Friday Notes: September 14, 2007

I only have a few things to discuss before you spend the weekend glued to your TV:

• Saturday morning, before the college football schedule gets underway, East Brainerd Church of Christ is hosting the Walk for Honduras at Pointe Corporate Center in Chattanooga.  Aside from allowing me the opportunity to break some kind of record for proper nouns in a sentence, the walk is a great way to support a remarkable mission.  Each year, a group of doctors, nurses, and other missionaries visits Honduras for a medical mission trip in order to help those who would otherwise not receive medical care.  The money raised at this walk goes to support that work.  So, if you’re in the Chattanooga area, I encourage you to come by at 8:30 and help raise money for a worthy cause.  It doesn’t take much time, and it’s a great way for people who can’t personally go on a week-long out-of-country mission trip to support mission work.
• After the Walk, feel free to sit in front of the TV for what looks like a very interesting SEC slate this weekend.  Aside from Tennessee-Florida, which should be a great game, there’s also Arkansas-Alabama and Louisville-Kentucky, which should both be outstanding to watch.  Watch Michigan-Notre Dame if you like, but you’ll be missing out on some good teams playing in Gainesville.
• Although I won’t be rooting for him in this one, it’s hard not to like a guy like Tim Tebow after reading an article like this one in the New York Times.  Hopefully he’ll have a rough day but not suffer any kind of long-term injury.  I guess that’s the safe thing for a Vol fan to say.
• For some reason, I was thrilled to read the punishment handed down to Bill Belichick ($500K fine) and the Patriots ($250K fine, loss of either a 1st or a 2nd/3rd round pick in ’08).  Even though I think they’re probably not the only ones doing that, it’s fun to have a reason to root against the team in power.
• I subscribe to news feeds from the local Chattanooga TV stations just to keep up with what’s going on without actually having to watch a 30-minute news program.  One of the more interesting things I’ve been reading lately is about an African-American female UTC professor (Dr. Jean Howard Hill) who sees it as her duty to tell African-American male UTC students to pull up their pants.A few weeks after the initial story aired, this professor is now under fire from students and fellow faculty who think that is not her right, much less her duty.  I would have to agree with them.

  I don’t doubt that some of these young men are involved in a culture that promotes the abuse of women and other unconscionable things.  I also agree with Dr. Hill’s belief that the saggy pants look comes across as unprofessional, and for me, somewhat comical.  Personally, I don’t see the point, but I have no need to make such a fashion statement because I have a very different set of friends and family.

  At the same time, it’s more than a bit haughty to go around telling students to pull up their pants.  It would be fine with me if she enforced a professional dress code in her class, but going on patrol as she does makes her look just as ludicrous as the people she’s trying to “help.”  Perhaps she feels like she’s offering a lesson that the culture is not teaching these young men.  Personally, I’d spend my time doing something else.

• And, lastly: ME has clearly created a monster.  His mid-week discussion post has taken on the topics of SEC football, abortion, the Pledge of Allegiance, and matching up with a political candidate.  I think I may have commented somewhere in there about the Vols and/or abortion, but I’m pretty sure the topics are unrelated.

And now, I present to you: the weekend.