i couldn't be any less patriotic
(and marie was right about rick and bubba)


i don't mind watching the olympics. football's over 'til august. baseball won't be here for another month. so, i'll let the olympics distract me if there isn't anything else on. the crappy part is that espn gives me real time results, so the drama isn't there when the telecast comes on however-many hours later. i am not swept up by the olympic spirit. i am the worst patriot there is i have to believe.

on my early morning drives up to huntsville, i have started listening to a little rick and bubba. i lose sportstalk just outside of downtown. it's just too early to bring the rock when the sun still has an hour before it rises. npr makes me sleepy. so, one morning i stumbled across rick and bubba. one of their producers and some of their crew were on a mission to bring a woman (allegedly going blind) from georgia to the rick and bubba studio in birmingham so that she could see bubba in person before losing her sight. the hilarity that ensued made me laugh and has kept me coming back for a few weeks now. when i was telling sarah and my mother-in-law, marie, about this, marie said that she couldn't listen to them because she disagreed with everything they said. i am finding, the more i listen, the more i understand her reasoning.

rick and bubba are very conservative southern baptists, admittedly. they will poke fun at typical southern baptist stereotypes but they will also further them. they casually throw barbs at the "libs" at least once a day. and they have also made light of the recent church arsons by judging the arsonists to the "hell express". granted, some may not see this as making light as much as it seems point on. i, too, think the way the arsonists are voicing their unhappiness towards the church, god, whoever, whatever is absolutely disgusting and shortsighted, but if members of the victim churches have already found forgiveness in their hearts, maybe others could too. in the midst of exploiting almost-blind women and their lifestyles, drawing humor from killing "wild game", being disgusted at the "libs", sucking up to shaun alexander, judging criminals to hell, being comfortable with laughing off the fact that they are eating themselves into an early grave (which i suppose is fine if you are comfortable with your eternity), poking ironic fun at other "celebrities", among other things, they lead off their second hour with the national anthem of all things.

please pardon me if this makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little bit each morning. i am a horrible patriot. maybe finding discomfort in the country and the christianity that rick and bubba and others promote makes me a horrible christian. i would no more want to fight for "my" country, the one i was lucky enough to be born into while others were born into something far worse, than i would jump off a tall building into a pool of concrete. i respect the bravery of those that have. of those that do. of those that will. but that doesn't mean i get it. i don't want to get it. i want to believe that war is bad. that killing is bad. and wrong. and forgiveness is divine. what sets us apart. what i want to set me apart.

i am preaching to my own personal choir. i could just as well not listen. if there was a better option, maybe i wouldn't. if i can find a less rockin' cd in my collection, maybe i'll do that. then again, if i listen, i'll find more inside of me to write about. and i do like to write.

i am a horrible patriot. and i am a hypocrite. i do not root for shaun white because he's american. i root for him because he has cool hair and looks cool doing what he's so good at. but i will root for team usa in the upcoming world baseball classic. and the world cup. because those are my boys. lucky enough to be born in the same country i was. that's our bond. that, in a glass half-empty kind of way, is our curse.

i just wish it didn't have to be our religion.