Quick Takes 3-14-08

It's Friday and time for another weekly roundup of links of interest:

How hard can it really be? An eight year-old Brazilian boy has been admitted to law school. Insert your favorite lawyer joke here. (hat tip: Megan McArdle)

DVD Review of the week. Check out my review of 101 Dalmatians at Blogcritics.

Elders in the local church. Tim Ellsworth has some words of wisdom on the role of elders in the church.

Health insurance isn't really insurance. Health insurance as we've come to know it is more of a gigantic exercise in cost-shifting rather than pure insurance. This is one of the best explanations why that is the case I have ever read (and I've worked in insurance for nearly twenty years). It's something to keep in mind as we hear politicians discuss huge government "fixes" to the "health care crisis".

Recommended reading. I just finished Mark Frost's excellent book The Match: The Day the Game of Golf Changed Forever. What began as a simple bet between two friends turned into one of the classic battles of all time. Even if you're not a fan of golf, you'll still find plenty to enjoy in this book.

Homeschool tip of the week: What you can learn about writing from Legos.


Curse less and make more money. A study of PG rated movies shows those that had less profanity did better at the box office.

Trying to squelch March Madness. CBS is streaming all of the games for this year's Men's NCAA basketball tournament on their website but some businesses are cracking down on workers who are trying to watch the tournament during business hours.


Don't try this during a job interview. Careerbuilder.com has released a survey of the wackiest mistakes made during job interviews. My personal favorite was the candidate that refused to give a writing sample beacuse all of her writing had been for the CIA and it was "classified".


Eat your vegetables. A review of Jessica Seinfeld's Deceptively Delicious. The recipes may seem a little odd at first but we've liked what we have taste-tested so far.


Barbecue Blogging. Here's the right way to make barbecue. By the way, I've never eaten at Stamey's but will certainly try it the next time I'm in the neighborhood. Looks like they make their barbecue the way it should be done. (Hat tip: Instapundit)


Perfect Season. Considering all they have dealt with this year with the devastating tornadoes, the achievement of the Union University Lady Bulldogs is even more remarkable. Their women's basketball team finished the season undefeated as they head into the NAIA tournament next week. (Hat tip: Tim Ellsworth)

Coming Next Week....A review of the brand new book Steel Trapp: The Challenge and (in our inaugural podcast) an interview with the author, Ridley Pearson.

Have a great weekend.

Quick Takes - Friday Fun Edition

I spent the entire day on the road for business and made a point not to listen to talk radio. It was refreshing to have a break from politics for a day. In that spirit, I offer the following politics-free edition of quick takes:

Curt Schilling fills us in on the status of his shoulder injury. Here's the Associated Press version of the story.

Like most parents, we read Margaret Wise Brown's Goodnight Moon repeatedly to our kids and even had the whole story memorized at one point. Now there is a sequel that has been discovered in her papers. (hat tip: Instapundit

Tim Ellsworth offers suggestions how to pray for Union University in the aftermath of this week's tornadoes. He also has videos. Be sure to pray for Tim as he's handling all of the media relations for the university.

In the mail this week: two Jane Austen films: Persuasion and Becoming Jane. Reviews of both coming soon. By the way, the casting of Anne Hathaway as Jane Austen is no accident. She did her senior thesis at Vassar on Austen.

Also in the mail to review this week: The Aristocats. This is the last movie that Walt Disney was personally involved in starting (he died during production). It's also the last movie to be scored by Richard and Robert Sherman during their golden years at Disney. They were also responsible for the scores for Mary Poppins, The Jungle Book, and Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree among other Disney classics. They'll be the subject of an upcoming documentary entitled The Boys. It's about time as the Shermans rank (at least in my mind) as one of the greatest songwriting teams of all time.

Put me in, Coach! It's John Fogerty singing Take Me Out To The Ballgame.

$1.3 Billion (yes, you read that correctly) for a new Yankees Stadium. Yikes!

This definitely goes to the top of my book wishlist: Culture Shift by Al Mohler. Need more evidence? Check out this entry at Out of Ur in which they present Mohler's argument that it's time for Christians to pull their kids out of public schools. It is time indeed.