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Outside my office, on the Marble Corridor, excitement is building as nearly 400 students race about with black robes flying, purple and gold hoods starting to appear on their shoulders, and cries for "black tassels!" fill the air. Families and friends are already assembled on the front lawn for the ceremony that will begin 90 minutes from now… and we are all praying that those storm clouds keep moving! Full Article

So, it's come to this. Pink baseball mitts for the female T-ball set. No dirty-boy-rawhide for these delicate creatures. My shopping cart screeched to a halt at Target this morning as I was prowling for detergent. The screaming display of pink baseball mitts and pink bats and pink balls and pink lacrosse sticks and other pink sports items gave new meaning to "Playing Like A Girl."

So, of course, I had to have one! I immediately purchased my own pink mitt. I've spent the rest of the morning pondering this very strange gender-bending item that now sits on my desk.

What does a pink baseball glove mean in this increasingly ridiculous pop culture? Full Article

Once again, with sickening familiarity, college campuses elsewhere are in mourning because of the deranged actions of people with guns.  Last Friday, an apparently depressed student at Louisiana Technical College in Baton Rouge killed herself and two classmates.  Then, yesterday, a former student burst into a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University and shot 18 people, killing 7 at last count.

Unfortunately, I now have a fairly standard email message that goes out to the Trinity community every time one of these tragedies occurs.  Show your ID, report suspicious behavior, no guns allowed on our campus, seek help if you feel depressed or know someone who is.  We have an emergency plan.  We know what we would do when confronted with threats.

What we don't know, and what nobody in America seems to know, is how to put an end to the reality of the threats that course through our lives every day.  We live in a terribly violent society.  The prevalence of guns makes it all-to-easy for sick people to act on their worst impulses.  Forget about the idea that having guns can keep people safe — the madmen with guns are winning this war, and the inability of our lawmakers to understand that their first moral and political obligation is to protect the citizens, not the gun lobby, is shameful. Full Article

Voters are the real winners in New Hampshire this morning, and the biggest losers are the pollsters and pundits who are just stunned that the voters rejected the "conventional wisdom" of the collective media that the candidacies of John McCain and Hillary Clinton were virtually dead. Hooray for the citizens who beat the press, the people in the diners and town hall meetings, the card-carrying members of the unions and the ruggedly individualistic New Englanders, the wildly enthusiastic college students and the senior citizens who bundled up to get out the vote. Whomever is your candidate of choice, whether you are cheering or moaning this morning, you have to be glad that New Hampshire set a record for voter turnout — more than 500,000 went to the polls in that small northern state — and that the voters rejected the easy media prognostications. Full Article

It's the first Saturday morning of the new year and a whole lot of Very Important People are waking up as Underdogs. By this time next week, we'll know whether any of them have managed to transform themselves into Alpha Stars, or if they have faded to has-been afterlife.

Joe Gibbs, coach of the Washington Redskins, may be our most appealing Underdog today. There's a special magnetism here, because while many people in this region care deeply about the fate of the Redskins, we know that the thrill of victory/agony of defeat emotions are ephemeral. We don't have to live with the results for four or eight more years. 'Skins v. Cowboys (forget the Seahawks, we'll be seeing Dallas next week) may be a metaphor for battle, but there's a great sense of security in knowing that the winner will not have the power to start a war.

Not so with the winner of the election game. Whoever emerges in November from that pileup will have his (or her) finger on the hot buttons of the world.

Hillary Clinton must surely be feeling like a great big old Underdog this morning in spite of the brave face she put on for New Hampshire. Barack Obama has the Big Mo, and John Edwards is lurking like a linebacker ready to block either of them on their runs to the goal line. The contest is only in the first quarter, but it could be over before halftime. The stakes are huge. The primary process is absurd, giving small, unrepresentative states so much influence in determining the national candidates.

Mitt Romney and John McCain are today's Republican Underdogs, but chances are that the New Hampshire primary will change the balance between Mitt and Mike Huckabee. The real question is whether Rudy the Alpha (Giuliani) will even register in the polls.

After reading Sally Jenkins' column about Joe Gibbs in the Washington Post this morning, I think that Rudy and Mitt and Mike and Barack and John and Hillary could learn a whole lot from studying the style, grit and grace of Gibbs. Whatever happens in Seattle tonight, Gibbs has exemplified the qualities we associate with great leadership: the humility to admit mistakes, the ability to learn from those mistakes, the capacity to change management style when circumstances change, the deeply moral sense of accountability for the welfare of the whole team, the resilience to motivate the team to even higher performance levels after great sorrow, and the smarts to put together the winning strategy. This coach is a leader who has not left his team wallowing in the mud of a failed effort.

Hmm. Joe Gibbs. The election season will still be wide open long after the football season is over.

??

Nah. He'll be busy with NASCAR.

See joe gibbs, rudy giuliani, mitt romney, john mccain, mike huckabee, barack obama, hillary clinton, john edwards