Thursday, October 18, 2007

"Being born on third base and thinking you have hit a triple!"


Today's Booking Through Thursday is about typographical errors that readers have noted in books. The only recent one that is notable to me is from Robin Meyers book, "The Christian Right is Wrong". It's not worth discussing here but there is a significant typo at the end of the book. Thinking about Robin was also prompted by reports on the hearings for the possible new attorney general today. Believe it or not debate is still continuing if torture is torture, astonishingly there is a question about this??? All of this led me to thinking of why he wrote the book and I decided to blog about that instead.
Robin is the minister our church, Mayflower Congregational Church, the United Church of Christ. We joined because it is liberal, is open and affirming ( people who are gay are welcome ) and he does not believe in a linear heaven or hell (my words not his). Anyway, Robin was asked to deliver a speech at a Peace March in Norman Oklahoma in November of 2004. The Peace March was at the University of Oklahoma and was sponsored by the University Campus Ministry. Robin sat in a coffee shop in Norman and made notes for his speech and then delivered the speech to about 150 people, mostly students, some parents and faculty. Afterward the participants walked quietly around the campus in a candlelight vigil and some asked for a copy of his remarks. He gave them his copy and then drove back to OKC. The students transcribed the notes and someone sent a copy to so and so, another to a friend in Germany and then people were sending a copy to everyone in their address book. Robin began to receive e-mails which multiplied and multiplied and then the university, where he teaches, set up an automated response to keep the server from crashing because of the avalanche of mail. As you can imagine the speech was debated line by line, Robin was on NPR, and hundreds of newspapers reprinted the speech. So for those unfamiliar please read. Very sadly, it is still quite pertinent today.

1 comment:

Patrick said...

As W stands by himself on third base waiting (hoping) that a teammate will come out of the dugout and try to bring him home; the bleachers empty save for the die hards who cling to their warm beers and try to remove the mustard stains from their "We Support Our Troops" teeshirt.
The lights turn out and a new game starts in a new stadium while W peers through the gloom with his foot on the bag slowly realizing that he is no longer relevant.