Church Chat

(Today ALR s luck to have a guest blogger. Enid Strict aka "the Church Lady" who has asked for a chance to weigh in on the report that Barry Bonds tested positive for amphetamines. ALR is always open to different points of view.)

Today I want to talk about how one man can flaunt our Lord's Ten Commandments in such a blatant manner. Just today we have news that not only did Barry Bonds flunk a drug test - he tried to blame a teammate for the flunked test. How Convenient.

We can go right down the line and see how Mr. Barry Bonds flaunts the Ten Commandments.

The first commandment is "I am the Lord thy God - you shall have no Gods before me." Is there any doubt that the only person Barry Bonds worships is himself? Any doubt at all?

The second commandment is "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." Any reporter can tell you that Bond's favorite quote is "Get away from my locker you bleepedy, bleep, bleep reporter."

The third commandment is "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image." In Barry's case I think we can take this to be a graven image. Word is that Barry makes some pretty good under-the-table money signing pictures of his graven image.

The fourth commandment is "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." I think I'll need some baseball stats guy to tell me how Barry does on Sunday day games.

The fifth commandment is "Honor thy father and thy mother." We often forget that Barry Bonds' father was also a big name in baseball but now the family name of "Bonds" will forever be tarnished.

The sixth commandment is "Thou shalt not kill." I am personally willing to give Barry the benefit of the doubt here but the specter of OJ on roid-rage keeps coming back to me.

The seventh commandment is "Thou shalt not commit adultery." I understand that Barry was able to sign enough pictures of his graven image to buy his mistress Kimberly Bell a house. Of course if Kimberly Bell's testimony helps put Barry in jail - then I think we'll have to institute a Sixth Commandment Breaking watch.

The eighth commandment is "Thou shalt not steal." If we are to believe Barry - then he stole the substance that caused his positive test for amphetamines from Mark Sweeney's locker. Other people will contend that Bonds stole Babe Ruth's record and is trying to steal Hank Aaron's record too.

The ninth commandment is "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." Does Mark Sweeney having a locker near Barry make him a neighbor? In any case - I'm sure the Federal authorities are most interested in Barry bearing false witness in front of a Grand Jury. I think that's called perjury. Isn't that special?

The tenth commandment is "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's, nor a big baseball contract, nor home run records that don't belong to you." OK - I added those last two bits.

Normally I would confront a person like Barry and ask him who could have made him act is such a heinous manner. Normally I would pause for a moment and then ask, "Could it be Satan?" However, in Barry's case I think he'd actually try to blame it on the Prince of Darkness in an effort to get out of taking on responsibility for his own actions.

Barry Bonds. Isn't he special?