On the Shelf: Week 2

READING: 
I have to be honest, there was not a lot of time to read this week. From late night pasteups to  copious assignments from my other classes, reading for Etymology unfortunately fell by the wayside. I still read, albeit from the same book as last week, Superfreakonomics. I realized something: I was not as interested in it as last week. There was a twenty page passage about how to stop hurricanes, which should have been interesting given events of late. I zoned out until I got to the passage:

Myhrvold recalls watching the British science-fiction TV show Dr. Who when he was young: "The Doctor introduces himself to someone, who says, 'Doctor? Are you some kind of scientist?' And he says, 'Sir, I am every kind of scientist.' And I was like, Yes! Yes! That is what I want to be: every kind of scientist!"

First of all, it's Doctor Who, not Dr. Who. This British cult-classic is a show about the last of the Time Lords who travels through time and space in a police box called the TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimensions in Space). It is NOT a medical show. Ignoring this glaring error, I started to think about the character of The Doctor. He's so unbelievably passionate about everything he does and is completely dedicated to the good of others. He's a genius who uses his expertise in, well, everything, to defeat evil aliens and save humans or the extraterrestrial-of-the-week. And, in a way, that's what Dubner and Levitt, the authors of Superfreakonomics, are trying to accomplish. While they only have a small sliver of expertise, they are trying to enlighten the world around them and inspire the American populace to think and notice, which I think is pretty noble. 

WATCHING:
Continuing on with my Doctor Who-obsession, I've been counting down the days until the next series begins on September 1. Each day this week BBC and BBCamerica have been releasing mini-episodes collectively called Pond Life, chronicling companions Amy Pond and Rory Williams' married life, attempting to live normally with the Doctor popping in and out. The clips are disappointingly short but are still fun and fast paced. Their whimsical nature contrasts some of the show's darker plotlines. 

FOLLOWING:
There's this great Tumblr called I Love Charts, which is just a collection of funny, culturally-relevant charts. They track amount of milkshakes brought to the yard by one's milkshake, the spread of Walmarts across the country, and word clouds of usage-frequency at the Republican National Convention. Updated constantly throughout the day, this blog makes statistics fun and depicts ways to use numbers and figures to tell a story, kind of like the Feltron report. 

On the Shelf: LongReads

It's no secret that I love journalism; I'm a third-generation reporter. Due to a lot of free time during the school day, I quickly exhaust my allotted number of free articles from The New York Times. It wasn't hard to convince my father to pay for the online subscription so that my sister, mother, and I could get our fix. 

Some time during AP Stats I started reading From Bible-Belt Pastor to Atheist Leader and read as inconspicuously could I manage. When I finally finished the article during Etymology, I had to take a few moments to process. 

I, too, have "come out" as an atheist in recent years, so I was intrigued by how his spiritual journey was both similar and different to my own. Jerry DeWitt discovered his passion for religion, in his case evangelical Christianity, during a church retreat. DeWitt became entrenched in his religion, forgoing college to become a travelling preacher throughout the Bible Belt. One day he found he just could not pray. I wouldn't say I was ever deeply religious, but I was raised in Sunday School to believe in G-d, obey the Ten Commandments, etc. I attended religious summer camp where I met some of my best friends in the world (I say in the world because they span time zones and borders). One of the tenants of Reform Judaism is the freedom to ask questions. I had always been taught that it was okay to question G-d and the Torah, though I'm sure my non-belief was not the intended effect. 

Turns out DeWitt and I are among millions of other freethinkers who have become disillusioned by religion. 

Alas, his lack of faith had some extreme negative effects on his personal relationships. DeWitt lost his job, became written off as a "Satanist" by his beloved community, and divorced by his wife. Unlike DeWitt, I was not alone. My father, sister, and brother expressed that they shared my beliefs-- or rather, non-beliefs. During a discussion about the concept of miracles, I learned that over half of my Sunday School class was comprised of atheists. Even during philosophical conversations at my Jewish summer camp, my atheism was embraced and my questions encouraged. 

Of course, one can find anything on the internet. Through various atheism-related tumblrs and r/atheism on Reddit, I was able to find like-minded individuals with whom to discuss, just like DeWitt. There are scores of people out there unhindered by religion. Perhaps my views are controversial and taboo, but that's how you know they're important enough to care about. Albeit unfortunate that DeWitt has lost so much, he has been liberated. There were some great quotes in this articles, but one especially stood out to me. 

"Religion does a lot of good, especially the loving kind, like at Grace Church," he said. "I know people who went to a more liberal kind of Christianity and were happy with that. The problem is, for me, there was a process involved in moving from Pentecostalism to a more liberal theology, like Grace Church. What makes me different is that process didn't stop, and it took me all the way. In the end, I couldn't help feeling that all religion, even the most loving kind, is just a speed bump in the progress of the human race." 

On the Shelf: Week 1

READING: I’m in the middle of SuperFreakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. This smorgasbord of facts and figures is a follow up to their 2005 bestseller Freakonomics. The economist and journalist set out to answer questions you didn’t know you needed to ask. Each chapter plays out like an intense television drama. A question is posed, various side stories play out that make the reader wonder how they’re related, and eventually all is revealed because everything is connected or something like that. The chapters I’ve read so far have included shark attacks, prostitutes, and murder; so basically it’s literary Law and Order. I’ve learned that’s basically what the field of economics: law and order, which are dictated by incentives.

                "People respond to incentives, although not necessarily in ways that are predictable or manifest. Therefore, one of the most powerful laws in the universe is the law of unintended consequences. This applies to schoolteachers and Realtors and crack dealers as well as expectant mothers, sumo wrestlers, bagel salesmen, and the Ku Klux Klan."

LISTENING: The other day I decided to revisit my trusty Sufjan Stevens Pandora station, whereupon I was introduced to "Memories and Dust" by Josh Pyle. I’d never heard of him or the song before, but I automatically went to YouTube to listen to the lighthearted strumming several hundred more times. The old-fashioned acoustic sound brought me back to being on the porch at camp, swinging on a hammock, and singing along while my friend Jon played "Opportunity" by Pete Murray on the guitar. To me, that song evokes such a sense of family and community that I am immediately homesick for my home away from home.

FOLLOWING: As an avid reader of TIME magazine, I always anticipate the penultimate page, the one that features a witty column from the Sultan of Snark ™ himself, Joel Stein. His Twitter feed @thejoelstein is a miniature version of that column with constant funny updates on his family or current events. His tweet calling for Mitt Romney to release his Netflix queue had me laughing for half an hour.

EATING: I was proud to embrace my heritage by eating couscous and hummus. Then I realized our main course was shrimp. Close enough. 

take a look... inside a book... reading rainbow

When it comes to reading, I don’t discriminate. I’ll read fantasy, science fiction, and mystery. I’ll read classics and fan fiction, memoirs and graphic novels. If the story has an interesting plot and is well-written, I’ll read it. But that doesn’t mean I’ll enjoy it. I’m a stubborn reader; though I can usually tell within the first 50 pages whether or not I’ll like a book, I can’t let it go unfinished. Books I truly love, books that make me think and question, will be read multiple times until the pages are ripping from constant turning and the cover is ratty beyond recognition.

In etymology class, I look forward to having time for silent reading again. Too long has it been since I last had time to read for fun. I will attempt to read many a book from a variety of genres and use this opportunity to explore different writing styles and points of view. Hopefully this experience will encourage me to make time to read once the semester has ended.