Listening to my iPod just now, I stumbled upon a song from the Indigo Girls album Rarities that I don’t think I’d ever heard before. It’s called Finlandia, but unlike the original song by that name, it’s not a national song of Finland. Instead, it’s the “international version” of Finlandia, written in 1934 by Lloyd Stone (according to Wikipedia) and also recorded by Joan Baez back in the day, among others. (It’s sometimes called “This is My Song.”)

I think it might be the most beautiful and effective antiwar song — or, rather, peace hymn — that I’ve ever heard. The lyrics are short and simple, yet profound:

This is my song, Oh God of all the nations,
A song of peace for lands afar and mine.
This is my home, the country where my heart is;
Here are my hopes, my dreams, my sacred shrine.
But other hearts in other lands are beating,
With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,
And sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine.
But other lands have sunlight too and clover,
And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.
Oh hear my song, oh God of all the nations,
A song of peace for their land and for mine.

I could get into a philosophical dissection of the song, discuss the many complex issues it brings to mind, compare its articulation of the desire for peace with where I think the modern antiwar movement so often goes wrong, and so forth. I could also make a detailed argument, as I have before, that while it’s a wonderful ideal, an unelaborated call for “peace” is generally not a valid policy proposal, since peace (unlike war) cannot always be unilaterally declared.

But rather than doing any of that, I’ll simply encourage you to download the song from iTunes and listen to it, because it’s beautiful. The Indigo Girls give it a wonderful, harmonious a capella treatment, and whatever your ideology, it’s well worth the $0.99.

Some of you who’ve tried out the Non-Sports Page may have noticed that the “(more…)” links weren’t working there, so long posts annoyingly appeared “above the jump” in their entirety. This obviously decreased the utility of the page as an alternate homepage for basketball-weary visitors in the coming weeks.

Well, that problem is now solved. With the help of the WordPress support forum, I figured out that I needed to insert the command <?php $more = 0; ?> underneath my custom select query. Problem solved! And to prove it, I’ll insert a “jump” here. If you look at this post on the Non-Sports Page, you can see it there, too!

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From the National Weather Service:

FREEZING FOG ADVISORY NOW IN EFFECT UNTIL NOON EST /11 AM CST/TODAY.

WIDESPREAD DENSE FREEZING FOG WILL CONTINUE ACROSS THE REGION THROUGH NOON EST/11 AM CST. VISIBILITIES WILL BE REDUCED TO 200 FEET TO 500 FEET. THE COMBINATION OF THE DENSE FREEZING FOG AND FREEZING OF MELTED SNOW FROM YESTERDAY WILL RESULT IN AREAS OF BLACK ICE ON ROADWAYS, SIDEWALKS & PARKING LOTS. VISIBILITIES ARE EXPECTED TO SLOWLY IMPROVE LATE MORNING THIS MORNING & EARLY THIS AFTERNOON. TEMPS SHOULD ONCE AGAIN RISE ABOVE FREEZING IN THE AFTERNOON ALLOWING THE ICY SPOTS TO MELT OFF.

It’s not just around South Bend, either; Freezing Fog Advisories are in effect for much of the, uh, Michianohionois area, as this map shows.

Here’s the new Shrek the Third trailer. It’s one of those cases where I feel like they’re giving too much away, but whatever, I’m still looking forward to it.

Also, if you haven’t seen it yet, The Simpsons trailer. (Hat tip: Andrew Hiller on both.)

What about Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End? There ought to be a trailer for that out soon. In fact, it’s odd that it hasn’t already been released. For now, here are a couple of images, a mostly useless Disney Channel clip, and some mild spoilers.

First, a Columbine-style plot at Newington High School. Then, a bomb scare on a bus, and a kid with a pellet gun at school. And now: Fear and Loathing at Chuck E. Cheese?

Bad things always seem to happen in bunches in Newington. In fact, the disrupted-plot-followed-by-pellet-gun chain of events is bizarrely like a similar sequence that occurred late in my senior year, way back in 1999 (God, I feel old), when a classmate was suspended after being found to allegedly have a “hit list” of fellow students — and then a few days later, a student was dramatically arrested after school in the parking lot (he was pinned to the ground and such), in the middle of the yearbook-distribution party, because he had a pellet gun. The big difference was that the 1999 “hit list” incident wasn’t nearly as serious as the one in 2007, which appears to have been an imminent and concrete plot.

LOL:

A University of Southern California hockey goalie put on a show, but it had nothing to do with stopping shots.

Mickey Meyer rode his stick like a horse, dropped his bulky pants, mooned the crowd and slapped his buttocks during a game against Brigham Young University, police said.

He was ejected and ticketed for lewdness, a misdemeanor, after an officer who was working security at the rink said he witnessed the scene Saturday.

“I had my fill of these refs,” Meyer said on an Internet broadcast of the game, according to The Herald-Journal of Logan. [UPDATE: Here’s the Herald-Journal article. It also links to an MP3 of the USC radio play-by-play. -ed.]

It will be up to prosecutors whether to pursue a case against him.

“This is a small town,” North Park police Sgt. John Italasano said. “This was a college team playing and hockey’s a wild game. Sometimes things get out of hand.”

Meyer’s antics occurred while play was stopped and referees were trying to sort out penalties in the third period of a consolation game in the ACHA West Regional tournament at Eccles Ice Center.

The junior from Clinton, N.Y., was “riding his hockey stick like a horse and slapping his butt,” North Park Officer Mike Stauffer said in a report.

LOL… I mean, yeah, this sort of lude and classless behavior should not be tolerated, blah blah blah, but… LOL.

Oh, and if you’re wondering what the coach had to say:

USC volunteer hockey coach Mark Wilbur said…he had no specific policy for dealing with publicly bared bottoms.

“I sure as hell don’t condone it on any level,” Wilbur said.

Heh. (Hat tip: AO.)

Yeah, yeah, Michigan State over Wisconsin, blah blah blah. Why would I want to talk about the Big Ten when I can talk about the Missouri Valley and the Big South? ;)

All season long, it’s been the same story in the Missouri Valley Conference: teams beating up on each other in an orgy of parity. So why would anyone have thought that the last week would be different?

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With the public-voting portion of American Idol starting tonight, check out Becca’s blog for several posts about Chris Sligh, who went to Bob Jones University at the same time that Becca (a.k.a. Puck’s human) did.

According to at least one betting website, Chris is the favorite to win Idol, and it’s easy to see why — not only does he have a great voice, but he has a fantastic personality and sense or humor. Becca says that’s totally genuine; it’s how he is in real life. Anyway, I’m totally rooting for him.

If the NCAA Tournament consisted of six games against DePaul at the Joyce Center, the Irish would totally win the national championship. :)

Becky and I left at halftime because, frankly, we were bored. (Er, and because Becky wanted to watch American Idol.) Notre Dame leads 40-22 at the break. Needless to say, a great first-half performance by the Irish. Colin Falls is 6 of 9 from the field.

GOOOO IRISH, KEEEEP BEATING DEMONS!!

UPDATE: Irish win, 78-54. Nice!

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair will announce on Wednesday a new timetable for withdrawing British troops from Iraq, with 1,500 to return home in several weeks, the British Broadcasting Corp. reports. Visit CNN for the latest.

This being Fat Tuesday, a.k.a. the final night of Mardi Gras, NOLA.com’s New Orleans webcams may be of some interest.

Big game for Notre Dame tonight, as the Irish try to continue their winning ways at home and beat the DePaul team that edged them by 1 on the road 12 days ago. It’s at 7:00 PM on ESPN2, but I’ll be there in person at the Joyce Center. GO IRISH!

And a pair of huge, huge, huge games in the Missouri Valley Conference, as Bradley hosts Northern Iowa and Missouri State visits Wichita State at 8:05 and 9:05, respectively. Bradley and MO State are the MVC’s two most likely at-large contenders outside of Southern Illinois and Creighton, while UNI and Wichita are almost certainly out of the at-large discussion. So if you want to see a three- or four-bid Valley, root for the Braves and Bears. On the other hand, if you’re a fan of some major-conference bubble team, root for the Panthers and Shockers.

Oh yeah, and second-place Big South team High Point visits Winthrop at 7:15 PM. The Eagles, fresh off a huge win at the above-mentioned Missouri State Bears, are one of the “last four in” Joe Lunardi’s latest bracket as an “at-large, if needed,” but they’ll presumably need to win out until the Big South title game to have any chance of making that prediction a reality. And tonight’s game figures to be their biggest challenge until said title game (which will probably also be against High Point). Previously, Winthrop won at High Point by 1. Tonight, they get ‘em at home, so here’s hoping for another win, by a more comfortable margin this time. On the other hand, will there be a post-BracketBusters hangover? Hopefully not. Go Eagles!

I believe the moral of this story is don’t ’shroom and drive:

Suspended Gonzaga center Josh Heytvelt is being charged with felony possession of a controlled substance following his arrest in Cheney, where police alleged they found hallucinogenic mushrooms in a gym bag in his car, prosecutors said Tuesday. …

Court documents released Tuesday police found 33.2 grams — just over an ounce — of mushroom parts inside a plastic Ziploc bag in the back of the Chevrolet Blazer that Heytvelt was driving. Possession of any amount of illegal mushrooms is a Class C felony.

KHQ has more, including a photo of the ’shrooms that sank a thousand Zag dreams:

Apparently, police and prosecutors aren’t buying Heytvelt’s attempt at the tried-and-true “they’re not mine” defense:

According to new court documents, on the night Heytvelt and Davis were arrested, Heytvelt denied any knowledge of the mushrooms in a backpack in the back of his vehicle. The baggie was inside a backpack next to one that featured Heytvelt’s name on the front. Heytvelt said the backpack that contained the mushrooms belonged to a friend, and that he allowed that friend to borrow his vehicle a couple of days earlier.

During the stop, Heytvelt also said that the same friend that had borrowed his car grew mushrooms in his home. When asked whether he had seen it for himself, Heytvelt responded, “yes”. That friend has not been identified.

Hmm. Well, prosecutors aren’t always right, are they? We’ll have to see how this plays out. Let’s all remember that Heytvelt is innocent until proven guilty.

So basically, a 72-year-old gay atheist is never going to president. (Hat tip: InstaPundit.)

Luckily, Barney Frank is a 66-year-old gay Jew, so he still has a chance. ;)

P.S. I’m disappointed the survey didn’t ask whether people would vote for a Muslim president. Like commenter LawrenceB, I bet Muslims would have beaten out atheists as the group least likely to be elected.

Fellow 3L Dmytro Aponte, a.k.a. “Fists of Furry,” is competing tomorrow — for the third straight year — in Bengal Bouts, Notre Dame’s intramural boxing competition. Tomorrow’s matches get started at 6:30 PM at the Joyce Center, and Dmytro is in the third match. He’s up against freshman Danny Wemple. Methinks the law students in attendance need to get a “WHOMP WEMPLE” chant started.

Other law students competing in this year’s Bengal Bouts, according to Dmytro, include Tom Hardman, Pat Salvi, Raphael Flood and Geoff Spiess. Tickets can be purchased at the door, or from one of the participants (though Dmytro says he’s all sold out).

Anyway, GOOOO APONTE! BEEEEAT WEMPLE! TOOOO A BLOODY PULP! :)