Mark Byron

Why VBS?

We're getting towards the end of the school year and, like a good annual flower, the VBS signs are starting to pop up in front of churches here in Lexington.

My question to the peanut gallery- how did we settle on the term Vacation Bible School and the one week, Mon-Fri (with allowance for an occasional Sunday kickoff) format? It has become so standard, we no longer have to utter the phrase proper, just the VBS acronym. Does someone do Summer Church Teaching or Summer Bible Classes? No, everyone (or almost everyone) calls it VBS.

Monday Musings

Let's see if I can get back to blogging on a regular basis. I don't have a huge readership, but what I do have appreciates what I do share.

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They're done with the slow-motion elections in India, and the coalition headed by the Congress Party (that's the party of Nehru and the Ghandis) got a majority of the vote. I think that's good news, given that Congress seems to have drifted to the free-market side of things over the years after years of being more socialist-oriented.

Even though the BJP tends to be a bit more free-market oriented than Congress, it also has the baggage of Hindu nationalism that will manifest itself in its supporters gooning it up and killing Christians, Sikhs, and Muslims. Given a choice between Tony Blair and a paleocon with a goonish streak, I'll take NuLab, thank you.

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I haven't been paying too much attention to the NBA playoffs this year; it might be a bit of fatigue after the Pistons were a non-factor for the first time in many years. We have something of a changing of the guard, with a Cleveland-Orlando series in the east and a Lakers-Denver series. In the east, Boston couldn't quite get it done without Garnett and Chauncey gets to go to a seventh straight conference final, this time with a new horse.

We're a series away from Madison Avenue's dream series, Kobe vs Lebron.

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Speaking of new horses, we have the oddity of a jockey having a shot at a Triple Crown without a horse having one. Calvin Borel jumped ship from Mine that Bird to ride superfilly Rachel Alexandra to a Preakness win. If RA is healthy, he'll have a very good shot of winning a Triple Crown on different horses for the first time in history.