Friday, March 4, 2011

Oh, boy an Obabble Head

I am not a protectionist.  I currently own three Hondas, use a phone made in China and wear a pair of Cole Haan shoes stitched together in Mexico.  However, I chuckled at a gift given to me from some of my students, who  recently attended the high school program, Close-Up in Washington D.C.
So the young ones left my class for a week. I must admit that I was hesitant about their absence.  We were just beginning our journey with Crime and Punishment.  Raskolnikov just committed the crime and the punishment started setting in.  Actually, the punishment started before he committed the crime but that's an essay opportunity for another day.  However, I understand a week in our nation's capital is certainly more valuable than listening to me stumble through Russian surnames. Upon their return, three students presented me with a President Obama bobble head.

An Obama bobble head?  Maybe all those allusions to articles in National Review and The Weekly Standard prompted the purchase. Oh, young ones these days.  I was surprised and pleased they thought of me during their trip.  A cynic might think they were buttering the educational bread hoping they would not have to make up any missed quizzes.  The optimist would see the gift as a kind offering.  The puzzled would wonder why they spent money on an Obama anything. 

Being grateful for the gift, I placed the ObaBobble head on my book shelf.  Several days later I needed a quote from Walther's seminal text Law and Gospel.  Upon moving Obabble, I noticed this sticker on the bottom of the souvenir.


Some bloggers would take this experience and allow it to fuel a vitriolic rant about how our country can't even produce Presidential baubles and/or bobble heads. This blogger simply looked at the sticker, ObaBobble's snarky grin and realized he had the perfect object lesson on irony for years to come.  

Thank you Maddy, Becca and Chris.  This truly is the gift that will keep giving.  

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

So, what is that edition of "Law & Gospel" in the picture? It's rather thin, so I don't think it's the new Concordia reader's edition. Is it from the Confessional Lutheran Dogmatics Series? I didn't think CPH published those, but I'm curious now.

JBrandt said...

CPH, 1981.