Morgan Shepherd has apparently been racing on the Nextel Cup circuit in the #89 Jesus Car.
What?
I don’t watch or follow NASCAR other than when they force it down my throat on SportsCenter, so it shouldn’t surprise me that I had been totally unaware of this until not that long ago. Although I must say, I was more than a little bit surprised to find out that Jesus had been sponsoring a car and I hadn’t known about it. I didn’t know Jesus had that kind of juice.
So you mean Budweiser, Crown Royal, Hooters, Jack Daniel’s, Jim Beam, and Miller Lite weren’t willing to sponsor Jesus’s ride? They have to do something to redeem themselves at some point, right? Hell, when was the last time the US Army met their recruiting goals? Maybe they should see what throwing a little money at the Son of God could do for them in terms of hitting their goals. You know, like how you give the guy seating you at the restaurant a $20 when there’s a line. Or something like that.
At the same time, I can understand why they wouldn’t want to sponsor the Jesus car. It took Jesus, what, like, 40 years to get from Galilee to Golgotha? And He probably isn’t up on His gas mileage stats. The Car of Tomorrow? Forget about it. And there aren’t really any good merchandising tie-ins. NASCAR fans aren’t going to buy #89 car sandals if they can get Dale Earnhardt Jr. flags for their RVs. Also, where’s the passion going to come from (other than on Palm Sunday)? Somehow I don’t see this guy
shaving this
into his back instead of that homage to his god.
Seriously though, they should have at least been able to get Wonder Bread or something. That seems like an obvious tie-in. I can see it now:
After all… “If you ain’t first, you’re last.”
June 17, 2007 at 1:56 am
The last time the US Army hit its recruiting goal was April. This April. That wrapped up two consecutive years of hitting every monthly recruiting -and- retention goal. It hit its goal for all of 2006 by the month of September.
June 17, 2007 at 3:13 am
Ah, but that appears to be as much through quick fixes and recruiting trickery… as early as 2005 has the army been having tremendous difficulty, and not only have their current problems been forecast by army officials, but given the trend, recruiting outlook shows no signs of improving. See this article from over two years ago:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40469-2005Feb20.html
Also, in 2005, multiple branches of the armed forces were missing goals by historic margins… hmmmm:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7802712/
And as for the retention numbers, that’s the most bullshit thing ever. Are you familiar with the stop-loss policies that basically compel people to stick around and get redeployed? Called a “draft program in disguise,” I don’t know that I’d consider that “meeting retention goals:”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10961-2004Jun2.html
They did it, btw, for FIVE YEARS:
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/pentagon-cuts-stop-loss-2007-01-25.html
Until someone pulled collective heads out of collective asses. And the soldiers almost universally fought it:
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/12/06/soldiers_challenging_stop_loss_policy/
Also, while we’re at it, calling up reserve guys for active duty, while something that they knew was a potential reality when they signed up, better reflects the current state of the military’s available manpower than artificially meeting goals for a brief period between 2005 and 2007.
Oh and just for the hell of it, I’d like to point out that as early as 2005, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was pointing out that the military couldn’t physically fight another war concurrently in the way that would be desired:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/05/03/myers.report/index.html
So… just saying.
June 18, 2007 at 8:52 pm
I can’t argue with your pre-2005 data. I remember those stories, myself, and I remember hearing the Army was suffering in particular. What you asked, though, was “when was the last time the US Army met their recruiting goals?” and the data seems to indicate recent success in meeting these goals. It’s arguable that the purpose of the stop-loss program was to retain unit chemistry rather than to cover for low numbers. Regardless, I agree that the military should be bigger.
June 18, 2007 at 10:35 pm
Not sure what all of that had to do with Jesus racing, but the picture of the dude with the 3 shaved into his back just makes my day. I feel that we need to catch up on stories at some point too. For a preview, check out http://www.xanga.com/DukeDevil. Just a thought, since I couldn’t get this silly page to work.
June 19, 2007 at 10:57 pm
Whoa whoa whoa. I’m pretty sure I know Jim well enough to assert that he definitely didn’t mean the military should be bigger. The amount of money this country currently spends on its military in the face of poverty, a poor education system, and an even worse health care system is shameful. Did you know it costs 20 billion dollars a year just to maintain our current reserves of large nuclear missles? Or that we currently have enough A-bomb sized nukes to blow up the whole world several thousand times over? I understand that this is only tangentially related to troop size, but it reflects an attitude that needs to change. We spend more on defense than China and all of the Middle East combined.
I’d like to additionally point out that a lot of those recruitment goals were met by drastically lowering the admissions standards of the military. Perhaps, rather than increasing the size of the military (which hardly seems possible without instituting the draft or drastically improving pay), we should concentrate on executing one military action at a time and using more discretion about where and when troops will be deployed.
June 20, 2007 at 12:53 am
Ahh, true. He noted we don’t have enough to suit the desires of the generals, but that is completely different from saying the military should be bigger. I must have been off in space when I wrote that sentence.