Evening Reading

This evening, I amused my wife by reading excerpts from a Robert Ludlum novel with dinner. I think it was The Bourne Identity, though it could have been The Bourne Conundrum, The Bourne Perplexity, or any of a dozen others. I had picked up the novel because I wanted to read something mindless -- but I'd forgotten how Ludlum's novels -- at least, this series -- wander all over the map, and whatever's true in Chapter Two will be shown to be a cruel hoax by Chapter Ten -- and the actual, literal truth in Chapter Fifteen. People don't talk; they mutter, snarl, grimace. And always with an exclamation point!

My GOD! Bourne exclaimed, smashing flat the weather page of the great city newspaper. It's all HERE! His fist slammed down on the crudely printed map. Right out in front of the whole damned world! He scanned it intently, his finger jabbing at the key points in the densely printed text. YES! It WILL be sunny tomorrow! He wheeled as the older man entered the room, his pistol already out and aimed at his visitor's heart. You only think that, the other said quietly, his face in shadow. Its what they WANT you to think, to believe. But have you remembered -- The Weather Channel? Bourne gasped, his weapon momentarily forgotten as the memories flooded back.

Page after page like that. After a while I just started flipping through the book, reading a paragraph here and there, so that when dinner was done, so was I.

At least, that's what I WANT you to think!

I also got an interesting email this evening from a woman who writes about the intersection of society and Islam. I'd written to her some time ago because I was impressed with an article she'd written. I felt a little sheepish about writing because what I was essentially saying what that her article made me think that perhaps Muslims were basically normal people, and that the great divide between them and the rest of the world was repairable after all. Well, I think now that I knew even less then than I had thought, and it still scares me to read about it, because so many people in that camp seem to be fierce intolerant maniacs -- which is why I was startled to see, in her email (it wasn't just to me, but to people who had written to her) that she'd written an article about how the firebrands are winning the war to be seen as the face of the Muslim community.

The article is here.