Gill Gives Jayhawk Fans Hope
Hope is a fragile thing and Turner Gill holds the hopes of an entire Jayhawk nation in his hands. Will he continue the dream and help the Hawks crush Southern Miss or will he crush my ongoing bliss that’s resulted from a Jayhawk victory AND a Chiefs victory? (Arrowhead’s in the house!) I’ve seen Hope. I know what Hope is. I usually find it around the middle of March as I sit in front of my TV waiting for the tip of the first KU NCAA Tournament game. My bracket is pristine, I’m waiting with baited breath to fill in the Jayhawks in the second round….
And then I’ve known Despair. It’s the end of the first weekend of games and teams with names that start with “B” or Northern Iowa are pounding on my brain, laughing at me, causing me to tear my bracket in half, run into the street and scream, “Why? Why, God, Why?? That team was so fat! F-ing Missouri Valley!!”
Please, Turner, bring us some of that Cornhusker magic (the regular season kind, not the post-season kind) and lead KU into Mississippi for the first time and beat the Golden Eagles. I only ask that you do this one thing for me. That, and beat Missouri. And K-State. And probably Nebraska (Big Ten Traitors). And PACthetic Colorado. Please.
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Preivew: Jayhawks vs. Southern Mississippi
Jayhawk fans, do you have Eagle Fever? Anyone? (Why would you have a school cheer that sounds like the guy from Ferris Bueller?)
A big crowd will be gathering in Hattiesburg, Mississippi around 11:30 on Thursday. The Fedora Football group. They’ll be eating lunch with the Golden Eagles head coach Larry Fedora at the Trent Lott Center! *yikes* (Why would you have lunch in a building named after Trent Lott. Isn’t there a Brett Favre building on campus somewhere??) They had to move their lunch to Thursday because they’re playing the Hawks Friday night. That’s right! Jay-jay-jay-hawks! (Always Sunny? Anyone?) There is apparently lots of free parking on Championship Lane for the event, as I would imagine there would be given there aren’t a lot of championships coming out of Southern Mississippi University. Although, to be fair, they have two more national championships in football than KU.
Holy Rock Chalk!
KU just beat Georgia Tech after losing the previous week to pathetic Division I-AA (FCS – the fing confusing configuration) North Dakota State. Yehaw! Here’s hoping we don’t go another 11 months without winning!
Obama: “We Are Not At War Against Islam”
In the strongest statement yet on why it is completely wrong to persecute Muslims for their faith, President Obama issues a beautiful statement on what freedom of religion really means in America:
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With respect to the mosque in New York. I think I’ve been pretty clear on my position here and that is that this country stands for the proposition that all men and women are created equal, that they have certain inalienable rights, one of those inalienable rights is to practice their religion freely. And what that means is that if you could build a church on a site, you could build a synagogue on a site, if you could build a Hindu temple on a site then you should be able to build a mosque on the site.
Now I recognize the extraordinary sensitivities around 9/11. I’ve met with families of 9/11 victims in the past. I can only imagine the continuing pain and anguish and sense of loss that they may go through. And tomorrow we as Americans are going to be joining them in prayer and rememberance. But I go back to what I said earlier. We are not at war against Islam. We are at war against terrorist organizations that have distorted Islam or falsely used the banner of Islam to engage in their destructive acts. We’ve got to be clear about that. We’ve got to be clear about that because if we’re going to deal with the problems Ed Henry was talking about, if we’re going to successfully reduce the terrorist threat, then we need all the allies we can get!
The folks who are most interested in a war between the United States or the West and Islam are al Qaeda. That’s what they’ve been banking on. And fortunately the overwhelming majority of Muslims around the world are peace-loving, are interested in the same things that you and I are interested in. How do I make sure I can get a good job? How can I make sure that my kids get a decent education? How can I make sure I’m safe? How can I improve my lot in life? And so they have rejected this violent ideology for the most part. Overwhelmingly.
From a National Security interest we want to be clear about who the enemy is here. It’s a handful of a tiny, minority of people who are engaging in horrific acts. And have killed Muslims more than anybody else. The other reason that it’s important for us to remember that is because we’ve got millions of Muslim Americans, our fellow citizens in this country. They’re going to school with our kids. They’re our neighbors. They’re our friends. They’re our co-workers. And when we start acting as if their religion is somehow offensive. What are we saying to them? I’ve got Muslims who are fighting in Afghanistan in the uniform of the United States Armed Services. They’re out there putting their lives on the line for us and we’ve got to make sure that we are crystal clear for our sakes and their sakes they are Americans. And we honor their service. And part of honoring their service is making sure they understand that we don’t differentiate between them and us. It’s just “us.” And that is a principle that I think is going to be very important for us to sustain and I think tomorrow is an excellent time for us to reflect on that.
