The new film “The Road” is coming out this week. Viggo Mortensen plays a desperate father in post-apocalyptic America, walking south through the rubble as he tries to take his son to safety. It’s an amazingly gripping work, depicting survival in a lifeless landscape of ash and cold. It’s also a bit of a horror story, as some survivors succumb to cannibalism, as all other food (animal or vegetable) is dead and gone. 

I wonder how many Republican’s will see this film. And as they watch it, will they look at each other with raised eyebrows? For nearly one year now, the Republican Party has been journeying through the post-Bush rubble, searching for the America of the past. As they sift through the remains of Newt Gingrich’s conservative revolution, they have begun to starve.

I was sitting at my kitchen table the other day, looking at an ad for the new film, The Blind Side. It was an engaging graphic, with two people walking away from the viewer across a football field. The one on the right is a huge African-American man, dressed in black and white, almost identical to the small blond woman on his left. Their hands and arms are synchronized, the only difference being the turn of her head and the sun shining on her light hair and white face. Interesting.  

I drove to the mall to see Blind Side because my wife said I could not skewer it without watching it first.  So I did, but went to an early show, so I would not have to pay $12 for a movie I hated. I love the cheaper tickets, except for the fact that it’s too early to pop fresh popcorn, so the teenagers at the snack counter serve the stale stuff popped the day before.  

I’ve been watching a lot of baseball this fall, enjoying the simple beauty of the bat vs. the ball. A friend told me once that during a typical game, the baseball is actually in play for only seven minutes. The rest of the time is made up of pitching adjustments, beer commercials, and spitting.

I was watching the Yankees play the Phillies in game six of the recent World Series, as Yankee reliever Marte faced the heart of the defending World Champions’ lineup. What struck me was the drama of the pause, the excruciating moment between wind up and swing that happens every inning. Some pauses are easy to face, like when Mariano Rivera is pitching. Some are incredibly tense, as everyone watching waits to see if disaster or salvation comes from the result of the pitch. It’s what makes baseball so much like life.

During game two of the World Series, as the Phillies’ Ace, Cliff Lee, was tying up the Yankees, I started working on a spreadsheet. It’s something I do when frustrated, since I can control the numbers better than I can A-Rod’s swing. Anyway, I pulled baseball numbers from all over the place, finding team values, payrolls, and revenue per team. As I played with the numbers and thought about the ever present “Yankees buy a World Series” allegations that are all the rage at this time of the year, I was a little surprised.

It’s true, their $201 million total salary expense is higher than any other team in baseball, with second place to the woeful Mets, who spent $149 million for  . . . well, only God knows why the Mets spent that much money on a team that finished 33 games behind the first place Yankees, and He’s not commenting. Third place in the salary ranking would fall to the Chicago Cubs, who spent $134 million for a losing season and the extension of their major league record 101 years of “wait until next year,” having won their last World Series in 1908. Yes, 1908, the year oil was discovered in the Middle East and Henry Ford produced his first Model T.

He twists suddenly and I’m a step behind. Swiftly, he leaps to the right, off the trail and toward the buck. Muscles surge as he does what he was bred to do: Close in, go for the throat, and bring it down. Somehow, my voice breaks through. He pauses in mid-stride, trying to decide.

Sadiq loves to run trails right after I finish my Lucky Charms. He stares intently at me from across the sun-lit room, brown eyes calm, but ears perked forward in expectation, waiting for the last magic marshmallow to disappear. As I reach for my pungent New Balance jacket, the deal is sealed and he knows it. We dive off the porch together, plunging into the Palisades, footsteps from our home.

He’s one hundred and fifteen pounds of muscle and bone. A Rhodesian Ridgeback moving in fluid shades of Chai tea and silver, Sadiq was bred to hunt lions in east Africa. The dog books say he is “aloof,” but not to his family. We interviewed, provided three references, showed photos of our back yard - paid more than I had for my first blue Chevy truck – for the honor of taking him home.

I enjoyed my breakfast with Mohammed. We met at a cheap diner with bitter coffee and worn Formica in the city. A former student who has become a friend, he lives in New Jersey, just across the river from Manhattan.  He’s a quiet and calm twenty-something, with the cat-like walk of an athlete. His degree was paid for by a soccer scholarship, and he just finished his MBA.

Mohammed did not always go by his first name, which was given in Nigeria, but lived most of his live by a moniker less foreign to American ears. During his senior year in college, something changed. He realized that he was hiding, took a deep breath, and embraced his given name, Mohammed.

My friend is a devout Muslim. According to US government estimates, there are 7 million Muslims living in the United States, about two percent of the total population. Mohammed goes to Mosque and professes his faith, gives to the poor, prays daily, and keeps Ramadan. Some day, he hopes to visit Mecca, keeping the pilgrimage that is the final pillar of Islam.

Christians were praying and fasting, as an alarming new threat loomed over the dark horizon. Shirley Dobson, spouse of the famous Dr. James, urged a nationwide call for prayer and fasting on September 25^th. What stirred Shirley’s tender heart? What would drive her to skip Hamburger Helper and Diet Pepsi for an entire day? Abortion? Gay Rights? Socialism? No. Prayer.  Well, a special kind of prayer, Muslim prayer.

American Muslims decided to show support for America by having a prayer rally at our nation’s Capitol. It was also an attempt to counter the American tendency to lump all Muslims into the category of “bearded terrorist who wants to kill me.” According to Hassan Abdellah, one of the rally’s organizers, the hope was to “display the beauty of Islam . . . the groups are going to be people who love and respect America, and we want America to know that we are here and that we support the country.” Perhaps anticipating Dobson’s response, he noted “I know that it’s hard for people to believe it’s that simple.”

 I saw God on TV last night. Not on the 700 club, “Christian TV” just can’t fit God into the schedule, with all the guest authors pushing answer-books like dealers pushing meth in the south Bronx. I think God understands. And anyway, He was chilling on Project Runway.  

I admit it. I had a hard time with this. Project Runway is not exactly . . . masculine. Maybe I shouldn’t categorize a TV show in terms of gender, but if you have ever watched it, you know what I mean. Flamboyant Tim, dancing around the work room making snarky comments. The tall and elegant Heidi, certainly one ingredient that could draw more male viewers, making kissing sounds next to people’s ears. And the designers, as they snip, tuck, and pick out fire-engine red pumps from the Macy’s Wall. Not the kind of show that features Budweiser during the breaks. 

In an astonishing announcement from our nation’s capitol, President Obama has confirmed that he was indeed a Kenyan-born plant; the key component of an African conspiracy to bring America back to a purely capitalistic governmental policy. With Glen Beck at his side, a broad grin on his face, and his trademark eloquence, President Obama announced a sweeping series of executive decrees.

Having sold all public schools to the McDonalds corporation’s new “Ronald McDonald Happy School” division, parents of any student enrolled would now be responsible to pay the nearly $25,000 annual tuition that the “communist socialists” administrations of the past had supported. Tuition will include a free Happy Meal as part of a “Freedom Fridays” celebration.

In addition, all “socialist intrusion” in higher education is also ending. Harvard University reported being swamped with new applications, as their $ 50,000 plus annual tuition is suddenly very competitive to the formerly “socialist enclaves” known as public universities. A deal with the Ford Corporation, who has launched a “Forderversities” division, is pending. It is rumored that top graduates will receive free, eight cylinder Explorers, left over from the socialist expansion of President Bush.

I met Romeo as I backpacked in Mozambique with a group of college students. Trained as an engineer, he was surviving the demise in Zimbabwe by selling baskets in Mozambique, attempting to get to South Africa for more permanent work.  

The African sun shone sharply, forcing faces down to the penitent position of a man newly hung. As Romeo told me, with first-hand wisdom borne from life in the Zimbabwe implosion, “When the elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.” Romeo had slipped through the border in darkness, liquid silver through a thin crack in concrete. The hope of his family now in Mozambique, but months from Cape Town.

The drops form a tired stream trickling down the far side of the wire. Refugees slide slowly toward the ragged edge; diaspora into darkness, a shoeless journey into the very humid air. Meanwhile, the black-glassed despots name their terms, scratching maps of conquest into red talcum dust. Tenuous triumphs turn as easily as the thirsty dirt absorbs young blood.