check this out...

I heard Kelley McRae on New York Public Radio's Soundcheck on Monday. She was born and raised in Mississippi and her sound is as silky and smooth as a bubbling brook high up in the mountains.

McRae now lives in Brooklyn and just released her first album called Never Be. You won't regret buying her CD on amazon.com or downloading it from iTunes. I especially dig her songs titled Johnny Cash and Break Us, which is a modern day Christian hymn. Check out some of the lyrics to Break Us:

Break us by the power of your grace, O Lord
Oh won't you break us by the power of your grace?
Break us, remake us, don't let the sorrow take us
Oh break us, by the power of your grace

Beautiful stuff from a new and upcoming artist.
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Why do people hate A-Rod so much? Why the booing, my fellow Yankee fans? Why do people take such pleasure in watching this particular baseball player strikeout or make an error? Eric Neel of ESPN gets it. An excerpt from Neel's lengthy article:

We've all heard the standard reasons -- resentment over his $252 million contract, envy of his talent, frustrations that he doesn't exceed all our wildest expectations, a selective-memory perception that he's no good in the clutch and, of course, the fact that he's not Derek Jeter. All these expectations have validity, no doubt, but they don't fully explain the giddy, sometimes irrational, intensity of this thing we do. They don't get at the bile and the vitriol.

There's something more at work here. Rodriguez has had an ugly summer by his standards, but it ain't about that. It's about this, first, last and always: We think A-Rod's soft. We don't think he's tough enough to be our guy. We think he's weak.

We're not talking about the buddy-can-you-spare-a-dime, meek-shall-inherit-the-earth weak to which we routinely show charity. We're talking about the vulnerable, soft-underbelly sort of weak for which we in this "Quien es mas macho?" culture of American sport so often show contempt.

In the end, Neel - no fan of the Yanks, mind you - surmises that those who hate on A-Rod will someday admit that he is one of the greatest to ever play the sport of baseball. Amen! (Oh, and by the way, the Yanks are in first place in the AL East and A-Rod is playing just fine, thank you very much.)
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Have you ever checked out the site, Sojourners? You should. They have a free e-newsletter they send out once every two weeks. This past edition had a moving article written by Deanna Murshed titled Reflections of the Lebanon I Know. The article is a good reminder for us that as we engage in conversation about the Middle East we must remember the people who live, work and play there.


And then there's this incredible article in which the author thinks through what an Israeli non-violent approach might look like. An amazing read.

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