Ike, Overused Phrases, and Not Really News

My goal is to post at least every other day. My last post was on Friday and today is Monday. As you can see, I did not meet my goal. But it was a busy weekend. Unless you live in a cave, you are probably aware that there was a hurricane. Hurricane Ike. You could rename Galveston Tina. Some of you will get that. It was not a particularly powerful storm. It was only a category 2. But it was big. Bigger than Texas big. That is how I spent my weekend. It was windy and rainy, but it was not really bad here in Tyler. I have a brother and sister-in-law in Alvin who had some damage to their home. Due to their jobs, they were unable to evacuate. I am not even a little bit jealous of them.

During preparations for the storm, I watched a fair amount of the local news for the weather reports. There are always grossly overused expressions in the news media, but during hurricane Ike, there was one that truly got on my nerves. If Mark Scirto told us one more time to "hunker down", I thought I would have to punch him right through the television. Everybody I talked to was hunkered down. Everybody encouraged me to hunker down. My family hunkered down. I was so tired of hearing about hunkering down, I refused to hunker. I was willing to batton down the hatches, hole up in my home, seek shelter, or any of a number of options. But I was sick of being hunkered down. That has to be the most overused phrase of this storm.

Those of us who work in ministry sometimes struggle with being relevant. (Speaking of overused expressions.) Apparently, it is not only churches that strive to be relevant. With almost all the news – even the national news – devoted to hurricane Ike, it apparently could make for a slow news day in other parts of the country. Check out this headline from the Fort Collins Coloradoan. This is a perfect example of trying too hard.

Do you have any good, or at least interesting, stories from the hurricane this weekend? Share them with me and the three others that might read this.

Grace & Peace,

John

A Fool and His Money . . .

my lovely bride and i -- really just my lovely bride -- have been known to sell an item on ebay from time to time. it is a good way to get rid of things that begin to clutter our home. it also usually pays better than a garage sale, especially since you usually cannot find your way around our garage. there was an news item on foxnews.com today that reminds me of some well known cliches:

• one man's trash is another man's treasure.
• a fool and his money are soon parted.
• there is a sucker born every minute.
• you can buy and sell anything on ebay. (i realize this one is perhaps a little less well known, but it seems to be true none the less.)

friday night, monty kerr of austin, texas, became -- for the low, low price of $1350 -- the proud owner of a corn flake. that's right, a corn flake. what makes this worth such a sum? why, it is shaped like illinois. of course you have to get out a map, because no one is exactly sure what illinois is shaped like. the wizard from austin did not actually buy the corn flake. apparently, it is against ebay policy to sell food, so mr. kerr bought a coupon redeemable for a corn flake shaped like illinois. i sure hope they honor that coupon. one per customer per visit, or something like that. mr. kerr owns a trivia website and he plans to add the cereal to the traveling museum he is assembling. it is to be a collection of pop culture and americana items. is this what even pop culture is reduced to? was no more hair available from brittany spears' shaved head? thankfully, the odds are good that there will be only one illinois-shaped corn flake -- and you missed it. don't loose heart, my friends, there are t-shirts, magnets, and the official collector's pamphlet; and any of it can be yours if you are almost as big an idiot as the guy who bought the real thing.