The downside of church sex challenges

It seems that hardly a week or two goes by without some mega-church or seeker-friendly church announcing some sort of sex challenge, complete with high-profile advertising.

While I certainly agree that sex is an important part of stable, monogamous marriages, including mine :), I think challenges of this sort can do more harm than good.

First, the pastor and other staffers are probably not equipped to perform sexual counseling for couples where complex issues are brought to the surface by these challenges.

Second, there are undoubtedly many people whose past sexual experiences prior to marriage were problematic. They haven't told their spouses and may be able only to have sex occasionally. Increasingly the frequency by the pressure of sex challenges may actually destabilize the marriage.

Third, it could encourage a spouse to make abusive sexual demands and color it under the guise of faith.

Fourth, giving this subject a high profile so it becomes a discussion subject among church members could encourage those who are sexually dissatisfied to locate others within the congregation, and actually aid and abet cheating on spouses.

What do you think?

Why the gov't shouldn't be involved in pro sports

As I digest the departure of the White Sox for Glendale in return for $5 million, as I understand it, there are no teams looking to relocate, so the White Sox promise to look for another team to come here is empty. Besides, what's the penalty? Nada.

And so much for airtight contracts with penalty clauses signed off on by the County Attorney. The Board settles for $5 million instead of the many millions more they owe on paper, and they downplay the financial impact of spring training, claiming now that it's minimal while previously they told us that it was a mighty economic engine worth millions and millions of dollars. Also,now that the county didn't litigate against the White Sox, the Rockies and D'Backs see the county as chumps and will slide on out of here relatively cheaply. As it is, the Phoenix papers are reporting that as soon as the decision was made by the Board of Supervisors, the Rockies and D-Backs were already working together to find a site that would work for both clubs.

Notice, too, that the Supervisors and County Attorney managed to get this decision delayed until AFTER the election.

Finally, Tucson has little to show for its forays into pro sports over the past 15 years. The elected officials and top administrators need to realize that this is predominantly a U of AZ sports town, and if the U of AZ offers the sport, people aren't going to patronize pro baseball, basketball, or hockey. TEP is the largest money pit around here apart from Rio Nuevo.

Memo to voters: Time to hold the elected officials behind these boondoggles accountable.

Reviving the Republican Party in the West

I combed through the presidential election results over the past few days and I made some very disturbing discoveries. First, not counting AZ, only two counties in the West (defined as the states of CA, OR, WA, ID, MT, WY, NM, CO, AZ. NV, UT) were more red this election cycle than in 2004. Even worse, compared to 2000, just 19 counties in the West were more red. In both 2000 and 2004, no urban county voted more Republican for president.

This should be especially disturbing to the GOP since the ticket had two Westerners running, plus it was thought that McCain's maverick stance and Palin's individuality and strong stance on guns and being a small business owner before entering politics would carry the ticket far in the West.

This decline can't be blamed on evangelicals staying home. They voted 75-25% for McCain, which is as strong or stronger showing as Bush rec'd in 2000 and 2004.

Here's some raw data to flesh out the Republican decline:

Blue Counties in 2000 in West: 72
Blue Counties in 2004 in West: 80
Blue Counties in 2008 in West: 126

Dark Blue Counties in West (Dark Blue means Dem Candidate won by 15% or more)

Dark Blues in 2000: 31
Dark Blues in 2004: 40
Dark Blues in 2008: 66

While the GOP was not going to win California under any circumstances, it's time to hit a panic button when reliably Republican counties like San Diego, Riverside, and San Bernardino voted for Obama and McCain/Palin just narrowly held onto Orange County.

The only states with a large number of counties voting more Republican now than in 2000 is OK, AR, and TN.

Why is the Republican Party in such decline here? I think the answer is that the Republican Party has forgotten the importance of good governance. The GOP historically stood for a strong defense, limited gov't, effective gov't, free markets, and certain social issues such as pro-life. Yet the Bush Admin. didn't handle the war in Iraq very well for several years; Afghanistan is in trouble; the bailouts are about to kill capitalism in order to save it; Katrina recovery was a mess; and earmarks and corruption lost the GOP majority in Congress in 2006.

While I understand that importance of the party's pro-life stance, it's not an election winner. McCain/Palin were strongly pro-life and presented a very dramatic contrast to Obama. Yet the election returns didn't show that it mattered much to the electorate-at-large or even in states with a large Catholic population.

I think the hope for the GOP lies in its governors. Its future presidential candidates should be governors who have kept taxes low, generated lots of good paying private sector jobs, emphasize education and keep state college tuitions low for state residents, and have proven crisis management skills in disasters, budget crunches, etc.