John’s Blog

Heading home from Detroit with a couple of books that I wasn’t that interested in, I picked up The Stupidest Angel, by Christopher Moore. I wasn’t super-optimistic — on the advice of a friend of mine I had picked up one of his previous books, Island of the Sequined Love Nun, but didn’t end up finishing it, since it wasn’t that funny.

But Angel was terrific. It’s a story as old as time: lonely during Christmas, a woman kills her ex-husband who happens to be drunk & dressed as Santa Claus, he eventually gets re-animated as a zombie by a very not-so-smart angel, and I guess everyone knows what happens after that. A Christmas love story.

Anyway, very funny book — cotton candy novel, of course, but good.

Sigh. This is a tough book to read. Great investigative reporting for The New Yorker, by Seymour Hersh, who broke the Abu Ghraib story, among others. Just very discouraging. Themes are somewhat similar to Woodward’s two books chronicling W’s time in office: Bush at War and Plan of Attack. Highlights how discussion & dissent is actively discouraged and punished in this administration, and how as a country we’re becoming more and more willing to treat others without justice or dignity, even when we say that’s exactly what we’re fighting for. Good book, but just discouraging. Makes you wonder two things: (1) how long will we as Americans be feeling the impact of what we’re doing in the world now, and (2) just how much corruption will ultimately come to light decades from now when a bunch of stuff is declassified. Sigh.