Over the weekend I read a book called The Year of Living Biblically, by A. J. Jacobs. The book is a fish out of water story (a phrase somewhat incredibly not used at all—in the book or on the dust jacket). Jacobs is a self described OCD latte-drinking New York liberal editor at a fashion magazine (Esquire) with a penchant for immersion journalism. His previous book was about reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica. In Living Biblically, Jacobs tackles religion, particularly religious literalism, by attempting to live literally according to the Bible and all its often obscure proclamations. He even stones an adulterer!

Jacobs does humor pretty well. One chapter toward the beginning of the book in which he visits a creationist museum is quite funny. There is also the character of Mr. Berkowitz, a fundamentalist Jew who inspects Jacobs’ clothes to ensure he’s not wearing fabric of mixed fibers. Zany characters aside, most of the humor in the book comes from the battle of personalities between the author’s secular liberal self and his increasingly confident fundamentalist counterpart whom he refers to as Jacob. Jacobs is adept at portraying all the characters in the book, including both halves of himself, in a way that really encourages you to sympathize with their foibles.

Toward the end of the book, Jacobs seems to indicate that he (or perhaps Jacob) has had some minor spiritual transformation—just from following the rules—but it comes off as a schmaltzy way of tying up all the loose ends. It feels forced. There may be something to this transformation, but I suspect it has more to do with the author’s cognitive dissonance (a theory which gets several mentions in the book) than with any actual divine revelation.

Incidentally, the book is full of interesting religious (primarily Orthodox Jewish) trivia. For example, I now know what schmaltz is.

The point you are supposed to come away with is, I think, this: moderation is always defined relatively. He points out that no matter how extreme the people he interviewed, they always thought they were in the sweet spot of moderation. Everyone, no matter how literal they think they are being, is picking and choosing which parts of the Bible they choose to follow. Jacobs actually portrays this positively, but I draw a different conclusion. If everyone is picking and choosing which parts of the Bible merit attention they must be basing that decision on some other external (to the book) sense of morality or legality. Does that not relegate the status of the Bible to mere literature? Surely there are many good and worthy stories in the Bible, but if simply being in the Bible does not grant them automatic status as Truth, why should they be any more valuable as moral lessons than any other stories? By opening any part of the Bible to figurative interpretation, you necessarily open the whole book to figurative interpretation and lose the right to claim any part of it as divine law or moral imperative.

Theological quibbling aside, the book is quite entertaining and I think the religious and the secular alike will enjoy it. Oh, and he grows a huge funny-looking beard.

• Kung Fu Monkey: Farm Fetish
  “Why in the name of John Deere’s Blood-Soaked Wood-Chipper Gears, every time I hear a news report on what ‘real Americans’ think do I wind up watching some farmer in their fifties and sixties bitch as they survey the blasted plains landscape behind them?”

Cristina Page: The Deafening Silence

It’s been a week since The Lancet published the comprehensive Guttmacher Institute study which found that bans on abortion fail to reduce abortion rates. The researchers of the study also discovered that countries where abortion is legal (and the emphasis is on prevention rather than prosecution) experience the most dramatic declines in abortion.

Such news should undoubtedly give pro-lifers reason for pause. What with the endless railing about the immorality of abortion, and now it turns out their way of thinking does nothing to actually reduce abortions. It’s only fair to give them a minute to collect themselves. Perhaps some careful (re)consideration is in order.

• Swearing at work boosts team spirt, morale

Candidate Colbert
Stephen Colbert is running for president as a Democrat and a Republican, but only in South Carolina. What is perhaps most interesting about this article though is the disparity in what the two parties require to get on the ballot in SC. Democrats: $2500 or 3000 signatures. Republicans: $35000.

“Play This Thing!” reviews Diplomacy

If you are a master of Diplomacy, you have a long and rewarding career ahead of you in sales and marketing. I’m being sarcastic, but I am not joking.

This is a good writeup of one of my favorite games.

• “The Washington Monthly College Rankings” by The Editors
  As seen on the Colbert Report. My alma mater ranks 19th.

See if you can spot the editing mark that snuck through into this article published on the New York Times website:

US Primaries 2007

When examining the chart it is important to note that although most of the candidates seem quite different, in substance they occupy a relatively restricted area within the universal political spectrum.

This is an interesting chart of the political positions of all the candidates currently running for US president. It plots them not only on a scale from left to right, but also from libertarian to authoritarian. It is amazing how tightly they are all grouped in the authoritarian-right quadrant.

You can also take the test yourself to see how your views compare to the candidates. I was pleased to find that the candidates I like turned out to also be the closest to me on the chart.

A Mock Columnist, Amok - New York Times

I’d like to thank Maureen Dowd for permitting/begging me to write her column today. As I type this, she’s watching from an overstuffed divan, petting her prize Abyssinian and sipping a Dirty Cosmotinijito. Which reminds me: Before I get started, I have to take care of one other bit of business:

Bad things are happening in countries you shouldn’t have to think about. It’s all George Bush’s fault, the vice president is Satan, and God is gay.

There. Now I’ve written Frank Rich’s column too.

Stephen Colbert wrote Maureen Dowd’s column in the Sunday New York Times. It is funny.