Happy Birthday Jesus

Before disappearing until after the new year, I thought I'd post on the favorite Christmas tradition from my childhood -- the birthday party for Jesus.

The United Methodist Church where I was baptized and given most of my religious training has a wonderful tradition each December. One Sunday evening a week or two before Christmas, the congregation and whoever else wants to come gathers for Jesus' birthday party. The official program is led by all Sunday School kids from pre-school through high school. There are songs, scripture readings and little skits. It's mostly fun and no one really cares how religious the songs are as long as the kids have fun. Plus, the congregation brings "gifts" for the needy. Each year, you get a list of needs for families in need and you pick some to bring, often wrapped with an identifying tag, to the sanctuary. At the end of the programs, the congregation bring their gifts to the altar like the 3 wise men. There was often a couple and a baby representing the holy family. We had a large congregation when I was growing up, so the altar got covered in presents. Then came the best part... Three or four men carried in a multilayer cake and the lights went down. We would all then sing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus. When I was smaller we would join the crowd downstairs for cake and punch. As I got older we started skipping the fattening part of the celebration.

I always thought the birthday party for Jesus was much more in the sentiment of the sharing of Christ love than any serious worship service. We gave to one another and to strangers. It wasn't extravagant but it was overwhelmingly filled with love and the true spirit of Christmas.

To everyone out there, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and God bless you with a little birthday joy.

Thank you Mr. Hunt

My sports fan life is tied to my home state of Missouri and the city of Kansas City. Growing up I was blessed with a football franchise and a baseball franchise led by men of means who stayed out of the way and didn't make it about their egos. Mr. Ewing Kauffman of the Royals and Mr. Lamar Hunt of the Chiefs loved to compete; loved their teams and loved Kansas City. From each I got the chance to root for real champions and truly great players. Mr. Kauffman died more than 10 years ago and the Royals may only now be beginning to recover from that. Last night the Chiefs and Kansas City lost the great Lamar Hunt.

Generally, being born into wealth doesn't result in a person of humility, kindness and self-achievement both professionally and personally. Lamar Hunt was such a person and Kansas City and football fans of his team and the other 31 teams now in the NFL were the beneficiaries of whatever combination of genetics, successful parenting and love produced this extraordinary man. There are lots of accomplishments and stories which could fill this tribute. In multiple sports, in business beyond sports, in his family and among almost everyone who knew him, Lamar was a great success. Read the tributes in tennis and soccer and see just a small part of what he accomplished. I am going to focus on the accomplished that made him a hero to me -- the creation and success of the American Football League (AFL).

In the late 1950s when the NFL had only 12 teams and TV was not yet running the sport or guaranteeing each owner a profit, a late 20's Texan wanted a team in his hometown of Dallas. He was denied an expansion team. He was not chosen as a new owner of the failing Chicago Cardinals. (Yep, they sucked in Chicago, St. Louis and Arizona). Instead of wait and hope, Lamar got together with Bud Adams of Houston, Barron Hilton of LA and the hotel chain and 5 others to form "The Foolish Club" that would become the AFL. There success is underestimated today. The Dallas Cowboys became an NFL expansion team in 1960 because the AFL was seen as a real threat. The NFL tried to give the team to Lamar, but he said no because he had pledged himself to his fellows in the AFL. The NFL did steal Minneapolis from the AFL, but Oakland took their place and that turned out to be a good thing for the AFL and a curse that Minnesota still can't break.

With the Cowboys in town, the Texans couldn't succeed financially. Both teams were hurt by the other with the Cowboys' owner once saying, "We'll flip a coin and the winner gets to leave." On the field the Texans did well and won the AFL championship in 1962, but they needed to get out of Dallas. Luckily for me and all of Kansas City, the 1963 season began with the Dallas Texans becoming the Kansas City Chiefs. In a town that's only other major sports franchise were the lowly Kansas City A's who were known mostly for being a minor league team for the Yankees and who would soon move to Oakland, the Chiefs became the chance to be a "major league city."
It was the Chiefs and the AFL that made me a true football fanatic. The AFL is the only competing league that was taken in full when it merged with the older, more established league. It was Lamar Hunt negotiating secretly with Tex Schramm of the Cowboys that led to the merger. (No, Al Davis' efforts to get players didn't force the NFL to fold. Lamar had to get a deal that included what Al hated -- paying NFL teams a fee for putting teams like Oakland and the New York Jets into the same market with established NFL teams. Lamar is the hero. Al was a supporting player.) It brought a wide-open form of offense that has influenced the sports since the merger in 1970. The AFL's existence helped enhance opportunity for African American players that were being ignored by the NFL. It gave opportunities to lots of players, like Hall of Famer Len Dawson, who couldn't get a shot in the NFL. The AFL saw the need for TV for the league to succeed and expand. The merger deal led to the great American secular holiday that is Super Bowl Sunday. And, as you may know, Lamar coined the term "Super Bowl." It really was just something he thought of based on seeing his daughter play with a SuperBall. The AFL started revenue sharing that enables cities of all sizes to compete and is the anchor of the NFL's competitive success. The AFL is underrepresented in the Pro Football Hall of Fame but some of those left out are members of the All-Time AFL Team.

Lamar's Chiefs weren't always spoken with the respect they had in 1960s or that they have now. From 1972 thru 1988 they basically stunk. Lamar was seen as too distant and uninvolved. Their lack of playoff success since their return to prominence has been blamed on Lamar Hunt wanting to make money more than he wanted to win games. I don't think either was true. I think he simply ran the team by hiring folks and trusting them to do the job right. He was a bit slow at times knowing when it was time to change, but I'd much prefer his successor, Clark Hunt, following his father's example on how to run a team over becoming a Jerry Jones, an Al Davis, or a Daniel Snyder. Because when the owner is also acting as team president or general manager, what do you do when he basically stinks and needs to go?

I am forever grateful that I grew up with Lamar Hunt's Chiefs, Ewing Kauffman's Royals and Buck O'Neill's Monarchs. All three were champions as sportsmen and as human beings. I sincerely thank God for their presence in my favorite city and with my favorite teams.

Harry Truman vs. George W. Bush

Missouri is my home state. We have one president from the state and he left office with record low ratings in the polls. Missourians don't really care what the rest of the country thinks so we loved him anyway and over the last few decades his rating as a president has risen among historians and those members of the public who have heard of him. Americans aren't very good at history.

Now reports from the White House have W casting himself as another Truman. As Truman organized the country and our allies for the Cold War. W sees himself as doing the same against radical Muslim terrorists who "threaten our freedom." He is even saying that history will judge him as being in the right on Iraq and all the rest just like they have Harry.

Hold on right there, mister...

Harry Truman would laugh in your face and such a comparison. First, he had no time for rich boys who lives are made by their name and family connections. Ask the Kennedys about the line, "It's not the pope, it's the pop that bothers me." Second, he would despise having anyone with so little sense of history and so lacking in desire to learn. Harry, one of his grandsons said, used to read them ancient Greek history as children. He never went to college, but also never stopped educating himself. I am not sure W ever really started. Third, Harry's counter to Soviet Communism was based firmly on the need for international cooperation and alliances begun under FDR. Harry got the UN started. He never saw himself as being so powerful that he could declare "you're with us or against us." He recognized that the US lacked the power to "beat communism" by itself. His greatest policy action against communism was probably the Marshall Plan efforts to rebuild Europe. The Korean War was only minimally successful at best. It is, of course, Korea that W clings to as a comparison of his FUBAR War in Iraq. W wishes he could get minimal success there. He had that in Afghanistan, but that may be changing for the worse as well. Finally, Harry did not lead the witch hunts for communists that defined the McCarthy Era begun during his presidency. He did fail to act as a strong counter to the whack job congressional Republicans of the day, but he didn't lead the way in attacking the "Red Menace" by undermining the Constitution. Domestically, W's main legacy is his continuing attack on checks and balances and the Bill of Rights. Because Harry did have a knowledge of history and a great love for the US Senate where he served before becoming Vice-President, he would find the behavior of the 109th Congress disgraceful in its inactivity. Google the Truman Committee and see what a real senator does to oversee the executive even during a war led by a president of his own party.

If W wants to look for past presidents to which he may be compared, he may want to start with
names such as Nixon, Hoover, Harding and Buchanan. It is among these lowly past presidents that W may find his own name in the battle for "worst president ever." He has a touch of each them in his presidency. Like Harding, his presidency has involved corruption aimed at enhancing those with political connections to his party. Like Hoover, he has failed to react to dramatic changes in the world, instead sticking to his set views on what policy should be. And his Katrina response invoked Hoover's failures as he seemed to have no response to the suffering of American citizens to disaster beyond state and local government's ability to help. Like Nixon, he sees the president as beyond legal constraints as long as he is acting as "commander-in-chief." And finally, like Buchanan, he has failed to act as civil war approached and, in fact, he has gone beyond Buchanan by creating conditions to start the damn thing.

W, you need to leave Harry Truman out of your efforts at legacy manipulation. He had enough troubles of his own. He doesn't need you screwing with his place in history in a desperate attempt to start spinning your failures.

Why Barak Obama is a "Rock Star"

Senator Barak Obama is the hottest name in the Democratic Party. No one else generates the excitement of the junior senator from Illinois. This status has Democrats around the country wondering if he may run for president as soon as 2008 and if he could win. But why the excitement?

His national voice was first heard at the 2004 Democratic convention. In one of the few brilliant moves of that campaign on the Democratic side, Obama gave the keynote address and made himself an instant celebrity. At the time, he was an Illinois legislator trying to win the Senate seat. He had no great constituency from years of political activity. He was in his words a "skinny kid with big ears and a funny name." But his speech electrified Democrats because he spoke of their most central themes with a passion and conviction that had not been heard for a long time. Once he won the Senate seat the presidential speculation began. It has not stopped.

Obama gave another speech recently on AIDs in a conservative evangelical church. The speech got national notice because the minister of the church was criticized by other conservative evangelicals for daring to allow a pro-choice liberal Democrat a chance to speak at a conference on AIDs that the church was sponsoring. The minister wisely ignored them and Obama gave another example of why he is a rock star. I suggest you read the entire speech.

For me his words truly touch the nexus between Christian faith and public policy that lead me to be a liberal Democrat. Let me site two examples from the speech.

He gives an example of the connection I see between faith in God and strength through a reason...

"We should never forget that God granted us the power to reason so that we would do His work here on Earth - so that we would use science to cure disease, and heal the sick, and save lives. And one of the miracles to come out of the AIDS pandemic is that scientists have discovered medicine that can give people with HIV a new chance at life.

We are called to give them that chance."


The last sentence is an example of using the language of religion to include people of faith in a liberal policy viewpoint. He continues this language and uses it relate to an audience made up of those unlikely to ever share his political views, but may share some of his political goals.

"But the reason for us to step up our efforts can't simply be instrumental. There are more fundamental reasons to care. Reasons related to our own humanity. Reasons of the soul.

Like no other illness, AIDS tests our ability to put ourselves in someone else's shoes - to empathize with the plight of our fellow man. While most would agree that the AIDS orphan or the transfusion victim or the wronged wife contracted the disease through no fault of their own, it has too often been easy for some to point to the unfaithful husband or the promiscuous youth or the gay man and say "This is your fault. You have sinned."

I don't think that's a satisfactory response. My faith reminds me that we all are sinners.

My faith also tells me that - as Pastor Rick has said - it is not a sin to be sick. My Bible tells me that when God sent his only Son to Earth, it was to heal the sick and comfort the weary; to feed the hungry and clothe the naked; to befriend the outcast and redeem those who strayed from righteousness.

Living His example is the hardest kind of faith - but it is surely the most rewarding. It is a way of life that can not only light our way as people of faith, but guide us to a new and better politics as Americans."


I have no special insight on the political prospects for Obama in 2008 or what kind of president he would make. I don't know much about what kind of person Obama is away from the public eye. All I know is that the power of his words as they capture the ideal of how the messages of liberalism and Christianity could change things. A "better politics" would make a better world as would a better faith in Christ's message of love for all of us.

College Football, Hypocrisy and Bowl Season

Once again, Division IA college football is surrounded by "controversy" over who should have a chance to be declared the national champion. I say "declared" deliberately as the winner is still being chosen by polls not by play on the field. The poll voters have determined that Florida will play Ohio State in the closest thing we have to an official national championship game. Boise State, though undefeated, is ignored and Michigan has been passed for reasons known only to the poll voters.

As every college football fan knows, this could be solved by the NCAA having a playoff as it does for every other sport and even for football at every level except Division IA. Why doesn't it? Well, there is the TV contract, the resistance of stuck-in-the-mud coaches and athletic directors, and the just plain idiocy of all top football universities. Every year you hear some university official somewhere claim that a football playoff would somehow academically injure the football players. All those extra games (probably no more than 3 or 4) at a "crucial time of the semester." This is said and then the official goes off to watch the basketball team (either men's or women's) which now begins in November and ends in March. I guess this "crucial time" isn't such a big deal for basketball players who may travel twice a week and now have to work in courses between games in both semesters.

This isn't about academics. The big time college sports universities sacrificed the academic side of their "student athletes" decades ago. There are Marx Brothers movies mocking the idea that football players are real college students. A playoff system for IA football will not change that much. I teach at a Division II university where most athletes only manage to get a partial scholarship, if any at all, from our underfunded athletic department. I have seen the effort it takes for a dedicated student to also be a dedicated athlete. Those that do both well amaze me. When I was an undergraduate at a Division I school, the captain of the defense was an Academic All-American in mechanical engineering. I doubt he slept much, but he performed at a high level in both fields of endeavor. He deserved as much praise as any of the athletes who went on to professional sports. I don't know if his name is among the university's honor roll of football players at the stadium, but it should be. Maybe I'll post my views on how more "student athletes" in big time sports should be given a better shot at academic success later.

As for Division I, do the damn playoff and settle it on the field. One of team sports' finest attributes is that there is clarity in who is a champion. The honor goes to the team who wins the game. The game will be flawed. Errors by officials, coaches and players will play a role. But no one will take a vote at the end to decide the winner. Having a poll decide who can play the game is not very different from the old system in which the polls just voted a winner at the end. In either case, it makes the Division IA football champion closer to a figure skating champion than to any other college sport.