Number Two Son and I are in Pensacola, Florida this morning. It’s not the first time I’ve been here with one of me lads.

And Pensacola means McGuire’s Irish Pub, a steroid-enhanced, Gatlinburg version of one that I’m sure a real Irishman would scoff at and probably scrap over if anyone dared to call it the real thing. Aye, I think he would.

But the filet was melt-in-your-mouth wonderful and the, ahem, “root beer” was just what the doctor ordered after a hard, six hour drive. We had a seat near the stage, so we got an earful of some loud and raucous Irish music, all of which bore the same basic theme–whiskey and fightin’.

Who knows, there may be a time and a place for both, but when it comes to settlin’ down me ol’ soul, nothing compares to this kind of Irish music.

All of ye have a great weekend.

Arrrrgh!

Why am I resorting to pirate talk so early in the morning? Because I’ve been tagged about a gazillion times in yet another internet meme, this time on Facebook: 25 Random Things About Me.

Not that I mind that much, it’s just that it has that whole cheesy, chain-letter feel. When I was a kid, my mother would always make a big production about ripping those up and throwing them in the trashcan whenever we received one, so it’s probably just one of those weird Baby Boomer childhood psychological baggage flashback things. Don’t sweat it if you tagged me; I’ll deal with it like I always do.

So, I’ll post these for both Fusioneers and Facebook friends. And these days, there is less and less difference between the two. Let the weirdness begin:

1. I’m a native Virginian, and that’s something that I often throw into a conversation because, you have to admit, it does have a certain historical and intellectual cachet. [...]

Shon Smith, preaching minister at the University Church of Christ in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, stood this past Sunday and delivered the goods on how a Christian, especially the white-bread, Southern evangelical Republican-voting version, can pray for President Obama and find common cause with him. In short, it’s a recipe for spitting out those “sour grapes” and just getting on with it.

The 1/25 sermon (h/t to Number One Son for passing it on) was entitled “A New Era” and can be found here. The whole 30+ minute sermon is worth listening to, but the meat (and it is that, not milk) on the why and how of praying for President Obama begins about 6 minutes in.

How refreshing to hear a preacher (with a group of elders presumably supporting him) man up and do the right thing. I lost count of the number of times our President was mentioned–out loud, by name.

You see, that wasn’t so hard, was it?

There are a lot of losers in my old stomping ground of Franklin County, Virginia. But my cousin Annette is The Biggest Loser of them all.

And I couldn’t be prouder.

In a bold, counterintuitive move, Auburn HC Gene Chizik has run off his best player, the one who single-handedly kept a 5-7 season and 36-0 Bama smackdown from becoming even worse.

The Barn is burning, people. Roll Tide, Roll.

For those who were fearful that comedians like Jon Stewart would be among the ranks of the unemployed during an Obama administration, know hope.

And have a great weekend, everyone.

The road to hell is paved with adverbs.

–Stephen King

Stephen King intensely hates them. Chief Justice Roberts carelessly flings them about. President Obama ruefully considers their slippery nature.

Not to needlessly worry. The stray adverb has found its proper home, and President Obama has faithfully and flawlessly executed the oath of office.

Word nerds: lustfully gaze upon the breakdown here.

To all of you who were unnecessarily baptized twice: Let it quietly go.

I was worried yesterday morning that I would be so busy in the clinic that I wouldn’t be able to catch any of the inauguration. As it turned out, many of my patients failed to show (hmmm…perhaps it was too cold, or maybe they had something on TV they wanted to watch?), so I did see a good bit of it, including the swearing-in ceremony, on the television in the break room. And even in those moments when I was tied to my desk, there was good, ol’ reliable NPR.

During one lull in the action, I poured myself yet another cup o’ Joe and sat down to watch as the Presidential motorcade made its way to The Capital Building while a million onlookers, quivering from the cold and bold expectations, formed a happy guantlet whose only weapons were shouts of jubilation flung with reckless abandon.

As I watched, J., a co-worker of some 16 years, walked in. He looked at the TV, and then at me, and scowled.

His first words dripped with venom: “I’m not watching that. I don’t see any reason to celebrate that! [...]

There’s an old saying, “Be careful what you pray for.” Perhaps we should change that to “Be careful what you want someone else to pray for.”

Allow me to explain.

Last Saturday, the thought began to cross my mind: I wonder if anyone will pray for President-elect Barack Obama at church tomorrow? It began to burr into my consciousness; no, it actually got stuck in my craw. I figured I knew the answer to the question, but then I thought: Wait Mike, you ornery old so-and-so, break some new ground–think positively and charitably for once.

And I tried. I really did.

I mean, what could possibly be that controversial about praying for an incoming President–out loud, by name–in a church assembly? Wouldn’t that be in keeping with the biblical command to pray for our leaders, presumably without regard to whether or not that particular leader was a member of the preferred political party of the majority of members in attendance?

One would think. But anyone who has been awake and breathing during the past year, who has read the malicious email forwards passed on by fellow Christians and tasted of their off-the-charts fear and suspicion or heard the guarded foyer talk and the “The Sky Is Falling” rhetoric that would occasionally creep into the proceedings of the assembly itself might think otherwise. [...]

But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!

–Amos 5:24

Regular readers know him as JRB. He’s a Harding grad like me and the most prolific commenter on this blog, the one whose fervent man-passion for his beloved ‘Dores and his meticulous command of the King’s English often get him into a scrap or two with my Bama-lovin’ alter ego, Mike the Redneck.

And through the power of the written word, a cell phone speed dial and a few blessed opportunities to break bread together, he has become one of my best friends and confidantes in the world and the “little brother” I never had. There have been a lot of benefits to this blog, but my friendship with JRB stands out as one of the greatest blessings of all.

What you may not know (but are about to find out because this is very important for you to consider on this most auspicious day) is that the Montgomery Advertiser has honored him along with three other young, community leaders as recipients of their 2009 King Spirit Honors, an award which “represents the vision, dedication and selfless spirit that have become King’s legacy.”

JRB’s boss at Faulkner University’s Jones School of Law, Dean Charles Nelson, nominated him for his work as director of both the Jones Elder Law Clinic and the Family Violence Clinic where JRB and his student charges provide pro bono legal aid to those whose needs are great and are often least able to afford it. Dean Nelson had this to say about JRB’s work:

“Professor Baker is making a difference in our community by taking on unpleasant issues that many would rather turn away from. He gives not only voice and attention to victims, but also hope.”

Somewhere, Atticus Finch is very, very pleased.

Now I know JRB well enough to know that he’s not in this for the recognition and that he’s probably a little embarrassed by all the attention. Sorry, dude. When you live your life sacrificially and sacramentally before the Lord, this is the kind of thing that happens now and then, so you’re just going to have to deal with it.

Besides, days like today serve a greater need–to remind all of us to scan around and look for the injustices in our own community circle that need correcting and to consider what we can do to set matters a little straighter.

Rosa to MLK to JRB–justice rollin’ on like a river. Together, shall we do a wave?

Tell me about it!

Among the many heroes from yesterday’s “Miracle on the Hudson” is this guy:

Let’s give it up for Teddy the Tugboat, people!

Meanwhile, Joe the Plumber was nowhere to be seen…

Having tasted some modest success as a columnist last year for The Huntsville Times, my goals for 2009 are to sniff out some more freelance writing opportunities and to become a better practitioner of the craft.

To that end, I plan to continue to write at least one column-quality post per week here (along with whatever other mundane slices of life that strike my fancy), read good quality fiction and nonfiction works and “go back to school” by reading books on writing, most of them the main texts from various writers’ workshops for which I currently have neither the time nor the money.

But thanks to Amazon, I was able to reinvest my last two paychecks from THT into the latter and pick up about a dozen or so of the better ones. I’m currently working my way through the first: Steven King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. [...]

I now have 100 (and counting) Facebook friends. Who knew?

This is how it makes me feel.

Ah yes, that “obsession of me.”

I should have known better than to start a “My Hair is Bigger Than Your Hair” embarrassing photo war with a guy who had his own darkroom and always kept a fully-loaded 35mm camera in his glove compartment.

But that’s exactly what I did this past Saturday when I uploaded my photo album “Big Hair Alert!” (“Selected shots of family and friends from 1980-1990, back when hair was hair and we wore it loud, proud and tall”) to my Facebook page.

Did I mention that I had one of those now? I think I did. And I have almost 100 friends, some of whom I’ve actually met. I’m a blessed man.

All those long, flowing, fluffy locks nearly clogged up the interwebs the way they do the bathtub drain after my morning shower. But within hours, my friend D., an old running mate from my Virginia days, fired off his own salvo entitled “Old pics of Facebook friends–enter at your own risk.”

It was on–only I was completely overwhelmed by superior firepower. It was the US Army versus the Liechtenstein Civil Patrol. [...]