I.
So Donald Trump spoke at Liberty University yesterday. I (unfortunately) watched most of his talk via live stream. The fact that Donald Trump spoke at Liberty isn’t really a big a deal to me. Many politicians, including Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, Jeb Bush and Bernie Sanders, have spoken there already. More presidential candidates will speak there soon.
But Donald Trump requested to speak at Liberty University on MLK Jr. Day. And Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of the University, gladly obliged. In fact, Falwell said,
“We chose that day so that Mr. Trump would have the opportunity to recognize and honor Dr. King on MLK day.”
Falwell added that it was part of Trump’s plan for the speech.
Obviously, that raised some eyebrows. Some students even decided it was appropriate to have a peaceful protest about this whole thing. Falwell simply said that those who choose to protest would be “making fools of themselves.”
So Trump spoke at Liberty University. And it went exactly as could be expected. And Falwell practically endorsed him during his introduction (despite explicitly saying that was not what he was doing).
Trump didn’t adapt a different approach as he spoke to the packed auditorium of 10,000 people. He was as outlandish as usual, yammering on about how much we’ll be winning when he’s president, about how easy it will be to build a wall that he’ll make sure is paid for by, say it with me now, Mexico (They’re great, people! They’re a wonderful people. He loves them.), and how he’ll bomb the hell out of ISIS. For a campus community that does not allow swearing, he sure seemed to do it a lot.
He made an attempt to read from the Bible, a book that he has previously said is “the best” – just behind his own book, The Art of the Deal. (You can’t make this stuff up).
Anyway, he attempted to read from 2 Corinthians 3:17, which apparently is “the whole ballgame.” Unfortunately, he hasn’t ever had much practice doing so because he he was reading from TWO Corinthians. Anyone who is familiar with the Bible in any way, shape, or from, or has been in a single church service, most likely knows that it isn’t Two Corinthians, it is Second Corinthians.
I saw someone post this in response and I thought it was pretty accurate and hilarious:
If Donald Trump found two Corinthians, he’d have them deported.
— Hillary Sanders (@SedonaRockss) January 19, 2016
I was surprised by the amount of cheering and applause that he received as he was clearly pandering to this room of people. But apparently it’s working. And it’s kind of embarrassing. Not just as someone who considers himself an evangelical, but simply as an American.
The comments that Trump did eventually make about MLK were, well, were mostly about Trump.
A friend from seminary who graduated from Liberty University and was an RA there for two years decided it was worth the time and effort to write an open letter to Jerry Falwell Jr. about the whole speaking engagement, asking some good clarifying questions from Falwell.
II.
I support the #blacklivesmatter movement. I think it is needed and challenging, despite it’s sort of bumpy existence. I think the focus that it has brought to police brutality alone is incredibly important, not to mention the dozens of other concerns that have been brought up because of this movement. But man, it’s hard to have a conversation about it.
Yesterday, Stephen Colbert had DeRay McKesson, a leader in the #blacklivesmatter movement, on his show. They talked about race, police brutality, and white privilege. I think Colbert did a overall good job of representing how many white people feel regarding knowing how to even approach the topic. He looked awkward. Seemed a bit out of place, and even mentioned feeling guilty about having the privilege he has.
Here’s their discussion on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert:
III.
Today was Micah’s second day of preschool. (He had off for MLK day yesterday). But during the evening and throughout the morning it snowed about three inches. This was not a shock or surprise. It had been reported many hours in advance by every local meteorologist in Omaha.
Now you’d think that a city like Omaha, a city that gets plenty of snow every winter, would be aptly prepared in advance for snow.
But you’d be wrong.
I’ve seen a number of local people on Twitter mentioning that it is pretty much the fault of Omaha’s leadership, and most specifically our Mayor Jean Stothert.
A few people started using #BecauseOfJeanStothert to make their point.
And someone even took the time to write out his frustrations in detail in a helpful post.
It was definitely bad out there this morning on our way to drop Micah off at school. And it was much worse when I went to go pick him up at 12:00.
Our little Corolla slid around on the mostly unplowed streets. It was quite dangerous. Who knew that three inches could basically shut down the city? And one of our main streets in Omaha was shut down for about six blocks because of the snow and people sliding around all over the place.
I definitely did not feel safe driving. What a time to have to take my son to his second day of preschool. Definitely looking forward to when Micah takes the bus to school.
IV.
We have a movie theater just down the street from us. And on Tuesdays they show all their movies for $5. Last week Sarah and I took turns watching The Revenant. (Because that’s what we do now that we have kids). Today Sarah gave me the night off, and so I braved the streets of Omaha and I went to go see The Big Short.
I’ll probably write a review of it for Andrews.Reviews soon. It’s hard to describe my initial feelings about it.
How can you enjoy a movie that was about people betting against the American housing market? How can you really enjoy a movie which lets you see just how dirty Wall Street is?
My initial summary is that the movie was uncomfortably good. And I’d recommend it.
Stepping Back 