Allow me to begin by saying that I have never been a fan of Jon Gruden. I have found him a bombastic ego maniac with the equivalent of a comb over who speaks like a huckster used car salesman. What anyone sees in him is beyond me. Even his coaching successes have largely come on…
I lived in Indianapolis, or as I sometimes call it, "Indiana no place," in the very late 1980s and very early 1990s. For reasons that aren't germane to this post, I had a second job working at a pizza place. The pizza place was located next door to a beauty parlor in a small strip…
It may seem like a strange concept, but many of us have a habit of getting in our own way. We may have an objective in mind, but we also have a habitual behavior that impedes our ability to achieve our goal. We may feel that, whatever the barrier is, we are completely justified in…
Have you noticed how many alcoholics shoot up liquor stores, or how many gambling addicts walk into casinos guns-a-blazing, or how heroin addicts tend to take their guns to poppy fields? What about people with food addictions attacking farmers and candy factories, adrenaline junkies blowing up roller coasters, or religion addicts attacking churches? Neither have…
When does appeasement embolden? Anyone who has raised children knows that point exists. Children, as an appropriate task of development, challenge their parents, test limits, and push against the rules. At different ages, different rules are challenged at different levels of intensity, but the challenges happen and those kids are looking for the reassurance that…
I have noticed something about western Christianity lately. Across all perspectives, from conservative through moderate to progressive, there is an assumption that we all live and always have lived perfect lives. They act as if we are all the family from Leave it to Beaver or from Cosby. Parents are always wonderful, they are never…
My wife and I share a car these days, and when I get to her office early to pick her up I sit in a little vending room on the first floor and write. I let her know I am there by sending her a graphic that indicates I am in detention. Some of the…
Oh, the outrage! Jennifer Lopez and Shakira have asses! Son of a bitch! What am I going to tell my teenagers - they don't know about asses! Not only that, they had the audacity to shake their asses! Jennifer Lopez climbed a stripper pole? How do I explain that to my kids? These women were…
When did it become acceptable in America for a man to mistreat a woman? When did it become acceptable in America for an American government official to take a woman in a back room and scream profanities at her? How does it come to pass that an American Secretary of State, a position that traditionally…
So declared the man on the other side of the gas pump last night. The amount represented at least a twenty cent increase from the day before. It was late, and although I am usually more diplomatic than this I responded, "Assassination is expensive!" He looked rather shocked, and I surmised that we didn't share…
Craig Bergland 