The "Left Behind" Series

Someone should leave these authors behind! What is so amazing is that so many people actually believe this gibberish. Obviously, I am not one of that persuasion. NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof discusses their latest novel - If the latest in the "Left Behind" series of evangelical thrillers is to be believed, Jesus will return to Earth, gather non-Christians to his left and toss them into everlasting fire: "Jesus merely raised one hand a few inches and a yawning chasm opened in the earth, stretching far and wide enough to swallow all of them. They tumbled in, howling and screeching, but their wailing was soon quashed and all was silent when the earth closed itself again." These books have sold more than 60 million copies worldwide. The latest is "Glorious Appearing," which has Jesus returning to Earth to wipe all non-Christians from the planet. It's disconcerting to find ethnic cleansing celebrated as the height of piety.

Furthermore - In "Glorious Appearing," Jesus merely speaks and the bodies of the enemy are ripped open. Christians have to drive carefully to avoid "hitting splayed and filleted bodies of men and women and horses."

"The riders not thrown," the novel continues, "leaped from their horses and tried to control them with the reins, but even as they struggled, their own flesh dissolved, their eyes melted and their tongues disintegrated. . . . Seconds later the same plague afflicted the horses, their flesh and eyes and tongues melting away, leaving grotesque skeletons standing, before they, too, rattled to the pavement."

One might have thought that Jesus would be more of an animal lover.

These scenes also raise an eschatological problem: Could devout fundamentalists really enjoy paradise as their friends, relatives and neighbors were heaved into hell?

If you find this far fetched, well many of your fellow Americans feel this way. Makes one pause, doesn't it?

Olympic Trials

Deena Drossin smoked the other ladies in the 10,000 meter finals, almost lapping the 2nd place finisher. She won't run the event in Athens though, choosing instead to run the Marathon (She set the American Record in the Marathon - 2:21.16 in London in 2003). Tune in August 23rd to see her compete. She's a class act - after almost lapping every person in the field, she waited at the finish line and congratulated every finisher. Nice to see that - in her interview later, she proved herself to be articulate and a credit to Track and Field. She's a English/Creative Writing/Journalism major from the Univ. of Arkansas, where she won 7 Southeastern Conference titles.

To keep up with other fast ladies, check out this web site .



Tune in on Sunday to the Trials to watch Alan Webb try to win the 1500m - should be a great race. He's the kid who broke Jim Ryun's High School Mile Mark. Could this be the year America brings home a Gold in the 1500? Now that would be big! For a good interview, turn to this page .

What happened to chasing Terroists?

Now we're chasing poor ol' bad boy Bobby Fischer ? Wouldn't you think a few terroists would somehow be a bit higher on the priority scale, than trying to track down Bobby Fischer? He was scheduled for a match with Boris Spassky in 1992. Just before the match, however, the United Nations imposed sanctions against Yugoslavia for supporting Serbian aggression in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the United States banned its citizens from doing business there. Mr. Fischer ignored a formal warning from the government against playing the match, and at a news conference spat on the letter. He won the match, collecting $3.3 million, and has been in exile from the United States ever since.. If you are unfamiiar with chess, Bobby was and probably is the greatest chess champion of all time.

Bobby is a bit nuts, professing to be a Jew hater, amongst other things (he is a Jew himself) and thought 9/11 was a fine thing, so you can see why there is not a lot of love lost for him, but somehow I doubt this guy is a huge danger.