Daily Links 2-10-14

Good morning. Here's a collection of links to start your week off right. In today's edition: is Pinterest like porn, must-see bookstores, why go to church, and more.

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Here's an amazing collection of bookstores that are must-see destinations for book lovers. (Hat tip: Book Riot). I could easily see planning a number of trips around being able to visit these stores.

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Two Men Who Marked My Life is a great testimony of two older men who intentionally invested themselves into the life of a younger man. I have been blessed by knowing a handful of such men and hope that one day I might have the opportunity to do the same for someone else. (Hat tip: Challies)

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Over at Acculturated, Chelsea Samelson asks Is Pinterest Like Porn (For Women)? Some very interesting insight into the appeal of one of the hottest social media sites around. I would be curious to hear what other women in particular think about this article.

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Over the course of one's Christian walk there are inevitably going to be some seasons of spiritual dryness. How do  you work through those times in the desert? Here are a few simple suggestions. 

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Why we should be involved in church. As someone who has struggled periodically with finding the right church I can say that it's much  more difficult being without a church than being in church.

Related: Why I still go to church.

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9 lessons in entrepreneurship from Shark Tank. I don't get to see this show often but when I do I have really enjoyed it. If you are thinking of starting your own business it's a good show to watch as there is much to learn.

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Baseball will be back soon (but not soon enough). Here's a handy guide to Opening Day for every team in the Major  Leagues.

Daily Links 2-5-14

In today's post: the value of a church having multiple pastors, Teddy Roosevelt's rules for reading, some thoughts on Gimmie Shelter, and more.

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Thom Rainer makes some excellent observations on the value of a church having more than one teaching pastor. I have been fortunate to be part of a couple of churches that had more than one teaching pastor and I can affirm everything Rainer writes in this article.

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For baseball fans, a rare color photo of Ty Cobb. Spring training starts next week. We don't have too much longer to wait.

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Teddy Roosevelt's ten rules for reading. These are some interesting guidelines to follow when selecting books to read.

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Gimmie Shelter explores the world of young women who are getting pregnant, end up on welfare, and those who seek to minister to them. It seems like unusual subject matter for a major Hollywood film. (Hat tip: Re: News)

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Is religion losing ground to sports?

While teams and fans are building powerful, cohesive communities — think Red Sox Nation or the legions of University of Alabama faithful who greet one another with “Roll Tide” — churches are losing followers. According to a 2012 survey by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley and Duke University, 20 percent of Americans “claimed they had no religious preference,” compared with an unaffiliated population of 8 percent in 1990. Roughly two out of three Americans, a 2012 Pew report noted, are under the impression that religion is losing influence in the country. 

Sports are on the opposite trajectory. Fifty years ago, just three in 10 Americans considered themselves sports fans. By 2012, that proportion exceeded six in 10. Tens of millions of U.S. viewers tuned in to regular-season National Football League games last fall, with the most popular match-ups attracting upwards of 30 million viewers. Nearly 3 million people watched the National Basketball Association’s Christmas Day games. And for devotees of these and other sports, lifelong loyalty to a certain city and team is de rigueur. “Once you choose a team,” sports commentator Bill Simmons says, “you’re stuck with that team for the rest of  your life."

Simmons was half-kidding, but sports are clearly attracting strong adherents as religion is shedding them. This raises the question: Are Americans shifting their spiritual allegiances away from praying places and toward playing places? 

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A free online study on learning leadership from film.

Daily Links 10-24-13

Duck Dynasty is a biblical sex-saturated reality show, why you should keep a journal, finding libraries in unusual places, and more in today's roundup of links.

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Duck Dynasty is one of the most popular reality shows on television. Part of its appeal is the fact that it shows the Robertson clan as the real down home folks that they are. It's a show that is steeped in family values. It also is a biblically sex-saturated show. That's a good thing.

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Seven reasons for keeping a journal. (Hat tip: Challies)

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Finding libraries in unusual places (even on the back of a donkey!)

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Stories like this one make me feel old: 10 things that are disappearing from elementary schools.

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I definitely need this: how to quit wasting time on the internet.

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I don't need encouragement to read more books but this doesn't hurt either: 7 unconventional reasons you should read more books. (Hat tip: Trevin Wax)

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One father shares about removing his children from the internet. (Hat tip: Challies)

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It's time to emphasize winning with our kids and sports:

My son will play in soccer tournaments today. And I want him to win

I feel like I’m going against the tidal wave of parental niceness to even say such a thing, but it’s true. During this game, I don’t want him to just have fun or play safely. I want his team to win.

And I hope every dad cheering from the sidelines for the other team feels the same way.

I believe we should resist the fashionable tendency to take competition out of sports. 

That’s why, at the beginning of the soccer season, I asked my son: ”What’s more important? Having fun or winning?" He answered: “Having fun?”   

No,” I replied. “Winning. Because if you’re not winning, you’re not having fun.”

What do they teach children in school these days?

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Calling all writers: 41 redundancies you should ditch.

Some Unlikely Good Samaritans

That's the title of my new column up at BP Sports. Check it out.

While you're there, also check out Joshua Cooley's tribute to the retiring Mike Mussina. I've always admired Mussina as he is one of the truly classy guys in baseball.

A Display of Integrity

That's the title of my first column for BP Sports. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Interview: Fox and Friends' Brian Kilmeade

Brian Kilmeade is a busy guy these days. He's a co-host of Fox and Friends on the Fox News Channel, co-hosts Brian and the Judge with Andrew Napolitano on Fox News Radio and writes books in his spare time. His second book, It's How You Play The Game, has just been published by Regan Books. I caught up with him in Washington, D. C. while he was on the first leg of his book tour.

You’re co-hosting a television show and radio show on a daily basis and writing books on the side. How do you find time to do all of that?

I think that I am just as busy as everybody else, but I have the advantage of being more structured. I really have no control of my schedule until noon. I get up at 2:30. I’m out the door at 2:50. From that time until noon, I really have no say in my schedule. Then I do a quick video blog at 12:15, which is on Fox News.com. I pick three or four sports stories and comment on them a day, and then I am really free to do what I want. When I am not writing a book or my book tour is done, I can pick up my kids from school, I can run track, I can go watch them play, attend practice with them, have a catch, or bring them to the doctor. So the only thing I sacrifice is sleep and that’s about it.

Tell us about It’s How You Play the Game. How did the idea for this book come about?

With my first book, The Games Do Count, I wanted to start with people like myself but were more accomplished, but really had the same sports experience as me. That is you gave everything, but you didn’t become Joe Montana, you did not become Cal Ripken, so did you waste your time? That’s why the games do count because they do count even if not in the wins and loss columns, because they do count to you. Then I found out from talking to the President, and talking to John Kerry, and the 73 other people I interviewed that they were passionate about what they did in sports, but no they don’t really have the trophy shelf to reflect an accomplishment. This happened, that happened, that’s why I am glad I played, this is why I still watch today. I thought, wow, this is pretty unbelievable. Then I started getting letters, hand-written letters, from people that would tell me about their coaches. They would say, “I was reading your book, and I was reminded to call my soccer coach, call my football coach, to thank my dad for being my coach. Then I started signing books and going on book tours. I got almost nothing for an advance. I am not Sean Hannity or Bill O’Reilly, so I don’t have this huge name, but I am at a great place, on a great show. The minute the book started selling on its own, then they toured me, and I had a chance to talk to people. No one talked about wins or championships, or even great moments. They talked about how proud they were that they tried and the glory in the effort. Then I got handwritten letters to go along with the e-mail. So I sat down Judith Regan who is a genius, and she said “Brian, ethics and values would have sold your book, not sports”, and I said, “I agree.” I said that I wanted get history involved, and I wanted to be able to write about George Patton, Abraham Lincoln, John Wayne, and Gene Kelly because I know in researching that they played and played hard and that they just happened to die, so I couldn’t interview them. I also wanted to find a way to humanize superstars, and let people know that we are just like them, like you and I are just like Joe Montana, Steve Young, Mugsy Bogues, Shawn Elliott and Jerry West. And the way to do that is to tell them how they developed. I didn’t care how they got good. I cared about how they learned character, values, and ethics.

So I just said how did you learn how to play, how did you learn how to act, how did you learn how to coach. From Terry Bradshaw on down, no one brought me to the Super Bowl, and I was not that interested. Terry Bradshaw would say, “Brian, the first thing that I did well was 5th Grade throwing the ball into a rug.” Cal Ripken said to me, “I learned leadership because my dad, after playing with him all day and saw him running every clinic, at the end of the day would look me in the eye and say Cal, I am leaving, you are the man of the house now. He looked at us and gave us the responsibility.”

I thought if I could share those stories with people, they will think that they are like Joe Montana. I am like Cal Ripken, and I can relate to these stories and maybe I shouldn’t quit, maybe I should follow through. Maybe the fact that I am on the base [promoting the book] does not make me a loser, it makes me like Rush Limbaugh, and it makes me like Senator Bob Dole. I wanted to get people-relevance to their own view in coaching and playing career.

It’s interesting that through all of these stories, nobody talked about winning as being the real key to their success.

Gene Kelly said it best through his son. “My Dad always told me that you have to do everything you can to win, but you can’t be caught up in just winning. It is so much more than just winning. What you have an obligation to do is to do everything you can to win, within the rules, but you cannot grade yourself on the outcome. If you did then that means that there are 9,000,000 losers every day. You are not a loser if the game did not come out your way. What are you going to learn from it?”

I also want to tell you, if you get The Games You Count or It’s How You Play the Game, you are not going to get a bunch of great stories that put a smile on your face. You are going to get some people that will tell you stories that make you cringe because they show arrogance, they showed a lack of gumption, but they learn from that. They regret it, and they gave themselves another chance, and they said, “I will not repeat that behavior.”

After The Games Do Count, I wanted to get away [from sports]. I love history and I picked up “Patton” and said I am going to read it. I get to page 45, and there are letters from George Patton writing home to his dad lamenting the fact that he can’t break the line at West Point as a linebacker, and how am I ever going to get in the game against Navy to fulfill my dreams? Wait a second. George Patton was frustrated at self-doubt, and he felt that he had no control over his future or wasn’t tough enough to play? A lot of people want to write themselves off or their kids off because they don’t seem to be amounting to anything. Well, George Patton and Abraham Lincoln were not amounting to much for a long time. I thought if I could put history in there, and also the fact that I have these letters, I said to myself there might be an adequate sequel to The Games Do Count that would get me just as passionate to do it.

One of things I noticed in some of the stories you tell is that the Dads made a real difference in a lot these folks lives. Did you find that a common thread through some of these stories and learn from it as a Dad, too?

I have learned that (1) I will not be the type of Dad that says my 9 year old doesn’t want to baseball so he won’t. I will push them to do stuff, and then give them a chance, after a season, to make their choice. Kids at 9 years old aren’t equipped to make that decision. I want a kid, active and taking part, and showing his dedication, showing up on time and going through it. If I had a kid that loved music and just wanted to do plays, I would bring him every day and do something after school that requires you to work outside. However, I will say this, I have learned that the wrong thing to do is to live through your kids. I think you should give your kid every opportunity to be successful, and also if you can possibly get your kids motivated to the point that they want to practice whatever they do outside of the sport, I think if you have a future Hall of Fame, business person, social worker, whatever it is, so that they can show that type of self-motivation early, that’s tremendous, and that is what I was trying to instill. That’s what I do to my 10 year old. I want them to say that I have got to get better, and it is going to be alone in my backyard. Instead of hanging out with friends at night, I am going out in the backyard and throw a ball against the pitch back or against the wall because if you have those traits, there is no doubt in my mind that you are going to be OK in college and any career.

(2) I think fun is important. A lot times you can have fun giving it your all, sweating and showing emotion, but that’s fun. Walking around not caring doesn’t really help anybody. I am talking about youth sports.

I’ll give you an example: Joe Montana – his story was great – he was playing against his dad, and he used to play one on one basketball against his dad. “I lot of times I would beat him, but my dad would throw me to the ground, step on my foot, trip me from behind, and when I complained, he asked me to call a ref, or go inside. I was just determined to not to let him get to me. I was determined to beat him. And I also learned that day, that time, that no one is going to save me. Deal with it. The ref’s bad, the crowds are bad, the conditions are bad, the coach did not put me in. Find a way.” Joe Montana found a way, all of the time at the 49ers, but I wasn’t interested in the pro career. I wanted to find out how he found out that he had to find a way.

Just imagine how different his career would have been had it not been for finding that way.

Mickey Mantle said something that is not in my book, but I met Mickey Mantle’s sons, and they said that he said,” I look at one of my sons, and he was Mickey, Jr., and if had my dad as a dad, he would have been a Major League star.” But Mickey, the next generation, was caught up in drinking, not in being a dad like his dad, who was a coal miner, passed away young, who was determined that he saw something in Mickey and he was determined to fulfill the challenge. Mickey said, “I let me sons down because I was not as determined for them to fulfill their talent.” I think as a parent, you have an obligation to allow your kid to find out, I hope, find out what they are good at, what they like, and pursue it hard. I think even if you go through school and don’t do it, as long as you learn what you did wrong, you will have a second chance. That is what this book says. It is not about leading these majestic lives that you want to emulate, but it is about famous people who have had the same struggles you had, and managed to persevere.