Daaaaaaaaaaang

I'm sure you've heard by now, but Yosemite/its environs is on fire.

Seriously, guys. It's on fire.

Are dolphins smart?

Not particularly.

They can't even actually communicate with any sophistication:

A disproportionate amount of dolphin research time has been devoted to teasing out any potential for language – the science-fictional myth of dolphinese – from their vocalizations. If dolphins had language, we would almost certainly have found it by now. When their vocalizations turned out to be rote and inflexible, “I’m scared!” “I’m mating!” “I see food!” pretty much covers it, the research turned to echolocation clicks. Perhaps dolphins were sending each other 3D holographic messages encoded in their clicks. Nope.

They do have signature whistles that identify the dolphin as an individual, but that’s the most referential thing about their communication system. In contrast, ground squirrels have an amazingly semantically-rich signaling system. Nothing about the dolphin whistle repertoire would prevent it from being used as a discrete combinatorial system to convey unlimited meaning, it’s just that dolphins don’t use it for that.

Also, they are jerks:

Adult male dolphins routinely kill porpoises, not for food — or even out of competition for food – but because the porpoise is similar in size to a dolphin calf. The killings serve as practice for their regular infanticidal behaviour, a sure way to ready mothers for mating.

Interesting review/summary of a book that's coming out in a few months.

Friday

Tomorrow's Saturday.

Yay, weekend?

Diversions

I'm tired and grumpy today, in need of diversions from a swirling morass of headache and morose thoughts.

That's why I'm glad Jessie forwarded me a link to this blog yesterday, which is awesome. I'm just sad that I didn't think of that idea first. "The bacon was hot, the kiwi was cold and the pasta was vinegary." I can't wait to read more.

Also there is this from McSweeny's:

I WANT TO MAKE LOVE TO YOU LIKE IN THE MOVIES.

I want to go at it under the sheets no matter how hot it is. Our feet will extend past the end of the bed, even though you get no leverage that way. We will not notice any unexpected moles or embarrassing tattoos. Everything that happens will be sexy. There won’t be any gross sounds or sights. Just like in the movies, our sex will be tasteless and odorless. I will not kiss your neck and get a mouthful of perfume and then you’re like what’s wrong and I’ll be like nothing and you’ll get all distant and I’ll be like sorry it’s the taste of your perfume, and you’ll be sad because you only wore it because I said I liked it one time and then all of a sudden you’re not in the mood and I think about sneaking off to the bathroom to furtively masturbate but I don’t and I just hold you limply until you fall asleep then I check Twitter for like an hour. That doesn’t happen.

I’ll lay out rose petals across the bed, and they won’t get in our butts, though it seems some of them logically would. I’ll rub an ice cube all over you, and you won’t burst out giggling, causing me to grow self-conscious and lose my erection. I’ll drip wax on you, which will be erotic and not at all like the other times you’ve burnt yourself on something hot, which have not been erotic at all. We’ll eat dessert off of each other’s nude bodies like that’s not the grossest thing two people could do to their sheets and skin. “Can’t we just have those strawberries later? I’m going to get all sticky,” is something you won’t say, in this paradise of physical pleasure.

And:

Great job! You’ve succeeded at nothing. But you voted. Here’s a sticker!

Is today over yet?

Gasp

Holy cannoli. Put these on the list of contraptions you will never, ever find me on.

60+-year-old aerial tramway in Chiatura, Georgia

The mining town of Chiatura, Georgia, surrounded by steep cliffs, is criss-crossed by a network of aging Soviet-era aerial tramways that are still in use today. In the early 20th century, after the U.S.S.R. annexed Georgia, Soviet authorities were intent on extracting the vast manganese deposits beneath Chiatura. In the 1950s, planners began work on what locals call the "Kanatnaya Doroga," or "rope road," that still connects almost every corner of the town. Today, while some of the cars have rusted away, 17 of the aging tramways remain in service.

...

The cabins run without a braking system; if the haulage cable snaps, the cabins will roll straight back down the track cable. This happened to a tramway in Georgia's capital Tbilisi in 1990, killing twenty people.

...

In 2008 the hauling rope of [a] tramway snapped with 12 passengers inside. Ramaz Khipshidze, the director of the Aerial Tramway Network says the automatic braking system worked "thanks to God." Chiatura didn't have the equipment needed to rescue the people inside. For 12 hours the passengers dangled above the town until a team from Tbilisi arrived with a rescue cabin.

You live and learn. At any rate, you live.

Man, blogging every day got real old, real fast. I guess I failed at my personal challenge of blogging every day for 30 days, but at least I learned a valuable lesson: blogging every day for 30 days isn't fun at all. It's kind of a stupid thing to try to do. (For me, anyway.)

But fear not, I'll give you some food for thought for today: The entire concept of tipping sucks.

Tipping is a repugnant custom. It’s bad for consumers and terrible for workers. It perpetuates racism. Tipping isn't even good for restaurants, because the legal morass surrounding gratuities results in scores of expensive lawsuits.

Plus, it's just plain annoying. I rather resent having to tip people as a standard matter of course. Why can't we just pay servers a living wage and eliminate this socially awkward custom once and for all? I am willing to absorb the cost in another way, and I bet at least some other people are too. Besides, getting rid of tipping might even make restaurant service--and food--better.

On a completely unrelated note, this made me laugh.

Snakes: Maybe creepier than fish

Oh holy lord. Decapitated snakes CAN STILL BITE.



As if I weren't skeeved out by snakes enough...

A floss a day keeps the cancer away, apparently

A kind of bacteria commonly found in the mouth, which is often the culprit in gum disease, also spurs the formation of tumors in colon cancer, researchers report today.

Apparently, the mouth bacteria "stimulates tumors" by "by blocking the expression of a gene that inhibits tumor growth." Well isn't that just terrific.

I bet one way to minimize the damage of my mouth bacteria is flossing. I hate flossing. But I guess I hate cancer more. Get ready to bleed, gums!

"They bite because they're hungry, and testicles sit nicely in their mouth"

Fish are creepy as hell.

Exhibit A: The Pacu, a piranha relative, which can grow up to 55 pounds and which has huge human-like teeth that love to crunch on small, round objects. Like...testicles.

The Pacu is making the rounds of the internet today because somebody in Sweden caught one in the Øresund Sound, prompting the Natural History Museum of Denmark to put out a warming to men to "Keep your swimwear on if you're bathing in the Sound these days." Which is hilarious, of course. I'd cover the story too, if I were a journalist.

To tell you more about the Pacu, which really does sound a bit frightening, I'd like to quote the delightful Henrik Carl, "fish expert" at the Danish museum:

[Pacus] are almost identical to the piranha, you couldn't even tell from the outside. It's just that they have different teeth. Flatter and stronger, perfect for crushing....The pacu is not normally dangerous to people but it has quite a serious bite, there have been incidents in other countries, such as Papua New Guinea where some men have had their testicles bitten off....They bite because they're hungry, and testicles sit nicely in their mouth...and its mouth is not so big, so of course it normally eats nuts, fruit, and small fish, but human testicles are just a natural target. It's not normal to get your testicles bitten off, of course, but it can happen, especially now in Sweden.

Then, helpfully, after terrifying everyone in both Sweden and Denmark, my buddy Henrik adds that the museum's warning was meant "as a bit of fun," and the discovery of the Pacu is really no big deal. Quoth he: "There's nothing to worry about... you're more likely to drown that get your nuts bitten off."

Alright. So, Pacus AND drowning. Lots to fear in Sweden!

Pacus have also been found in Illinois. So...cross that off the list of places I'll ever swim.

Cue the nighmares

--------------
Hat tip to Anonymous for sending this article to me. I was feeling very blog-uninspired today, and Anonymous saved Posting Day 7 with this delightful story.

Sinkholes: Your new #1 fear

Well, I made it five days before I fell off the posting wagon. But even the Judeo-Christian God had a rest on Sunday.

(Yes, I guess I did just equate myself with the Judeo-Christian God. I'll let it stand.)

Speaking of acts of God, have you heard about the sinkholes in Florida? No? Well, they are terrifying. Especially if they open up underneath the resort villa you are staying in:



And they're even more terrifying if you're living in a house with your brother and a sinkhole opens beneath it in the middle of the night, and you hear your brother screaming for help but you can't help him in time and he gets sucked into the ground.

Florida is hereby crossed off the list of places I might potentially live. Not that it was really on the list (humidity, gators, hurricanes, swamps), but now it's definitely off.

So good.

"These guys aren't shucking around." Ha!

I heart public broadcasting. So much. This reminds me that I need to donate to my local station.

The internet is ruining the environment?

All my music, email, pictures, blog posts, etc. are stored in "the cloud" these days, and before I read the article below, I never really thought much about it. Turns out that "the cloud" is a giant blight on the environment.

Power, Pollution and the Internet

Most data centers [aka the physical homes of "the cloud"], by design, consume vast amounts of energy in an incongruously wasteful manner...Online companies typically run their facilities at maximum capacity around the clock, whatever the demand. As a result, data centers can waste 90 percent or more of the electricity they pull off the grid...To guard against a power failure, they further rely on banks of generators that emit diesel exhaust. The pollution from data centers has increasingly been cited by the authorities for violating clean air regulations, documents show. In Silicon Valley, many data centers appear on the state government’s Toxic Air Contaminant Inventory, a roster of the area’s top stationary diesel polluters. Worldwide, the digital warehouses use about 30 billion watts of electricity, roughly equivalent to the output of 30 nuclear power plants, [and]...data centers in the United States account for one-quarter to one-third of that load, the estimates show.

Energy efficiency varies widely from company to company. But at the request of The Times, the consulting firm McKinsey & Company analyzed energy use by data centers and found that, on average, they were using only 6 percent to 12 percent of the electricity powering their servers to perform computations. The rest was essentially used to keep servers idling and ready in case of a surge in activity that could slow or crash their operations.

Even running electricity at full throttle has not been enough to satisfy the industry. In addition to generators, most large data centers contain banks of huge, spinning flywheels or thousands of lead-acid batteries — many of them similar to automobile batteries — to power the computers in case of a grid failure as brief as a few hundredths of a second, an interruption that could crash the servers. 

So like, the more I blog, the more we all die? That's...not good at all. Sorry about that, folks!

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Day 4: complete. It's Friday. Yay.

We're all gonna die...of formerly curable diseases

It will come as no surprise, that I have been, and remain, pretty concerned about is antibiotic-resistant diseases. Fueling my fear, it seems almost every week I trip across yet another story describing a virulent strain of some disease that no longer responds to antibiotics, or that has shown a drastic uptick in the number of antibiotic-resistant cases. Being a person who loves to share what she has, even if it's bad news, I thought I'd share two stories I've come across lately. Here goes.

1. E. Coli That Cause Urinary Tract Infections are Now Resistant to Antibiotics

In examining more than 12 million urine analyses from [2000 to 2010], [a set of researchers at George Washington University] found that cases caused by E. coli resistant to ciprofloxacin grew five-fold, from 3% to 17.1% of cases. And E. coli resistant to the drug trimethoprim-sulfame-thoxazole jumped from 17.9% to 24.2%. These are two of the most commonly prescribed antibiotics used to treat UTIs. When they are not effective, doctors must turn to more toxic drugs, and the more those drugs are used, the less effective they in turn become. When those drugs stop working, doctors will be left with a drastically reduced toolkit with which to fight infection.

People suffered from UTIs long before antibiotics were discovered in the early twentieth century, of course. Should these drugs cease to be effective, we’ll have to go back to what we were doing before. The truth is, though, before antibiotics we had no real treatment. ...[At some points in time], as a last-ditch effort, [doctors] operated to drain puss from the infected kidneys and hoped the patient would survive.  (Source; all emphasis mine.)

Untreated UTIs can lead to kidney infections, kidney failure, and blood poisoning. As someone who had a kidney infection five or six years ago (though not one caused by a UTI), I can assure you that such infections are really no fun at all, as they involve sustained periods of intense fevers (upwards of 106 degrees), and  may require you to take yourself to the hospital emergency room, where you will need intravenous antibiotics, which will make you woozy, so they'll give you something else for that, and then because of the anti-wooze medicine, they won't let you drive your car home, so if you parked in the wrong parking structure you will end up having a parking ticket when you come back for your car the next day. Like I said: No fun at all. So it certainly doesn't warm my heart that UTIs are becoming meaner.

Here's the full article about the antibiotic-resistant UTI E. Coli on PubMed.

2. Tuberculoses (TB) has been making headlines for a while because of the virulent multi-drug-resistant strains that are going around. Not only does there exist a whole wikipedia article about "Multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis," but there's also one for "Extensively drug resistant tuberculosis" AND one for "Totally drug-resistant tuberculosis," which just proves how big a deal drug-resistant TB is becoming. When NPR did a whole thing about TB last month, I was convinced right-quick that I should run far, far away from anybody who might have TB. Or who has a cough. Or who has been near anyone with a cough. Because if you happen catch one of the nasty TB strains, your treatment will involve 28 MONTHS of pills and shots (13,664 pills, 244 shots), which come with side effects such as "permanent hearing loss, permanent dizziness, kidney damage, psychosis, liver failure, nausea, rashes"--one or more of which 33 percent of patients allegedly suffer. And after all that, only about 50 percent of people recover! And don't rest high and mighty thinking this is a disease that only people in other countries get. Just last month NPR reported on an outbreak of multiple-drug-resistant TB in Wisconsin. So there.

Want to know more? You probably don't. But just in case you do, the WHO is keeping a close eye on the everybody's-gonna-die-from-TB situation and has a ton of info about it. Based on very cursory perusal, I've learned that if you want to avoid people with TB, you'll probably want to avoid all the countries in darker greens on the map below, which have the most people with drug-resistant TB (in terms of absolute numbers):

Click to go to a map with interactivity!

And you'll REALLY want to avoid Khazakstan, Belarus, Moldova, and South Africa, which have the highest incidence of multiple-drug resistant TB.

The above travel tip will end Day 3 of my 30 days of content. I've got to be off to drink margaritas and eat tacos. Ole!

"I was skimming this article and made me think about your conspiracy theory/'how we are all going to die' blog"

One of my favorite things about having this blog, even though I basically stopped posting anything on it for a very long time*, is that my friends periodically forward me articles that they think I might find interesting. In pretty much every case, the forwards are exactly the type of thing I'm interested in, and also the type of thing I would blog about, if I ever blogged.

WELL. Here I am blogging for 30 straight days, so what better time to highlight some of the articles people have sent my way? This should hopefully encourage people to keep sending me stuff, because even though I don't always respond, I do always read the messages and the articles and I always appreciate the thought. (And just as an FYI, I'm happy to return the favor and send out dire news via email as well, if you're into that sort of thing. I've got over 200 articles bookmarked to read/blog about someday, so if you let me know what kind of bad news you like, boy oh boy can I forward you some stuff about it!)

But I digress. Without further ado, let me start makin' my favorite thing--a list!

---------

1. From my favorite undergrad worker bee/research assistant I've received several interesting articles in emails all appropriately titled "for your blog." For example:

I was skimming this article and made me think about your conspiracy theory/"how we are all going to die" blog. 

(He hasn't read a word of this blog, but he's already decided I'm crazy, apparently!) Shortly after the above link, he also sent along, with no comments whatsoever (apparently my interest for the article speaks for itself):

NYTimes: Tea, Sugar and Death: Cafe Groups Ponder the End - An informal group discusses philosophical thoughts on dying at a monthly gathering in New York called Death Cafe, one of many such get-togethers around the country.

After I received that first link he sent along, I read the whole article and then went out and bought the book that the article was based on. I enjoyed the book immensely, but I have to say, if you read the article in full you basically get the main gist of the book, and with a lot less repetition to boot. When I told the worker bee I was reading the book, and that it was making me think about what "food" really is, he sent me back this pithy remark: "Food is a scary thing. And yet I just keep on eating all of it." Isn't he so cute.**

2. My friend Tiffani also often sends me amusing emails with dire links, and since I know Tiffani reads this blog, I want to say directly to her: Thank you, I do dearly love all the emails you send me. Recently, there was the gem of an email with the subject line: "Good news on the flu front!", which then went on to say

just kidding. why would i send good news about the flu? and is there even such a thing?
(Link)

That article that she forwarded along was suuper terrifying (so I obviously highly recommend reading it). Basically, it describes how average sanitary habits are NOT SUFFICIENT to stop the spread of norovirus, which "is the most common cause of acute gastroenteritis -- stomach upset -- in the United States," as well as "the most common cause of foodborne-disease outbreaks." How do you get norovirus, and how do we seem to not be able to get rid of it? I'm glad you asked:

Hand-washed dishes are especially likely to carry the virus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says in its website -- which could be one reason norovirus causes so many outbreaks on cruise ships. “You cannot get the water hot enough if you wash by hand,” says Aiello.

Norovirus is spread fecally -- in the poop -- and that means it can get into laundry. Studies show that fecal matter spreads even in ordinary laundry, so if someone is sick, it’s important to use very hot water and bleach to destroy virus that could be on any clothing, sheets or towels.

And regular cleaner won’t get the virus off surfaces. CDC recommends using bleach, including chlorine bleach or hydrogen peroxide.

Complicating the problem, most restaurant workers don’t get paid sick leave, so if they miss work, they don’t get paid. This means many workers come in sick, and they can spread the virus to hundreds of customers. Food handlers, dishwashers, even staff who bus and clear tables, all can spread the germ.

The problem extends to the home, too. There, Aiello said, several factors make it hard to keep one sick family member from infecting others. "It could be the door handle. It could be the toilet tank cover. Some studies show it can be aerosolized. If you throw up and then flush the toilet, how much of the spray gets into the air?" she asked. One study last year showed how the virus spread on a plastic bag that had been in a bathroom where a norovirus patient threw up.

Ugh. But hey, speaking of getting sick on cruise ships, there was another message Tiffani sent me recently, which exclaimed:

First, calamities took cruises away from me... now they are taking hot air balloon rides?! What is going to be left? Sitting on grass and hoping you don't get hit by a meteor? (Link)

Thankfully, I'm happy to report that Tiffani's last resort--sitting on grass and hoping you don't get hit by a meteor--is no longer something we have to worry about. That's because of what I'm about to describe, which comes courtesy of a coworker who I probably ill-advisedly told about this blog.

3. There is something called "DoomsDay Dwellings." In June, my coworker sent me an email pointing me to maybe the best site on the internet, which promotes the Dwellings, and she noted:

Why buy a used house when you can build one of these and be prepared for the apocalypse?   Designed to withstand fire, social unrest, shrapnel, governmental collapse, and earthquakes (optional). http://www.doomsdaydwellings.com/
The "Genisis" model comes with a "Civilization Generator".

The website for these Dwellings is very much worth a perusal. If you don't want to click away from my blog and get lost in the epicness of DoomsDay Dwellings though, I'll list just some of the things that the fanciest Dwelling (GENISIS: 6 Adults and 9 Children  - 10 years of indoor food, air, water, power  + Civilization Generator) allegedly protects you against:

• Double Dip Recession / Depression  [Huh? Does the house come with its own economy?]

• Gas Shortage / Peak Oil 
• Drought / Famine 
• Cyber Warfare that Destroys the Grid
• Social Unrest / Large Scale Riots
• Government Collapse [In your DoomsDay Dwelling, the government will never collapse!]
• EMP Burst / Solar Flare
• Pandemic
• Earthquake (Optional)
• Volcanic Disruption [Is that different from a volcanic eruption?]
• Minor Climate Change - Excluding Major Flood Zones [Aren't major flood zones like, the first places that might need a DoomsDay Dwelling?]
• Magnetic Field Rotation [????]
• NBC Explosion < 1 Mile Away [not really sure what an NBC explosion is; I'm assuming it doesn't involve the TV network]
• Total Environmental Collapse [but only "minor" climate change...]
• Non-direct Meteorite Impact 
• WWIII - Nuclear War [Only if the nuclear bombs do not have a "direct" impact, I assume]
• The end of the Civilization as we know it [Don't worry, the genesis model comes with that handy Civilization Generator, so humanity won't die out on your watch]

Truthfully, I would totally like to own one of those DoomsDay Dwellings, just in case things spiral out of control out there. Unfortunately, I am pretty sure that I do not have (and never will have) nearly enough money to afford my own self-burying bunker. Based on the research I've been doing lately, the amount of money I have available to purchase a dwelling in the area in which I currently live seems to be able to get me approximately two bedrooms, one bathroom, and no special doomsday protection whatsoever. Alas alack.

4. Finally, I would be remiss if I did not give a hat tip to Jessie, who's sent me too many links to even remember. Recently, she notified me that "Everything is trying to kill us," and she sent along this link, which totally made me sad, since I really really want a treadmill desk. But more interestingly, she also sent along this article about Greek Yogurt, which is quite interesting. It was the second thing I'd read about how hard it is to get rid of the whey that's produced as Greek yogurt is strained (there's whey too much of it!***), and it was the final straw that made me stop eating Greek Yogurt. Of course, the first straw that made me stop eating Greek Yogurt was the realization that I just don't like it very much. I prefer a runnier, more sour yogurt (like the kind they have in Bulgaria. In case you care...).

I suppose I could go on and on with this list, but lucky for you I'm running out of time. I've got to be off to my tennis lesson! I can't wait to go smash balls for 90 minutes. Hopefully those two Russian chicks from last week show up and shriek just as much as last time when I hit the ball to them...that was fun.

Day 2, complete!

---------------------------
*Not intentionally, it just kept (not) happening.
**I am not coming on to him. I mean cute in a precious kind of way. Not that this kid reads my blog. We just talk about it sometimes.
***Ba-dum ching!

Are you ready for some content?

Hello friends! I've decided I'm going to blog every day for the next 30 days. It's a tall order, and I don't know if it'll actually happen, but it's a challenge I know I will enjoy taking on. And it's going to start...now!

In this first post of my 30 day challenge, I want to recommend a book I just finished reading*, called Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief. I've always had a fascination** with new American religions, their history, their beliefs, and their adherents***, and this book did not disappoint me in the slightest. I found it dispassionate, well-researched (as best I can tell), and admirably balanced in terms of looking at Scientology from many lenses (not all of which are critical)--although representatives of the Church of Scientology seem to disagree on all of the above counts. Indeed, they charge author Lawrence Wright with having "no interest in the facts, only the lies and exaggerations being fed to him by angry, bitter sources with agendas based on hatred and revenge," and they call the book "a biased work, more fiction than fact" (source). It is worth reading the three rather long letters that the Church/its lawyers sent to CNN when asked to comment on a story about the book, one of which ends:

Mr. Wright's book is full of many mistakes, unfounded statements, and utterly false facts. It is infused with religious bigotry--we caution CNN against broadcasting his hateful, and in many cases, actionable statements. [Meaning: "shit we will sue you over"]

The Church of Scientology has a well-known reputation of suing anybody who does anything they don't like (there's a whole Wikipedia article about it!), so I commend Lawrence Wright for being a total and utter badass in publishing this book.

In brief, the book covers the following:

1. Story of the life and times of L. Ron Hubbard, who was maybe crazy, or maybe brilliant, or maybe both, and who certainly lead a fascinating life
2. Story of Paul Haggis, a famous screenwriter (apparently; he's new to me), who left the church rather publicly in 2009
3. Story of David Miscavige, current leader of the church, and how he rose to power/maintains power
4. Stories of many members of the "Sea Org" who have chosen to leave the church, and how that has played out for them
5. And throughout, explanations of what exactly Scientologists believe

Why am I recommending this book here? On the surface, Going Clear is not really related to the subject of this blog, since it's not like Scientology is going to take over and destroy the world (or at least, I'm not worried that it will).**** But there are a lot of examples in this book of how people can and do wield power (and money, oodles of money) to get what they want, no matter what, and no matter what is actually morally right, manipulating masses of people and government agencies along the way. Such issues do fall under my set of concerns about the society we live in, because I fervently believe we should live in a society in which informed reasonableness, and not money/religion, rules policy and practice. Sadly, we do not, and this book was yet another reminder that such a society is a utopian dream we will likely never achieve.

If you're not into reading an incredibly long book about Scientology (even though you should be, it's really good), let me recommend these shorter pieces, which will give you a good flavor of the tome:

• Probably the genesis for the book: New Yorker article about Paul Haggis that got me interested in learning more about Scientology.
• Fascinating NPR story of how the Church of Scientology responded to fact-checking requests from the New Yorker
• Steven Colbert on Scientology, and interviewing Lawrence Wright
• NPR interview with Lawrence Wright about Going Clear
• And of course, this South Park episode (or just this clip, if you're impatient) 

Thus ends my first blog entry of the 30 day challenge.

-------------------------------------
*In the interest of full disclosure, I actually listened to the book during my epic 18+ hours of driving over this past week/weekend*****, but I think that's as good as reading.
**It's rubbernecking, really.
***In this vein, I highly recommend Under the Banner of Heaven, by Jon Krakauer.
****And although I personally believe Scientology is more than a little crazy, and that for some members it is probably more of a cult than a religion, I also believe that all organized religions are more than a little bit crazy, and I don't want to single out Scientology just because it's more socially acceptable to do so.
*****One of the places I visited was Ithaca, where I got to hang out with my 2-year-old nephew and 3-month-old niece, who are seriously adorable.