“What happened to the Cubs?,” I ask Lou Piniella. His answer?Lots of travel of late reduced my links. Sorry.One of our highlights at the Zoe conference last weekend was seeing our friend, Bob Smietana, who now writes for The Tennessean. So, Bob has some good articles at The Tennessean I’d like to push for your reading: Palin and pulpit protests.Karen’s story of hope.Bro Maynard 1 and Bro Maynard 2 has pondered changes in the emerging movement thoughtfully and insightfully. We’ve been keeping up with Tony Jones in the Land of Oz. Dan Kimball‘s posted some sensible and sensitive reflections on the Bill Maher movie. This forthcoming book on youth ministry by Chris Folmsbee will set new standards. Ordinary is more than ordinary — Jim Martin. Eugene Cho has an eye-opening post about homelessness. LL Barkat list the ways blogging is healthy.Everybody’s posting about the President: here’s my choice.One of my favorite South Africa bloggers: Tom Smith, honest church planter.iMonk reflects on a so-called conservative reading of the Song of Solomon. (Honk if you chased down this link.)TSK knows good music.Most of the time I don’t get what is going on with things like Google, but Marko has a post that I’d like someone to help us with. Anyone know?Dash has an excellent little exploration of the dual sides of the gospel — a theme that I think needs to trump others today (and I’ll avoid mentioning the topics that seem to have become the obsession of some).For me, Prime is the only way to go:1. I found this through Michael Kruse’s blog.2. An international disaster in Zimbabwe.3. Women, work, and discrimination.4. Aristophanes?By the way, Lou, how do you explain what happened to the Cubs in the NLDS?Sports:The Bears are hard to predict, they have an offense that can sputter, but they are surprising more than they are disappointing.The Cubs … a tragedic ending to a great season. Hey Lou, what happened?