Reading List

On the plane-ride home from Birmingham...

1. Newsweek - "What Bush Got Right" by Fareed Zakaria

Zakaria thinks the Bush administration of 2008 has come a long way since version 1.0 but is still chiefly marked by ignorance and disrespect for the rest of the world. Still, he argues that Obama and McCain must avoid simply reversing his policies just as Bush did with those of the Clinton administration.

2. Newsweek - "Rise of the Sea Turtles" by Melinda Liu and Duncan Hewitt

Liu and Hewitt seek to get to the bottom of China's continued and anti-Western sentiments, ultimately citing a successful propagandistic nationally-enforced education and wondering if this deep-seated nationalism will make China's rising, overseas-educated stars good for the world or only China.

3. Newsweek - "The Pickens Profile You Haven't Read" by Karen Breslau

T. Boone Pickens' capitalist-driven energy plan aims to make the American plains the "Saudi Arabia of alternative energy" and appears to be driven by a pure legacy instead of self-seeking profit. After all, the famed oil-man and takeover titan is 80 years and has more cash than he knows what to do with.

4. The first 50 pages of Secrets of Film Writing by Tom Lazarus

Lazarus' wonderfully readable and irreverent style reveals sensible nuggets of wisdom from a career spanning more than thirty years. I hope my screenwriting professor doesn't look down on his sometimes controversial methods...

"Would it be wrong if we prayed for rain?"

The religious right has thrown aside any notion of supporting John McCain, presumptively since many pundits have been adamantly opposed to his candidacy from the start. Instead of promoting the republican candidate, conservative religious think tanks like James Dobson's Focus on the Family are "humorously" telling their followers to pray for "rain of Biblical proportions" during Barack Obama's outdoor acceptance speech at the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado. Why should we pray for rain, you might ask? Well, you probably don't have to since the video cites the only two family values that the religious right promotes: abortion and gay marriage. Those are the only ones that matter, not America's evaporating middle class or our endless "liberation" of a middle-eastern country that's taken thousands of lives. Man, if only Charlton Heston were still with us to reprise one of his famous Biblical roles of old and stir up a miracle on par with the parting of Red Sea for conservatives and the NRA. Without him, I'm tempted to think it might not work.