Right on Wright

Tonight, Dennise and Maria were watching TV, and some clips of Rev. Jeremiah Wright came on from his National Press Club appearance last night. Among other things, these were clips where he was again blaming the government for AIDS, and calling American soldiers terrorists.

The following is a mostly verbatim transcription of the conversation that ensued...

"Mom, was Rev. Wright alive when Martin Luther King got shot?"

"Yes, Maria, he was."

"I think he's still angry about that. And I think he's probably also still mad about that gas that makes you cry...."

"You mean 'tear gas?'"

"Yeah, tear gas....from on the marches in Atlanta, Georgia.* And I think he's probably mad about people having to sit at the back of the bus too."

"It could be, sweetie."

"Mom, I think he needs to talk to a counselor. Maybe he could talk to Ms. Wilson."

"Who is that, Maria?"

"She's our counselor at school. She says that before you get angry and say mean things you should try screaming into a pillow, or even screaming into a mirror..."

"Into a mirror?"

"Well," said Maria, "actually I made that last part up."

* (we assume she meant Selma, Alabama...)

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Dan Fogelberg Tribute Show This Friday at LLUMC

A reminder that Connections Band will be in concert this Friday night at Lovers Lane UMC in Dallas.

Here are the details:

Connections Band Tribute to Dan Fogelberg
Friday, May 2nd, 7 pm
Asbury Hall, Lovers Lane UMC
9200 Inwood Road
Dallas, Texas 75220
214.691.4721

As many of you will remember, our tribute show to Fogelberg was the very first show we ever did. And to many of us, it holds special place in our hearts.

Here's what Lovers Lane is saying about it:

In tribute to Dan Fogelberg’s recent passing, Connections’ 18-piece band will bring Fogelberg’s music to life and do their best to honor the memory of this great performer. You’ll hear many of his best known songs - "Leader of the Band," "Same Old Lane Syne," Run for the Roses," "Longer" - but also lesser known gems from throughout his career.
As always, the show will be FREE, and a love offering will be taken for "Nothing But Nets," the project that provides mosquito nets to African families. More people die each year of the preventable disease of malaria than do from AIDS! Bring your family, friends, neighbors, co-workers … you get the idea. If you can’t make it to the show, you can always make a direct contribution to the cause, and start saving lives today.

Read the whole press release here.
I can also tell you that we have added two great new songs to the set: "Tell Me To My Face," and "Phoenix." I'm thrilled to be playing and singing Phoenix, along with songs like "Same Old Lang Syne," "Old Tennessee," and "Place in the World for a Gambler."

And a reminder that you can hear clips from our previous Fogelberg Tribute show at our MySpace page.

As mentioned, the beneficiary is "Nothing But Nets." LLUMC has made an informal goal of raising $5,000 at this show!

That would be amazing.

But more exciting, personally, is the chance to share these great songs from one of my true heros. To help keep Dan's music alive means the world to me, personally.

Hope to see you there.

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The Cell Phone Debacle and What it Should Tell Us

Over the weekend, news broke of conservative elements within the United Methodist Church attempting to sway votes at the General Conference by providing cell phones to international delegates from Africa and elsewhere.

On the one hand, this move might be passed off as simply the kind of politics that goes on during a conference like this. But I believe United Methodist moderates and progressives learned something else, more deeply disturbing: We got confirmation that, despite their public claims to be seeking unity, these conservative elements are seeking to control the church, and force an agenda that might well split our denomination.

First, here is an quote from a news story from United Methodist News Service:

“The Renewal and Reform Coalition created myriad conversations among delegates, church leaders and visitors after they learned that the Confessing Movement, Good News/Renew, Transforming Congregations and UMAction provided free cell phones to more than 150 African delegates to use during the General Conference. Some delegates and officials expressed concern that the coalition is trying to sway the votes of African delegates who are typically more conservative than their U.S. counterparts. They fear the coalition might use the phones to offer suggestions on how to vote on particular issues.”

The story goes on to describe how information distributed with the phones contained specific information on candidates for Judicial Council who clearly come from a theologically conservative position. As I understand it, this issue has been now forwarded to the Rules Committee of the General Conference.

You can read the entire UMIS story here.

UM Action Executive Director, Mark Tooley, obviously caught red-handed, offered these very defensive responses:

"Why are liberal church elites in the U.S. so intimidated by the empowerment of African and other international delegates? What are they so afraid of?

"When Africans speak their Biblical convictions, threatened liberal church bureaucrats call that 'manipulation'.

"Patronizingly, United Methodist bureaucrats assume that African and Filipino delegates can be bought with a cell phone.

"These clueless church elites don't understand the obvious. America evangelicals and Global South evangelicals support each other because of their common faith."

Tooley's comments are intended to throw the casual observer off the scent. This incident reveals little about international delegates. But! It reveals a great deal about groups like UMAction, Good News, and the IRD within the United Methodist Church.

It reveals a clear intend to divide the church along lines that would not be acceptable to either moderates or progressives within the American Church.

The real questions for delegates to the General Conference are:

What does this incident reveal about the agenda of the radical right within the United Methodist Church?

Why --at a time when all delegates are calling for unity and a new sense of common purpose-- do they choose this form of secret caucusing, clearing meant to divide and destroy?

If these conservative leaders are so sure their views are within the mainstream of American Methodism, then why are they not simply caucusing with American progressives and moderates? Why go to such lengths to secretly sway the international vote?

Given this current debacle, and the shocking and divisive call for "split" that conservative leaders launched at the end of the last General Conference, how can conservative leaders assure us they are not actively working to undercut the effort by moderates and progressives to keep the church together?

Let me be clear: caucusing, using modern technologies like cell phones, is done by people in all sides of all issues within the UMC. It's not the use of cell phones that is the issue, it's the clear intent to sway a whole block of votes that is.

Tooley is actually right on one thing, thanks be to God: International delegates can think for themselves, even when they are treated paternalistically with cell phones and lists of "acceptable" candidates.

But the real story here not about those delegates. It's about a truth many of us have feared for some time: that elements of the radical right in the Methodist Church have an agenda to keep control of the church by aligning themselves with international delegates.

Their leaders do not apparently wish to caucus in good faith on the issues before the Conference, but instead they seek to manipulate the vote through crass political means.

Let me be clear: I am not seeking to paint all, or even a majority, of conservatives at General Conference with this brush. Many are seeking to reach out and form coalitions with moderates and progressives. I have personally witnessed some powerful dialogue taking place between United Methodists on conviction. I am grateful and inspired by such things.

But the goals of the leaders of these radical right groups should be deeply troubling to all mainstream United Methodists.

So I issue this last plea to delegates to the Conference:

I urge you to see this as sign of the desperate need for real restructuring in the United Methodist Church. What is clearly needed is a restructuring that assures the conservative wing of our church cannot control our future life together. What is needed is a restructuring that gives real voice to the beauty of United Methodism's cultural distinctiveness in every part of the world, including the United States.

I pray that moderates and progressives alike to use prayerful discernment on the issue of restructuring, so that the American church is not forever compromised by this radically conservative interest group.

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Consider the Bluebonnets: An Earth Day Meditation

(Note: as "Earth Week" draws to a close, I offer this edited sermon text from two weeks ago. You can actually hear the slightly modified spoken version by clicking here.)

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith!" -- Jesus of Nazareth

I thought the appropriate way to start this essay on the environment is to tell you about the first time I had a full-blown anxiety attack. Doesn’t that sound like the right way to start?
(Yeah...I thought so....)

The first time I ever had full blown anxiety attack, I was living in the small town of Mason, Texas in the Texas Hill Country. I had just moved to Mason from Dallas, straight from the campus of Perkins, to begin a year-long internship among the fine people there.

I really loved my time in Mason. Folks there are are very provincial in many ways. They are insular in many ways. But they are among the kindest people I've ever known, and they taught me a lot.

Mason is precisely 100 miles from Austin, 100 miles from San Angelo, and 100 miles from San Antonio. So yes, crassly, it’s 100 miles from anywhere. Those distances have allowed it to avoid many of the changes that have come upon the rest of the Texas Hill Country. Unlike Fredericksburg ---the next town due south-- it’s too North and too far West to have yet been invaded by the city folks who buy up the main street shops, hoping to live out a “Green Acres” episode.

Mason is 43 miles from the nearest real hospital and 70 miles from the nearest major medical center. And it was perhaps these last facts that contributed to my first real anxiety attack. For you see, one night, very early in my stay there, I found myself unable to sleep. I found myself completely awake, heart racing, and breath quick. I could not settle down.

I got up, I looked through the screen door into the black abyss of night, and that just made it worse. And I had an anxiety attack. Because I suddenly realized that I WAS 100 miles from anywhere.

I suddenly realized --perhaps for the first time in my life-- that the vast majority of God’s green earth was, well, GREEN. It wasn’t made of concrete. It wasn’t made of streets. The grass wasn’t contained in little small square containers. The trees weren’t manicured and maintained by landscaper.

As I stared off into the darkness of that night, realizing that I was surrounded --for hundreds of miles in any direction-- by nothing but cattle, cactus, armadillos and rattlesnakes. And I freaked.

My anxiety did not go away overnight. As I look back on it now, it only gradually went away as I came to know and appreciate those people and their land.

They invited me to their ranches, and we would walk the pastures. I saw amazing sights there; like the day 40-50 white tail deer leaped over a barbedwire fence with the synchronized elegance and grace of a ballet company.

On my days off, I often drove the 30-some-miles over to Enchanted Rock, and sat on the top of that big boulder, reading Thomas Merton, feeling the wind on my face, watching hawks circle lazily above my head like long-lost friends. Folks from Mason invited me to see the marvel of an actual ”bat cave” at dusk; where thousands of bats trail out of the cave, and into the night sky, like a long strand of twirling DNA.

I learned that if I found myself getting anxious late at night, I could drive about a quarter mile out of town, park my truck on the side of the road, and stare up at the stars....an incredible carpet of stars that stretched out before me. Seemingly infinite. Every single night out there, I saw no less that five shooting stars.

Eventually, I learned to appreciate the vastness of the great outdoors. To listen to it. To learn from it.

The people of Mason taught me about it too. One of my first Friday nights in town, there was, of course, a high school football game. EVERYBODY in town went to the high school football game. So, I did too.

The Mason “Punchers” (short for “cowpunchers") were playing some 2-A rival from somewhere. There was a storm forecast for that night, and it had apparently been a while since it had rained. Somewhere around halftime, I got bored and decided to walk around the stadium. I was just getting to the visitor’s side, when I heard the biggest yell of the night come up from the crowd, as if some kid had just broken off a 90-yard run.

But, no. The crowd rose to it’s feet, cheering and yelling, as rain swept in silently across the field. A POURING rain moved across the stadium lights, like a theater curtain drawing back. And as it progressed across the field, the cheers got louder and louder; such that, at the end, as the entire stadium stood in the midst of a drenching gulleywasher, I saw an amazing sight: the crowd giving the rain a standing ovation.

I had never in my life seen people happy to be in the midst of a rainstorm. But they knew that their fortunes, and the fortunes of their land, were tied up with getting rain. It was not a nuesance to make them ten minutes late in a traffic. It was a necessity of life, lived off the land.

So, the people of Mason taught me something. The land taught me something.

What they taught me is that the earth itself is a SPIRITUAL teacher.


(Mason County bluebonnets)

Earth Day is about remembering the earth, and remembering what we have done, or can do, to save the planet. I've always been especially proud of our church, and the things we've been able to do to become environmentally sensitive.

Our church's Church and Society Commission has crafted a very simple and direct position statement on the environment during the Fall of 2006.

Citing the scripture “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it,” it calls on each member to:

Conserve and protect our Earth's natural resources,
Promote the sustained use and development of renewable energy sources, and
Persuade our elected representatives to implement public environmental policies that respect and support our world.

Just as God calls us to the action of loving our neighbor, so too God calls us to action in loving our planet. In a very literally sense, environmentalism is a stewardship issues. Stewardship means managing the resources that we have been given, and managing those in a appropriate ways. And one of the most visible ways God calls us to stewardship is through our care of the natural world.

So, our church has not just put out a statement, we've put our money where our mouth is. Every year, for the past four years, on the Sunday we celebrate Earth Day, we have the "Northaven Car Show." That sounds counter-intuitive, perhaps, on Earth Day.

But, see, a Northaven Car show is a Hybrid car show. We ask our Hybrid owners to park their Hybrids around the circular drive in front of the church, pop the hoods, and allow others to peruse the technology.

The first year, we had five or six Hybrids. The next year, we maybe had ten. I think we had twelve last year.

Two weeks ago, the 2008 Northaven Car Show featured NINETEEN Hybrids and high-mileage vehicles. (Including one Vespa scooter, which tops out at 100 mpg!!!)

We have documented at least 20 households that own Hybrids, which means that more than five percent of our member-households drive them!!! That's really exciting.

Northaven is also one of the only churches in the entire State of Texas to use 100 percent renewable energy. Last year, when our Board of Trustees entered into a new three-year energy contract, they decided that for a very small premium of a few percent more, they would provide our church with 100 percent renewable energy.

A few months back, a reporter called to ask me about this. He started by reminding me that the North Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church had chosen to require it’s electricity provider to include 10 percent renewable energy to all its member churches.

So, a DMN calls and says, “So, I hear Methodist Churches also have the choice to buy 100 percent green energy, and I wondered if you all had done that.”

And I said, “Yes, we have.”

And he said, “Yeah, I figured you all would...”


Then, he told me that he could only find three churches in the entire state that had committed to 100 percent green energy!!!

But I want to also commend what our annual conference did. Many times, we at Northaven find ourselves at odds with the greater United Methodist Church on a variety of social issues. But on the environment, I hope we can rejoice with them. Because the reporter also told me that he could find no other judicatory, no parish...no annual conference, no diocese, in any denomination, that had collectively bargained for a renewable energy requirement in an electricity contract. (Some might argue that 10 percent is not enough. Well, the contract’s up in three years. I trust it will be more next time...)

That kind of collective bargaining and organizing, on this issue of renewable energy, shows how churches can put their values into action, challenging the society to change.

Moving away from the practical, however, I want to get back to the theological and the spiritual. Because I want to suggest that there is a deep-level spiritual reason to save the planet.

Sure, there are scientific reasons. But there are also spiritual ones too. Saving our planet is also about saving our spirituality.

The truth is that the WORLD itself speaks the WORD to us, if only we will listen. Listen to this, from an early Christian saint:

“Some people, in order to discover God, read books. But there is a great book: the very appearance of created things. Look above you! Look below you! Read it. God, whom you want to discover, never wrote that book with ink. Instead (God) set before your eyes the things that (God) had made. Can you ask for a louder voice than that?” -- St. Augustine

Many people wrongly believe that Christianity is a religion that condones the domination of the world. And, in one sense, some of historical Christian theology HAS done this. And we should repent of that. Some people mistakenly read the passage Genesis story as not only a beautiful hymn of the creation of the world, but also as free reign for Christians to use up the world’s resources.

Add to this, Christian fundamentalists, who often believe that the end of the world is very near, and question the whole assumption of Global Warming. (If the world's about to end, why bother?)

Ironically, there are also scientific fundamentalists in our world today, who believe it’s their duty to save the world from fundamentalist Christians!!!They see the battle of "saving the world" as one that pits modern science and “enlightenment” against ignorant and harmful religion. You know, "enlightened science," don't you? You know, the folks that brought us the gas engine, every smelter in Midloathian, every styrofoam cup you've ever used, and every nuclear reactor every built.

Yep, these were not invented by theologians, but by the most enlightened science of the time. The truth is, our science has rarely been much more enlightened than our theology. And, ignoring their own technological sins --just as much as Christian fundamentalist often ignore their theological ones-- modern scientists and Christian fundamentalist engage in a "yin/yang" battle over so-called "creationism."

But what if we looked at it differently? What if we said to ourselves that modern science can give us the scientific reasons for why we should fight global warming --the beautiful story of evolution and how creatures work together in an amazing harmony and unity, and the search for a science that respects this-- but Christianity can give us a moral and spiritual compass? Spirituality can remind us that God moves in and through all creation. In fact, as the beautiful poem from the first chapters of Genesis suggests that God moves in and through the very ACT of creation. And it stands as a marvelous hymn to creation, not a replacement of scientific evolution.

“God writes the Gospel, not in the bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars.” -- Martin Luther

The fact is that the early story of Christianity is tied to the natural world, not an enemy of it. Jesus spent most of his ministry in a rural setting, preaching on the tops of mountains, by rivers, and by the lakeshore.

Jesus told story after story that used the environment as a backdrop for making a spiritual point:

“The Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed...”

“I am the Good Shepherd...”

Jesus told parables of workers in the field, not workers in a factory. And unless you realize just how difficult it is to spend all day sweltering in the hot sun, you likely cannot understand just how unfair it seemed when everybody got paid the same.

Many of Jesus’ stories and teaching used the metaphors of the earth; trusting that his audience would understand the Gospel message because they too were connected to, and understood, the earth.

“Consider the lilies of the field,” Jesus says.

“Consider the ravens of the air,” Jesus says.

And in this, I truly believe Jesus didn’t just mean, “hypothetically, conjure up the image of a bird in your brain.”

No, I think he more likely meant:

“Get yourself outside and watch the hawks circle Enchanted Rock. Watch their lazy paths, back and forth across the sky...and allow them to speak to you.”

Jesus would say, “Get yourself down to Ennis and “consider" the bluebonnets...notice how the redtailed hawks and the bluebonnets do not spin nor toil...yet God takes care of them. And if God takes care of them, will not God take care of YOU?"

You see, what I finally learned in Mason, Texas is that the natural world --cause of that initial attack of anxiety-- would also be the very think to lead me away from worry!!!

I learned I could watch the clouds move across the night sky --unilluminated by light pollution, moving in still silence-- and I learned to trust that God was caring for the world through the rain that could come from them. I learned to listen to the hawks, and "consider" the bats, and trust that the shooting starts were messages about how, as Indiana poet Max Erhman once said, "the universe is unfolding as it should."

But here's the paradox: If we do not take care of the earth, we not only LOSE the earth as a natural resource, we lose the earth as a SPIRITUAL TEACHER!

You see, this is the final, terrible irony. God tells us to consider the ravens of the air as a way to learn not to worry. God DOES care for the natural world. God is working in and through our ecosystems and evolutionary processes to create an amazing message of the Gospel.

But we human beings have the power to destroy those ravens...the only creature with the power to ruin the metaphor is US!!! And, as we lose our natural world, we paradoxically lose that opportunity to calm our worries by considering the lilies!!

“Consider the lilies of the field” is not just a call to save an ecosytem. It’s also a call to honor the earth as a spiritual teacher. We must save the earth not out of some dull and dry scientific duty to avoid greenhouse gases, but because our spiritual destiny is tied up with the Earth’s destiny. As Luther said: God speaks the Gospel through the birds, and the trees and the stars.

So, let us save the Earth, not just for the Earth’s sake, not just for the sake of our physical health, but also for the sake of our own souls too.

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What I Did on My Blog Vacation

As you know, my blog's been down and out for three months. But, as you might imagine, that hasn't stopped me from blogging.

How, you say?

Well, the truth is that I've always cross-posted many of my blog entries to other sites, depending upon the content. So, that's what I've been doing quite a bit of these past 90 days.

I'm not going to repost them all here. But I will provide you some links. Actually, some of these entries got a fair amount of comments at other sites, and just reading the dozens and dozens of comments to some of these posts might be worth your while.






I didn't get bitter over Pennsylvania. I got bitter over Texas.

On the heels of the Texas primary, I found myself angry and, yes, bitter about the increasingly disturbing tone of the Clinton campaign. And I blogged about it at MySpace...you can read it here.

Basically, I was asking, way back then, the kinds of questions people in the MSM are only asking about the Clinton campaign now. I'm not nearly as angry about it now as a I was then, because it seems to me that the fundamentals of my questions ("Why is She Still In This Race?") have not changed.

In fact, not only have the fundamentals of my blog stayed the same, but the uphill battle she faced then has turned into an sheer mountain-face rock climb now.

Don't believe me? Ask Chuck Todd.



Let me lift up this quote:

"...The pledged delegate count is basically over. If you could call an election based on the delegate count, and say 'who's gonna have the most delegates at the end of this process,' it now appears as if it going to be impossible for Obama to lose his lead."

'If we called things like this, and we don't call them, we would say 'OK, the pledged delegate count is over.'"

So, I go back to the point I made then, which is even MORE true today: if she was any other candidate, with any other name besides "Clinton" she would have been asked privately to step aside MONTHS ago.






You're right to think I had thoughts on Wright.

But, of course, the Democratic primary race kept right on going, and the world hear about Rev. Jeremiah Wright. What frustrated me most in the early days of that coverage was the clear assumption of the MSM that there was no defendable reason Obama should have stayed at Trinity Church.

Why didn't he just leave?!!! screamed pundit after pundit.

As a pastor myself, I knew exactly why: because people don't always choose their churches based on their pastor. They choose them on friendships, programs, Bible study connections, etc, etc...

And so, I turned the question around, and turned asked "Why did Barak Obama Stay at Trinity Church?" That first link is to Talking Points Memo, but I also reposted this at Daily Kos, and it got a TON of comments there.


After a few more days, I got to thinking about the sound byte of Rev. Wright "damning America." And while I can't condone using that kind of rhetoric --and think it's irresponsible in a YouTube world-- I had to ask the question "What Did Rev. Wright Mean Intend When He 'Damned' America?'" Again, the repost at Daily Kos got a lot of comments too.






Support for Progressive Churches

All this led me to think about how a part of this controversy is that many people to do understand or get that there are "progressive" churches out there. Again, not to defend Rev. Wright's sound-bytes, his church is clearly one that comes from a progressive theological background. However, in the broader culture, there is a lot of assumption that ALL churches are conservative, and perhaps even fundamentalist.

So, I put out a call to progressive people that they should support progressive religion. You can read it here. (Reposted here) It was not as warmly received as my other essays, which does not surprise me in the least, in that many progressive people falsely see the "fight" of modern society to be "ignorant religion" vs. "enlightened reason." So, I was not expecting as many warm fuzzies for this blog, and they didn't come my way.
I will probably follow up on this issue, somewhere down the road....






Rabbis for Obama

In another post, I noted with interest the endorsement of Obama by a Rabbi he knows, and this Rabbi's thoughts about how Obama would relate to the Jewish community.






The Fifth Anniversary of the Iraq War

Somewhere in the midst of all this, our church held a press conference, marking the five-year "Anniversary" of the War in Iraq. The press conference got some nice, er, press. The story ran all that day on KRLD Radio, and the DMN picked up the story the next morning, running some nice quotes from the many ecumenical leaders who came to our church for the press event.

This story from the United Methodist Reporter also ran a few weeks later.

This is a blog entry, posting the complete text of my comments on that day.






What it means to be "lucky" in America.

Somewhere in the midst of all this, the Geraldine Ferrraro comments exploded onto the headlines too. What really stuck with me about what she said was when she called Obama "lucky to be who he is," as if being a black man in America was akin to winning the lottery. I vented my frustration here on a MySpace blog.






The Clinton's as....Um....Who?!!

Finally, you knew it was getting to be silly season in politics when James Carville called Bill Richardson "Judas" during Holy Week. Then, instead of backtracking from the comments, he pretty much said, "No, I really did mean to draw that analogy this week..."

So, I drew the metaphor out to its obvious, and silly conclusions...the Clinton's as Jesus? It was originally posted at Street Prophets, and got reposted at Daily Kos...drawing some really funny comments.

Yes, what it proves more than anything is that we are in the height of "silly season."






General Conference begins

So, that's what I've been writing these past months, while my blog's been broken. That brings us up to the present day, and the start of our United Methodist General Conference in Fort Worth, Texas. It's a once-every-four-years gathering of Methodists from around the globe, and I was quoted about it in the DMN this week, right here.

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David LaMotte Gets Spun

Wanted to blog about this quickly this morning, because it seems to be breaking on the blogs, and it involves an actual friend of mine...

David LaMotte is a truly fine songwriter friend from the great city of Asheville, North Carolina. I was overhearing some audio from the Huffington Post this morning, and thought "that voice sounds familiar."

It was. It was David's.

Basically, he got a "push poll" call from the Clinton campaign. I'll let him explain it:

"A guy named Ed called from Akron, Ohio, and when I asked what polling outfit he works for he said Garin-Hart-Yang, based in DC At first I was delighted to be polled, as I've been interested in the race and following the rest of the nation's polls closely throughout the campaign.

The questions started out normal enough, but got progressively more ridiculous. Early in the conversation Ed asked my preference among the Democratic candidates and I told him I was an Obama supporter.

Then the questions turned to long Hillary-praising and Barack bashing policy statements with the response options being "Do you consider that a very strong, strong or weak or very weak reason to support her candidacy for president?" which is kind of an unanswerable question, and clearly not the point. At the end of the conversation they asked "Now based on everything we've discussed, who would you vote for?"

The questions were often based on statements that I wouldn't agree with in the first place. It's classic push polling as I've read about it, though never experienced it before. The questions are of the "Are you still beating your wife?" variety. No way to answer with any sense of veracity and integrity.

Toward the end of the conversation it occurred to me to record it on my old-school tape-based answering machine..."

You can read the entire transcript of the encounter --or, better still, listen to all the audio-- here.

And here's David's own thoughts on the whole thing.

David's a truly good guy. Son of a Presbyterian Minister, he's not only a gifted songwriter, but also truly committed to the poor in many parts of the world. I am honored to call him and friend, and humored that he's found himself in the midst of this developing blog story today.

But, wait!! There's more.

Here's where this story becomes surreal and dang funny. For you see, those of us who know David knowthat he has actually written a song about political spin!!

The song is called...yep, you guessed it.... "Spin."

It's on a CD of the same name, and you can get it at David's website.

Here's just a little of lyrics:

Six o'clock dinner, the family falls silent
Move over a little I can't see the screen
The man in the box speaks in high definition
Turn it up loud so I won't hear the screams
More about bad things the bad guys are doing
More about how I need what they sell
And right down the road they are building a prison
On the whole the economy's doing quite well

(Chorus)
Give me the update, tell me again
Show me the difference between us and them
Give it a number between one and ten
Give me the headline
Give me the spin

The moral I draw from this for the Clinton campaign, or any other:

Never try to "spin" a guy who's already clear on what spin is.

(Or one who happens to have a tape recorder laying around...)

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What Connections Band Did During My Blog Vacation

Another loss of not having the blog these past few months is not being able to tell you all the incredible stuff happening with Connections Band. Because it's been an absolutely cool couple of months with four great shows.

We set a goal of playing about a show a month this year. But because of the Easter season, we crammed a bunch of shows into late Feb and early March. It was a fun three weeks. But it just about killed us too. Because, we did something we hadn't really done before: we hit the road. We went to Wichita Falls, Denton, Sachse, and Grand Prairie.

We're considering t-shirts that list all the cities on back, and say "Connections Band World Tour" on the front.


The trip to Wichita Falls was rough. Traveling with a 15-piece band is not for sissies, especially when you're also the road crew. The logistics were quite a challenge, to say the least. And they were the next three shows too...just not quite as far a haul as Wichita Falls.

But, even though it was a long haul out there, the WF show got us some of our best publicity yet. A really nice story ran in the local paper about a week before the show. Rusty and I were also interviewed by KMOC Radio the day of the show.
You can listen to it here:



It's a pretty good overall introduction to the band and what we do.

All four of these shows were the Eagles/Chicago set. And, if I do say so myself, we're really getting tight with that music. It's done us a lot of good to play so many shows together, in terms of the chemistry, and the audiences are really responding. In fact, the Sachse and Grand Prairie audiences just about went wild.

Pretty fun.

We've also got our own web-presence now. It's a myspace page, and you can find it here. (Creating it was another of the things I did during my blog vacation...)

The MySpace page has TONS of new band info. It's got a complete listing of the 35-plus people who have played with Connections Band. It's got 52 awesome pics from the Sachse show. It's got brand new sound clips; "The Reach" and "There's A Place in the World for A Gambler." And it's also got promotional videos for UMCOR and "Nothing But Nets," our two main beneficiaries. Check it out.

While creating the MySpace page, I also created the chart, which shows the funds raised by Connections Band. We are now well over $20,000 raised for the great causes of UMCOR and "Nothing But Nets:



Finally, we've got three great shows coming up during the late Spring/Summer. The best news is this: if you've missed any of our tribute shows, you're gonna have the chance to make it up. Because we're doing all three tribute shows back-to-back.

The following are the details, taken from our new MySpace site:

Upcoming Connections Band Shows

May 2, 2008, 7 pm
Connections Band Dan Fogelberg Tribute Show
Lovers Lane UMC, Dallas TX
www.llumc.org/
9200 Inwood Road
Dallas, Texas 75220
214.691.4721

In tribute to Dan Fogelberg's passing earlier this year, Connections will perform our very first show: A Tribute to the Music of Dan Fogelberg. The evening will feature many of Fogelberg's best known songs -- "Leader of the Band," "Same Old Lane Syne," Run for the Roses," "Longer"-- but also lesser known gems from throughout his career. Connections 18-piece band will bring Fogeberg's music to life and do our best to honor the memory of this great performer.

June 13, 2008, 7 pm
Connections Band Eagles/Chicago Tribute Show
FUMC Richardson, TX
www.fumcr.com
503 N Central Expy
Richardson, TX 75080
(972) 235-8385

Five of Connection's members have a, ahem, connection to this church. So, we're pleased to be able to bring to our friends and family there. As always, the show will be free, but an offering will be taken for UMCOR. To get a map to the venue, click here.

July 27, 2008, 7 pm
Connections Band James Taylor/Carole King Tribute Show
Walnut Hill UMC, Dallas TX
www.whumc.com
10066 Marsh Ln
Dallas, TX 75229
(214) 357-5656

One of Connection's favorite 2007 show was at this church, and we're pleased to be headed back again. This time, we'll bring the music of JT and Carole King. As always, the show will be free, but an offering will be taken for UMCOR.





Mark your calendars now. Hope to see you all at the shows.

In early May, we'll have a Founders meeting, where we'll chart out a Fall schedule, and decide on a new artist for our September show.
Stay tuned for that.

It continues to be a thrill to us all to be able to play such great music, have such incredible audience response, and raise so much for such worthy causes. We give a lot to it, but we get a lot back. And I know I speak for the whole band when I say that it's an honor and blessing to be a part of it.

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