The Sporting Life

What would the Pharisees do?: The Georgia Baptist Convention has cut all ties with its flagship university, Mercer. The straw that broke the camel's back? Why, gays, of course.

Related: The Rev. Adrian Rogers, one of the architects of the conservative takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention 25 years ago, died Tuesday at age 74.

TiVo alert: If you didn't catch CNN Presents' "Undercover in the Secret State" on Sunday night, you have another chance this Saturday. The footage secretly shot inside North Korea is eye-opening.

Through a glass darkly: In this year's art and architecture issue of The Oxford American, out now, Erik Reece puts the photography of Shelby Lee Adams under scrutiny. Are his images of Appalachia harmful or only misinterpreted?

"What Louise Hall considers exploitation, Adams calls 'an exciting, dramatic lighting event.' Adams the formalist can't understand how Hall might be insulted by an image that portrays her sister as that most hated of mountain cliches — 'trash.'"

Sony side down: So Sony is pulling its products that load copy-restriction software onto customers' PCs. According to Wired, the damage has already been done.

"Should the average person write software that took control of a computer at the system level without a user's knowledge and distributed that software across the world, there are plenty of laws that would put him behind bars. But what happens when Sony does this, ostensibly to protect its intellectual property?"

Cat in the hat? Maybe not such a good idea: Esquire's latest issue includes an article about one researcher's findings that point toward a surprising source for schizophrenia: that feline curled up in your lap.

Also, in its annual "Best and Brightest" section, the magazine gives readers a good look at the work of Banksy and the man behind it. Note to the guy plastering Atlanta with a rip-off of the Pac-Man monsters: His sort of work is interesting and creative. Yours isn't.

The sound of music: Musical peformances and interviews at NPR I've recently enjoyed include Steven Page, Nickel Creek, Simply Red and Jerry Douglas.

Coming soon: Here's hoping Be Here to Love Me, the new movie about Townes Van Zandt, makes its way to one of the art house theaters in Atlanta.

There's only one time in life when an Auburn fan loves to hear the words "Roll Tide": when he or she is leaving Sanford Stadium in Athens, Ga.

It means the Tigers have just gotten another win against the Georgia Bulldogs on the road. War Eagle!

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And congratulations to the Thrashers for the huge road win vs. the Hurricanes, stopping Carolina's nine-game winning streak with a 9-0 thumping.

Mr. Telephone Man, there's something wrong with my line: I'm ashamed I didn't make it to the polls on Tuesday. But even more ashamed should be all the politicians who telemarket with those damned recorded messages. For the last month, I was averaging one a day. I don't recall listening any further than five words to any single one.

Wait a minute, Mr. Postman: Speaking of uninvited intrusions on time, it appears the research firms are having a tough time pinning me down to a specific demographic. Just in the last three months I've gone to my mailbox and discovered: firm breasts and pouting lips coaxing me toward a Penthouse subscription; fashionable separates available to me in a Coldwater Creek catalog; requests for money for the Republican Party and for U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton; urgent messages from five or six environmental lobbying groups as well as the National Rifle Association; and pleas from the Human Rights Campaign and some religious organization on behalf of opposite sides of the same culture war.

In short, marketing groups think I'm schizophrenic. Or just crazy.

Trip Through Your Wires: Matthew Ryan and his friend Brian Bequette put on a great show at Eddie's Attic in Decatur on Tuesday night, featuring many of the tracks from 2003's Regret over the Wires. Upon release of the album, Esquire said, "A collection of big-sounding songs about big ideas, this criminally underrated Nashville singer-songwriter's fourth full set offers stunning meditations on devastation, vulnerability, and hope. His protest song, 'I Hope Your God Has Mercy on Mine,' inspires."

For more samples from Ryan, here are "Return to Me," "Long Blvd." and "I Can't Steal You."

Into the blue: I don't know whether it's OK for me to reveal his identity, so I'll just say I'm proud a friend of mine is enjoying his new role as the writer and reporter for the Atlanta Thrashers' Blueland Blog. I tagged along with him Wednesday night to watch our guys punish the Pens, 5-0. You know a guy loves his job when he opts to put his tie back on and secure some post-game interviews on his night off.

Jesus Loves You! Everybody else thinks ...: The Revs. Jesse Jackson and Pat Robertson. Each of them ran for president and lost. Each of them loves the camera. And each of them is prone to make statements that lead most people to shake their heads. Yesterday Pat Robertson espoused his newest gem, a warning for the people of Dover, Pa., that they shouldn't be surprised if God abandons them in a time of need in the future because they opted to remove every school board member who supported the teaching of intelligent design.

You have to hand it to him for staying consistent. He said immoral people caused 9-11 to happen. He said immoral people caused Katrina to devastate New Orleans. So it would make sense that he would say it shouldn't be shocking if disaster befalls the alleged immoral people of Dover.

It would be nice if we lived in a world that could be explained so simply, but we don't. An innocent boy contracts AIDS and dies; a man murders two people and not only avoids jail time but also continues his extravagant lifestyle.

Sometimes bad things happen to good people, and sometimes good things happen to bad people. At least that's the impression I got from Matthew 5: 44-45.

Wow.