Please welcome Angela Lu to the WORLD staff. Angela hails from sunny Southern California, is a graduate of Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, and now lives along the banks of the muddy Mississippi in St. Louis. In her spare time she enjoys cooking, reading, and storytelling. She tells me that if she could have any job she wanted (without pay, job security, etc., as a factor), she would be a reporter for WORLD.
Angela, we’re glad to have you on board. And we appreciate your fresh take on Whirled Views this morning.
Random question of the day: If you could have any job you wanted (without pay, job security, etc., as a factor), what would you be and why?
This is our daily (except for Sundays) open thread, where you can 1) answer my question, 2) talk about something else, or 3) say something truly encouraging to the commenter before you.
A spokesman says Democratic Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, a retired Marine Corps officer who became an outspoken critic of the Iraq war, has died. He was 77.
He had been suffering complications from gallbladder surgery.
Republicans are recruiting an array of candidates for the mid-term elections with no political background, documented in a nice feature by the Wall Street Journal. There’s Scott Rigell, a car dealer in Virginia Beach. There’s Bruce O’Donoghue who owns a traffic light company in Florida. There’s Stephen Fincher, a farmer and gospel singer from Tennessee.
Running political newcomers is a proven strategy when the political tide swings drastically toward one side, and at times when voters have soured on Washington in general. In 1994, when Republicans won a majority of House seats after four decades in the minority, 55% of the party’s 73 freshmen lawmakers had never held political office. Similarly in 2006, when Democrats took control, 45% of their new lawmakers had never held office before.
Voters still have a lot of wrath for Republicans, even if the party in power now is out of favor. So having zero political history allows candidates to cast themselves as “beholden to no one.”
The New Orleans Saints stunned the Indianapolis Colts and won the Super Bowl 31-17, Mosaic church’s Doritos ad was a winner and aired, and the two Tebow ads were so subtle in their message that if you didn’t know beforehand what they were about, you probably thought Mom simply wanted to make sure Timmy was eating right and taking his vitamins. I wonder if all those people who made such a fuss about it feel a little silly this morning.
Peyton Manning and his AFC champion Indianapolis Colts are 5-point favorites to spoil the ending of the New Orleans football renaissance for Drew Brees and the Saints. The odd twist to this story is that the boy who grew up in the Big Easy rooting for his dad as he quarterbacked the awful Saints, may end up breaking its heart.
WorldMag readers, will the Colts win their second Super Bowl in the Peyton Manning era, or will the Saints prevail and capture the victory for The Big Easy?
Hoosiers or the Who Dats?
Give us your prediction in the comments section, including the final score.
You’d think with all the hoopla over Tim Tebow’s Super Bowl ad that he’s the first football player to ever take a pro-life stand. But let’s go back 23 years to Super Bowl XXI, where the New York Giants defeated the Denver Broncos. After that game, the American Life League produced a video featuring several Giants who were very adamant in their stance against abortion.
One of the players was 1987 Super Bowl MVP Phil Simms. The Giant quarterback remarked that, yes, he had some impressive statistics in that game, completing 22 of 25 passes for 268 yards and three touchdowns. He added, however, that the papers the next day mentioned some other stats that sadly received far less attention: an average of 4,400 babies aborted every day for a total of 1.6 million every year. “Suddenly, my statistics seemed very insignificant,” said Simms. Interestingly, tomorrow, when the Tebow ad airs, one of the men in the CBS broadcast booth will be Phil Simms.
Here it is, Rants! & Raves!, your weekly opportunity to sound off about the week past.
Remember the rules:
A Rave! is something that happened during the past week that you’re pleased about and is signified by the word “Rave!” and/or an appropriately peppy emoticon (see Website Help to learn how to use emoticons, aka “smileys”).
A Rant! is something that happened during the past week that you’re ticked off about and is signified by the word “Rant!” and/or an appropriately grumpy emoticon.
You may Rant! about something a person said, did, or wrote, but you may not Rant! about generally disliking a person. IOW, no personal attacks allowed.
Friends in odd places: A wide spectrum of groups file support for Christian Legal Society case 
