Summer Reading Program Book #6

Flock of Dodos: Behind Modern Creationism, Intelligent Design and the Easter Bunny
by Barrett Brown and Jon P. Alston, PhD

In their look at the creationism/intelligent design movement in the United States, Brown (a writer for National Lampoon and Alston do what I've longed to see in the media: take these people as seriously as their arguments merit. Which is, to say, not at all. But the humor masks some important work: revealing the characters behind the movement and just how they've insinuated themselves into the government at all levels and discussing high-profile incidents and cases on the topic. Definitely a must-read for anyone concerned about the rise of the dodos.

However, I must note that the authors give remarkably short shrift to the Easter bunny. (-:

Dear Dogs,

I know that having your male human gone is upsetting you terribly and that no amount of walks and bellyrubs can make it all better. However, please realize that I am not going to abandon you and leave you to starve. Even if I'm in an accident, my first thought upon consciousness will be of you and your needs. So, from now on, could you please stop the madness that ensues when I get home? To watch you three, you'd think Michael Vick had been standing outside the window taunting you all day.

Sincerely,
Your mama

The Husband Has Landed

For those following such things, Kevin made it to Vienna with no problems, other than the fact that JFK sucks, particularly when you have an 8-hour layover. His hotel is cheap student fare, but it's in a beautiful area. He's done some walking around already, had some good eats, sat in a cafe drinking coffee and reading, and attended his first day of classes. His course for the first 2 weeks is comparative international law, and it's a 3-hour course stuffed into 2 weeks. He is in lectures from 8 am until 2 pm, with a lunch break. Many evenings the program has special events planned, like walking tours, a visit to a wine festival, and special museum visits. On the weekends, he'll be going to Prague, Salzburg, and Venice. Being an old fart and the only person who speaks German, he hasn't really bonded much with the other students, although the coordinator for the program has chatted with him quite a bit and took him to dinner, in part because he isn't the usual law student (she hates lawyers).

As for us on the homefront, we're doing fine. The dogs miss Kevin terribly, as evidenced [grrr, I hate nouns that have become verbs] by their general naughtiness and the fact that every time they hear a noise, they think he's come home. I miss him too, however we are using video chat to talk just about every day, though, so we're getting about the same level of communication as we do during the 3 weeks before finals. I am enjoying being able to sleep in the middle of the bed. But we can't wait to have him home, and I am so looking forward to touring bits of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland with my husband. This is our first long vacation since our wedding/honeymoon trip.

Kevin is on Facebook and has been posting photos, so if you're there and his friend, check them out.

Summer Reading Program Book #5

Idiot America by Charles P. Pierce

The subtitle provides a succinct synopsis of this treatise of American anti-intellectualism in its present state and how it has impacted not just this country, but the entire planet: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free. I found that this made a terrific follow-up to Susan Jacoby's The Age of American Unreason. While Jacoby's language is erudite and intellectual, Pierce cuts through the bullshit and tells it like it is. His humor helps keep the horror of the insanity of his topic at bay.

But why listen to me? I found the following text, in a section about how the Bush administration managed to lie through its teeth to the American people about the threat posed by Iraq with little uproar by the majority of the populace (there was some resistance: a few hundred thousand of us marched the street of D.C. on a freezing today to demonstrate that we knew it was all bunk), to illustrate exactly what he means by "Idiot America":

The successful sale of the Iraq war was a pure product of Idiot America. But Idiot America is a collaborative effort, the results of millions of decisions made and not made, to reduce everything to salesmanship. Debate becomes corrupted argument, in which every point of view is just another product, no better or worse than all the others, and informed citizenship is abandoned to the marketplace. Idiot America is the develtopment of the collective Gut at the expense of the collective mind. It's what results when we abandon our duty to treat the ridiculous with ridicule. It's what results when politicians make ridiculous statements and we not only surrender our right to punish them at the polls but also become too timit to pinish their ideas with daily scorn--because the polls say those ideas are popular, and therefore they must hold some sort of truth, which we should respect.