What I'm Reading

Tour de Mess

Following sports these days is getting almost as depressing as following politics. It almost appears as if cycling is trying to keep up with the dog-fighting scandal of the NFL, the game-fixing scandal of the NBA, the roid-rage scandal of the WWE, and the juiced-ball scandal of MLB. Or is it the other way around? Is it that the NFL, NBA, WWE, and MLB are finally just catching up with cycling?

Consider the sordid evidence:

The certain winner of 2007 Tour de France, Michael Rasmussen, was thrown out of the race after the 16th stage in a doping-lying-testing scandal--joining pre-race favorite, Alexandre Vinokourov, and three other riders booted from this year’s Tour for cheating (each of them vehemently and litigiously deny the charges).

The winner of the 2006 Tour de France, Floyd Landis, tested positive for performance enhancers and is awaiting an arbitration decision on his case (Landis vehemently and litigiously denies ever cheating).

The winner of the 1999-2005 Tours, Lance Armstrong, throughout his career never tested positive but persistent rumors claim he regularly took illegal performance enhancers (rumors Armstrong has always vehemently and litigiously denied).

The winner of the 1998 Tour de France, Marco Pantani, died of a cocaine overdose (alas, he is unable to sue anyone over the accusation that he was doping).

The winner of the 1997 Tour, Jan Ullrich, retired this year after being banned from last year's race in the Operacion Puerto doping scandal (yes, he too vehemently and litigiously denies any wrong-doing).

The winner of the 1996 Tour, Bjarne Riis, has broken this long line—not that he was clean mind you, it’s just that he has actually confessed to riding in the race while on EPO and other performance enhancers.

Kinda makes you wonder, doesn’t it? I think I’ll go watch some Little League—but, do you think even the kids are clean these days?

On Not Reading "Important" Books

In the current issue of the Times Literary Supplement, Adrian Tahourdin discusses Pierre Bayard’s elegant and witty essay, Comment Parler des Livres que l'on N'a Pas Lus, (translated as, How to Discuss Books that One Hasn’t Read). It is simultaneously hilarious and sobering--and a delightful poke in the eye of the elite cultural literati and gliterati.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD/DER!!

Stairway to Heaven

When it is completed sometime next summer, the Burj Dubai Tower in the United Arab Emirates will stand just over half a mile high. Already, it is the tallest structure in the world (passing up Taipei's 101 Tower and Toronto's CN Tower this past week despite the fact that the steel has only reached just over three-fourths of the planned height). The engineering is stunning even if the design is more than a little dehumanizing--then again, I suppose that sort of Babylonian excess rather suits Dubai.

Just to try to put the monumental structure in context, note the comparison below: from left to right: the Burj Dubai Tower, the vast Royal York Hotel in Toronto, the CN Tower also in Toronto (often not figured into the world's tallest building tallies because it is essentially a broadcast antennae rather than an office building), the Sears Tower in Chicago, the Petronas Towers in Malaysia, and finally, the Taipei 101 Tower in Taiwan.

Western Swing

Old Cowboy Music never dies. It just keeps on playing--in the strangest places. Bob Wills would sure be proud.

Isaac Watts

Isaac Watts, the great hymn writer, preached his first sermon at Mark Lane in London on this day in 1698. He had been born in Southampton, England on July 17, 1674. He fell under conviction in 1688 and came to ardently and unreservedly profess Christ a year later.

His Puritan father was twice imprisoned for refusing to cease and desist sharing the Gospel message with his co-workers. Some of that pluck carried over to Isaac, who refused to take an all-expenses-paid education--which would have necessitated conforming himself to the anti-Puritan crown-mandated strictures of the Church of England. Nevertheless, he was able to work his way through the university and complete his education. Afterward, his gifts were so readily apparent that the little church at Mark Lane soon named him its assistant pastor.

Through the years of his fruitful ministry, he published a host of books, pamphlets, and sermons. But none were as influential as his collection of original congregational hymns, Hymns and Spiritual Songs, which included such classics as" Joy to the World" and "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross." A few years later, he published a collection of versified psalms for congregational singing. These ultimately helped to transform hymnody and introduce an entirely new form of music for Biblical, Evangelical, and Confessional worship--a legacy that continues to enrich the modern church in our own day.

Harry and Aliteracy

The bookstores are sure to be crowded tomorrow night. The latest (and last) installment of the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling will finally fall into the hands of millions of Muggles around the globe. This event has been highly anticipated and wildly celebrated by some. Surely this kind of enthusiasm bodes well for the book industry. Surely the fact that adult editions of the book are being printed right alongside the versions intended for kids is a good sign that Hogwarts has cast a spell on heretofore TV, MySpace, and Wii-entranced souls--and that can only be a good thing for civilization, life, the universe, and everything. Right?

Well, not so fast, says Washington Post book reviewer Ron Charles. His Post Editorial this past weekend--part rant, part lament, part personal testimony--tries to make the connection between Rowling's $4 Billion publishing cottage industry and all things literarily perverse: illiteracy, aliteracy, and what for him may be worst of all, infantilism (he makes no mention of any taint of occultism though, quite interestingly).

Charles pretty clearly has his cause-and-effect line of reasoning a bit out of whack. And his swipes at the quality Rowling's work are probably unwarranted. But, don't chalk up his entire argument as one more evidence of intellectual snobbery at the big-city, dinosaur-dailies. He has a point--it just may be that he could have chosen a better way to make it.

As Charles points out, federal statistics do indeed show that the percentage of youngsters who read for pleasure continues to drop significantly as children get older, at almost exactly same rate as before arrival of Harry Potter book series. That's a given. My question is: should we blame Harry and Hogwarts for this dismal turn of events or should we point the finger at our multi-gajillion dollar public education designer disaster?

Spoilers?

The publishing world is in a bit of an uproar just hours before the latest Harry Potter novel is at last made available to millions of fans around the world. It seems that the venerable New York Times and the Baltimore Sun have already published reviews of the book. Horror of horrors!

Author J.K. Rowling said she was "staggered" that papers including The New York Times had printed reviews ahead of the novel's publication on 21 July. The author said the information was in "complete disregard of the wishes of literally millions of readers".

So, how did the strictly guarded story leak out? Well, as it turns out, the book's American publisher, Scholastic, has now sued online retailer DeepDiscount.com for breaking the strict embargo by dispatching a number of copies. The novel has also appeared on auction site eBay, while pictures of what appeared to be pages from the new book have appeared on the internet.

Isn't it amazing? Who'd have ever that that leaks of a children's book would make international news?

What I'm Reading