’s agents like fox news and the heritage foundation and their goons who think that Christian college students can’t make their own decisions to avoid porn being shown on campus.  That is a war on Christianity.  It’s these ridiculous ‘news’ stories that continue to weaken American Christianity and drive it to the fringe.  And good riddens.  The sooner we can cast this fake, watered down version of Christianity into a fiery lake of sulfur where it belongs, the better.

Christians at the University of Maryland don’t need a student senate telling them there will be a theatrical prayer to open up the graduation ceremony.  Christians at the University of Maryland, and apparently fox news and the heritage foundation, need to realize that every single person at the graduation ceremony can pray as much as they want whenever they want.  They can pray as they line up to head to the ceremony.  They can pray as they pull on their cap for the first time.  They can pray as their name is called.  They can pray as they walk across the stage and shake a trustee’s hand.  They can pray as the ceremony comes to a close.  Is some fake corporate prayer that was written weeks prior and vetted by a team of administrators somehow more powerful than individual Christians offering up words of thanks and worship?

Apparently so, according to fox news and the heritage foundation.  Hope they enjoy their superficial white suburban Jesus religion.

It seems like most people have some type of yearly reflection around this time.  People start throwing out “best of” and “worst of” lists like their opinions should have some kind of authority.  Ignoring subjectivity completely, readers immediately react to these lists with enough vitriol to float a boat.  My solution?  Make lists that I can say that I am the authority.  So, here you go.

The Worst of 2008 for Me:
10. Getting my complete lack of drumming ability exposed by Rock Band 2.
9. The extended “sick, but not really really sick” battle I waged in November.  Two weeks of congestion and exhaustion was pretty much a big crapper.
8. The Great Comcast Battle of 2008
7. The extended “remodeling” of the Red Lion that kept it closed all of 2008.
6. My catalytic converter getting stolen off of my Jeep.  That really sucked and continues to keep the Jeep in Sucktown.
5. The seats when we took Sarah’s parents to see Jersey Boys.  A bad view, uncomfortable angle, and they ripped my pants.
4. The complete unraveling of the Cleveland Indians and Browns.  Both ended up being such letdowns after 2007.
3. The incredibly long and unrelenting winter of 2008.  I don’t think we saw anything over 30 degrees until May.
2. Getting a parking boot.  Stupid on many levels, but man, finding my Jeep with a giant yellow parking boot after work was just about the worst feeling ever.
1. Sarah taking a softball to the knee.  It made life challenging for a while and kept her on the bench for the rest of the year.  Oh, and the pressing fear that she wouldn’t be able to walk normally for the rest of her life.

Honorable mention: Owing taxes, the new Indiana Jones movie, and paying $10 for lunch way too often.

And now… the Best of 2008 for Me:
10. Sarah allowing me get away with growing a beard for the last several weeks of the year.  I’m guessing her acceptance will be endless.  If not, Sarah making me shave my beard will be on my 2009 “worst of” list.
9. The Great Nebraska Trip of 08.  This trip has redefined the awesomeness of summer.
8. The Dark Knight in IMAX.  Mind = blown.
7. Getting a Costco membership.  I know that sounds lame, but trust me, it is.  Even so, it has turned out to be pretty dang awesome.
6. Pastor Daniel’s “sex series” and forum.  It’s been quite a while since a pastor has spoken words that hit me the way his series did a couple months ago.
5. The Wii… and Rock Band 2… and WiiFit… and taking my dad down in Wii Bowling.
4. Getting engaged.  From the ring to talking to Sarah’s dad to postponed proposals to finally getting the word to come out of my mouth, this was probably the most exhilarating thing I’ve ever done.
3. The Weber 22.5″ One-Touch Gold kettle grill that was provided by the guys from my “bachelor weekend.”  This may continue to be on my 2009 “best of” list.
2. Brewing my first batch of beer ever with Jud.  Hopefully it leads to continued brewing and eventually some stellar beer.
1. Well, it’s not that hard to guess what my number 1 might be.  Obviously, it was discovering there was a Sonic in Ohio just off of I-70 near Dayton.

Honorable mention: Discovering the tv show Mad Men, Iron Man or Wall-E, Microsoft replacing my Xbox 360 quickly and for free.

Ok, for real, there were two pretty monumental occurences that will make 2008 incredibly memorable.  Enough so that they deserve their own list.

So, here it is… the Greatest of the Great in 2008:
2. Hearing Wolf Blitzer say, “We are ready to declare that Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States” while standing in Grant Park with my wife and some good friends.

and finally…
1. A month before election day, standing in front of a gazeebo somewhere in Michigan and wearing a nice suit, a beautiful woman for some reason agreed to spend the rest of her life with me.  That was pretty swell.

So that’s it.  2008 reduced to a couple of lists.  Disagree with any of it and I will have my friend Corey poke you in the eye.  He’s ready to do it too.

Dear President-Elect Obama,

First of all, SWEET PARTY in Grant Park the other night.  It was amazing.  I kept telling my friends – there’s no way this guy can pull off this shindig.  You proved me wrong, sir.  The pizza was so-so and hella expensive, but it’s cool.  I was hoping for an open bar or at least a keg, but hey, you did your best.  Maybe in 2012, right?

Now, the reason I’m writing.  I’m pretty excited about your presidency overall, but there’s a few things I’m hoping you can address in late January/early February.  I’m writing to you now because you probably need to get a head-start.  I’ve always heard that money helps grease the wheels, so I’m not afraid to bring up the multiple donations I sent your way over the course of the primary and presidential races.

So, without further ado, here’s what I’m thinking should probably be addressed: (more…)

Dear Senator John McCain,

You probably don’t remember me.  Eight years ago as you mounted the Straight Talk Express during the Republican Primary, I sent you a couple bucks because I thought you were poised to be a great leader.  Clinton was wrapping up his time in office and I felt you were the best candidate to follow him.  Times were good, weren’t they?  I was a college student at the time – just a blank slate of a freshman excited to vote in my first presidential primary. (more…)

When listening and reading Kennedy’s nomination acceptance speech at the 1960 Democrtic National Convention, it is actually somewhat freaky how relevant his words are today.  I think Obama could take the speech and swap “terrorist” for “communist” and “McCain” for “Nixon” and almost read it word for word.

Well, except for the part where he calls his opponent young.

This part gives me chills.

Perhaps he could carry on the party policies, the policies of Nixon and Benson and Dirksen and Goldwater. But this Nation cannot afford such a luxury. Perhaps we could afford a Coolidge following Harding. And perhaps we could afford a Pierce following Fillmore. But after Buchanan this nation needed Lincoln; after Taft we needed Wilson; and after Hoover we needed Franklin Roosevelt.

But we’re not merely running against Mr. Nixon. Our task is not merely one of itemizing Republican failures. Nor is that wholly necessary. For the families forced from the farm do not need to tell us of their plight. The unemployed miners and textile workers know that the decision is before them in November. The old people without medical care, the families without a decent home, the parents of children without a decent school: They all know that it’s time for a change.

We are not here to curse the darkness; we are here to light a candle. As Winston Churchill said on taking office some twenty years ago: If we open a quarrel between the present and the past, we shall be in danger of losing the future.

Give it a listen.

Preparing for marriage is hard.

There… I said it.  Step one, right?

I’m not just talking about figuring out reception seating arrangements and hoping for clear skies for our outdoor ceremony.  I’m also talking about the actual preparation going on between me and my bride-to-be.  I struggle with treating her like some kind of object that I need to fulfill my needs.  I’ve struggled with that for as long as I can remember.

I can easily recall my single days and the constant voice in the back of my head that kept reminding me that if I were to find someone, I would be completely happy and fulfilled.  Instead of digging deeper into that feeling of incompleteness, I could go on with my day and feel like I had figured out the answer.  All I needed was another person.  It doesn’t take too much probing to realize that I was not looking for a future wife… I was looking for an object.  A product that could magically take care of all of my needs.

I still struggle with that approach to life – both with my fiance and pretty much everything else.  My friends, my job, my possessions – pretty much everything in my life that at one time or another I have appreciated solely for the fulfillment that they bring me.  Specifically with me, this objectifying manifests itself within my relationships with women.

It’s hard for me to come to grips with the fact that I so easily have objectified women in the past, and I’m sure that it is a struggle I will continue to have.  It’s a struggle that I have to acknowledge and steadfastly work against.  When I look at marriages that are ripped apart by infidelity, I wonder if it is because the marriage itself was created to fill a need.  I wonder if the marriage stopped providing that fulfillment – even temporarily.  It makes it so easy to justify searching elsewhere.

So the question is, what else could fill that emptiness?  What else could erase that void?

I heard a guy say last night that true happiness is found by looking within yourself.  I was not amused.  Yourself?  That is the exact kind of thinking that leads right back to objectifying your friends, your significant other, your job, or whatever else might provide the temporary satisfaction you need to function.  I don’t understand at all the thinking behind believing that if you think about and want fulfillment enough, it will magically happen.

But maybe I’m the crazy one.  Maybe I’m the only one that struggles with finding it easier to plug others into my life to give me the fulfillment I need.  Maybe it means I should be a politician.

I’m glad that people are talking about the recent decision by Dunkin Donuts to pull an ad featuring Rachel Ray in a scarf that some random nut with a blog deemed too similar to a keffiyeh.

This xenophobic hate mongerer wasted no time in linking the scarf, which apparently was a floral print available at a major US retail chain, to terrorism. You see, to the blogger, the keffiyeh is not worn because it protects the wearer from the sun in an arid climate and can quickly be adjusted to protect the face from wind. No, the keffiyeh apparently identifies the wearer as a terrorist. Seriously, only a terrorist could consistently whip up tasty looking meals in 30 minutes and still look like… actually, I better not post the picture I found when I googled Rachel Ray.

Regardless of the appearance of Rachel’s scarf, what is more concerning to me is the implied idea that xenophobia can completely control what we are exposed to. If you are sitting there, watching tv, and Rachel’s commercial comes on and you say to yourself, “Man, the scarf looks like a keffiyeh! I refuse to support a business with a commercial featuring a keffiyeh!” that’s your decision. It’s ridiculous, but if you and a bunch of other folks decide not to go to Dunkin Donuts because of it, well, have fun with that.

But because some blogger calls attention to it, the corporation decides to pull it? There is something deeply troubling about that. You want to talk about the degradation of our society? Look no farther than power-obsessed fake celebrities that somehow gain notoriety for being a valuable contributer to political discussions that use their perceived soapbox to tear down the very fabric of our society.

Yes, all of this over a commercial for a donut company. I hope said blogger continues to be exposed until her credibility is destroyed beyond recognition. Unfortunately, I feel the enemies of the great society we could become will continue to support the nuts with keyboards that decide being drunk on their own power is more important than common sense.

So here’s how I’m starting to understand this country…

1) Pastors are only allowed to mention the work of the government if they are asking God to bless America or somehow supporting the efforts of the current administration

2) Any effort to curtail the proliferation of guns in our society is reckless work of a bloated government, but using the legislatures and courts to define marriage is acceptable

3) Do not, under any circumstances, take part in anything that remotely resembles the Middle East. If you do, you are supporting terrorists that could and will strike at any moment.

Thank goodness we got that cleared up!

The first wedding I can remember was for my dad’s cousin Ken and his wife Alice. I don’t remember much except the big wooden pews. There are some great pictures of me (the ring bearer) and the flower girl and a few stories of the echoing effect produced by farting on said big wooden pews, but those are mainly reserved for rehashing each year when we get together at Christmas.

Then there was my cousin Mary Ellen. I think I was in high school and I remember arguing with my mom about wearing shorts to the wedding. My mom, as usual, was probably right. I think my brother and I both wore shorts anyway, which surprisingly enough turned out not to be a big deal.

I remember Sally Spencer, a friend from high school, getting married while I was in college. I made it back and felt a little out of place because it was the first time I was giving a card to a newly married couple and I had no idea what to write. I imagined them reading my well thought out nugget of wisdom and forever changing their outlook on life. Instead, I got nervous and scribbled something about a path always rising to meet the sun shining on their backs and thought about not signing my name at all. I got a thank you card in the mail several weeks later with a note from Sally thanking me for coming and I just assumed she was moved beyond words by my card inscription. Looking back, it’s probably more likely that whatever I wrote was complete jiberish and unreadable.

Since college, I’ve had the chance to attend and participate in some amazing weddings. Geoff and Becca encouraging me to start the slow clap before her procession down the aisle will forever be one of the greatest memories and stories recorded in wedding lore. I remember saying to Geoff, “Wouldn’t it be awesome if right before Becca comes down the aisle, someone stands up and starts the slow clap, and then a few other people stand up and join in until the entire church is clapping like crazy?!” Next thing I know, Becca has completely bought into the idea and, well, there was no way of stopping it.

I’ve been lucky enough to stand up as a groomsmen for two brides – my friend Rachel and my cousin Melissa. It was tough to explain how I knew the groom when folks asked, but pretty cool at the same time. Rachel’s brother-in-law’s speech at the reception is seared into my brain. If you’re curious, you can ask me about it sometime.

Then there was Joel and Jen’s wedding, all located on the W family farm. There were moments when we worried about a runaway golf cart possibly killing attendees, but the entire event managed to go off without a single fatality! There was even karaoke with a version of “You Give Love a Bad Name” that pretty much rocked… mainly because Joel’s air guitar was so amazing it actually made grown men weep. If it was not Joel’s wedding, there is no doubt he could have taken any single woman in attendance for his own.

Since moving to Chicago, it seems like every other Saturday in the summer has been taken up by the celebration of nuptials. Each ceremony has so perfectly matched the couple – from outdoor weddings in the park with cornhole and volleyball to candle lit sanctuaries.

I think it was through a combination of all of these ceremonies that I began to truly understand the importance of marriage. Through a sacrificial submission to one another, two people stand in front of loved ones and express an emotion and commitment to one another that is the closest they will ever get to the love God has for us. In a fallen world that at times is overwhelmingly pessimistic, a man and woman decide to buck the trend and join together in a holy union that is only possible because of the death and resurrection of Christ.

The past couple of months have been heavy on my heart and soul. I’ve been wrestling with the idea of what it means to be one part of that union. What do I have to sacrifice? What do I have to gain? Will I ever be able to play Halo again? These are just a few of the questions that ran through my head.

But each time I would take these thoughts to God or to one of my close friends, I would hear the same things. My married guy friends confirmed that yes, you do sacrifice a lot. You probably will have to give up a large chunk of Halo time, they confessed. But they assured me that somehow it all is worth it.

So, being the mature person I am, I shake my head and give them a wink. I know what makes it worth it.

Apparently though, much to my surprise, it’s not just the sex that makes it worth it. I’m not sure what else it could be, but apparently there’s much more to experience.

That being said, what became so clear to me in the past couple of weeks was that I have found a person that I want to experience all of the new pieces of life that my friends referred to. I found the girl that I want to sacrifice for and love and even do her laundry (occasionally). So, on Sunday, after a walk through the park near my house, I asked Sarah to make that commitment to me. And she accepted.

This is a surreal feeling and the page is just starting to be turned. What awaits us in the coming months and years is completely unpredictable, but thankfully there are many who have gone ahead of us and seem to speak highly of the adventure.

Plus, she said we can register for a Wii. This girl is awesome.