We have certainly been inundated with a cluster of celebrity deaths over the last week or so. Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson are just a few. Each name, in its own way, brings back different kinds of memories. McMahon on the Tonight Show, Fawcett the only reason to watch Charlie’s Angels, and Jackson bringing back memories of the Jackson Five.

Others have been added. It seems like a day does not go by that doesn’t contain news of another well known entertainer passing away. I think the expansion of television as our primary entertainment medium has probably led to an equally huge expansion in the numbers of celebrities on the radar. There are so many, and they are getting older. No wonder we hear about another death day after day.

Meanwhile, the obituaries of "normal" people seem to also be expanding. Partly because the population explosion following World War II is beginning to show up as early demises. And partly because obituaries are getting longer and most now include a picture - or two. Regarding them getting longer, it often seems to me that long and glowing death notices that seem more like eulogies might be telling us something about the way we handle grief these days.

I’m pretty sure there is not a celebrity in the world who knows my name (are bishop’s celebrities?), and most of the folks I know would be called "normal." Yet I know my acquaintances are less than normal compared to the rest of the world. When I think of what normal means in Iran, Iraq, Honduras, Nigeria, Sudan, North Korea, Myanmar, and scores of other places in the world, I realize that our very secure existence is not normal.

Which brings me to a celebrity who became so only in death and not by her own choice. We all know her as Neda. Her full name is Neda Agha-Soltan. In the protests of Iran she was shot in the chest by Iranian, and a telephone camera recorded the last breaths of her young life. The pleading, the confusion, and the fear in her eyes are etched upon my memory as much as anything any other celebrity ever did. The Iranian government is presently using the state run media to put an opposite spin on Neda’s death - a fact that should make us all appreciative of open and independent news outlets.

These are interesting times.

Pastor B.

Mark Twain once said, "Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable." Benjamin Disraeli said, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

Baseball on the field is a game of inches. Off the field it is a game of statistics. Other sports attempt to become more statistical (football: how many passes 0-10 yds, 10-20 yds, more than 20 yds.), but nobody will ever come close to baseball.

One of my favorite statistics to have as a least favorite baseball statistic is the pitch count broken down into balls and strikes. Consider this example of an at bat any baseball fan has seen a hundred times.

pitch #1 - ball one, 1-0
pitch #2 - in the dirt, swing and miss, 1-1
pitch #3 - ball, 2-1
pitch #4 - strike two looking, 2-2
pitch #5 - high and inside, but fouled off, 2-2
pitch #6 - low and inside, but fouled off, 2-2
pitch #7 - outside - 3-2
pitch #8 - outside, but fouled off, 3-2
pitch #9 - inside, pulled down the line foul, 3-2
pitch #10 - ball four, walk

Statistically, the pitcher threw 60% strikes. On the field he walked the batter. Actually, he only threw one pitch in the strike zone - pitch #4. When he goes to renegotiate his contract, he’s going to remind the management of how many strikes he throws - six out of ten.

Don’t you just love statistics?

Pastor B.

"A public opinion poll is no substitute for thought." Warren Buffet

"How far would Moses have gone if he had taken a poll in Egypt." Harry Truman

It seems like every other Web site these days is conducting an on-line opinion poll about something or other. Sports sites might give you a list of five famous pitchers and ask you to vote for the best. Travel sites might ask if you’ve ever been on a cruise. News sites could ask if you think a Supreme Court nominee is qualified. Think of a topic, and you can probably find a Web site that has a poll question about it.

I remember before the 2008 presidential election when FOX news polled voters on their Web site and MSNBC did the same on theirs. The results were mostly different. Why? Because on-line polls reflect the views of those who are inclined to agree with the sites opinion or product. If the National Rifle Association polled on their site if guns should be controlled, is there any doubt how that would turn out?

Voluntary electronic polling is terribly skewed. The results of such pulse taking proves worthless in judging anything. I think most people know that, but it just goes to show us how difficult it is to poll anything and how important it is for us to look behind the poll numbers.

The fact is, if you want an opinion poll to come out the way you want it to, you can devise a way to do it. Just by the way you word the question, you can influence the answer. The trick is to make it sound neutral and to make it look random. When pundits quote polls, they often find ones that are not all that neutral or random once you take a look at them closely. Of course, few of us ever do, and that’s what leads us to be uninformed, thoughtless, followers of the supposed crowd.

So go and have fun with on-line polls. Just remember they are as meaningless as an unread Bible.

Pastor B.

On Memorial Day Susan and I took the long route home from the Twin Cities. The journey scoots down from the eastern edge of St. Paul to Hastings and Red Wing. Then we crossed the Mississippi to follow the mighty river down to LaCrosse. From there we picked up US 14 to Madison.

The trip from Minnesota had four basic sections. First, from St. Paul to Hastings zooms through the growing suburbs that stretch all the way to the Minnesota River and then as nondescript farmland. Second, following along the east side of the river offers numerous peeks at Lake Pepin and interesting river towns. The third leg I’ll get to later. The fourth section runs straight and flat through the numerous track farms enjoying the rich soil along the Wisconsin River.

The third part, the road undulates through Coon Valley, Westby, Viroqua, and Richland Center. With the sun low in the evening sky, the well manicured farms with clean looking barns and contented cows seemed idyllic, like some version of Eden to be observed in quietude.

There was a great temptation to simply pull over into a grassy field and let the world go by. The scenes betrayed no hint of danger or stress or busyness. Each one spoke to me saying, "Stop and rest. Come live like this forever." Indeed, Highway #14 from LaCrosse to Richland Center looks a lot like the 23^rd Psalm.

Alas, we kept on driving. I know that even the beauty of the earth in Vernon and Richland Counties is a false idol. Beneath the pastoral charms lies the same temptations and problems to be found everywhere.

Still the picture remains etched, and it is beautiful.

Pastor B.

Torture. I grew up in the heady days following World War II. We were the good guys on U. S. soil and the bad guys had labels like "Kraut" or "Jap". Somewhere in there I learned to believe that one of the many things that separate us good guys from the bad guys was the use of torture to extract information. The bad guys used it. We didn’t.

I suppose my idealistic vision was painted by post war propaganda, especially all the war movies that flickered on the big screen. Americans looked well groomed and held high ethical standards even in the chaos of war. Think John Wayne. Krauts and Japs were dirty, scheming, no goods. I was well into high school before I quietly became aware of the good and the bad on both sides of conflict.

Still, I’ve always carried a bit of the idealism of our country holding higher ground, a better way of doing things. With the standards of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness flying from the Declaration of Independence, my logic concluded that denying those standards even in the midst of conflict turned them into empty lies.

Recent news of torture used in the Middle East comes as no great surprise to any of us. It didn’t take much insight to read between the lines of political spin, and the release of documents and pictures just proves what we already knew. It saddens me that we think we can protect freedom by abusing it.

In the midst of the revelations that torture had been used, former vice president Dick Cheney has hounded the government to also release the notes from the torture ridden interrogations. He says that we will discover that these "harsh" (as he calls them) methods produced information that saved lives.

But that is not the point, is it? Do the ends always justify the means? Can we do anything we want as long as the result is what we think is good? Can you hold to higher ethics in public and grasp a malevolent ethic in private?

Yes, my old baby boomer brain likes to keep things simple and idealistic. But I will not back down. Torture is wrong. Debasing other humans is wrong. You can’t beat evil by being evil. I think a guy named Jesus showed us that.

Pastor B.