The Onion’s Finest News Reporting, Volume 1 by Scott Dickers and
others

Such a mind-candy quick read, I hesitate to call it a book, but it
is in book form, so there you go.

It cost me $1.00. It was about $2.00 worth of silly, so I’m ahead.

The Fabulous Riverboat: Book 2 of the Riverworld Saga by Philip Jose’ Farmer

The second book was fine, but there was not a lot addressed regarding What Is Going On with the Riverworld. (Why is everyone who lived on earth reincarnated along a hugely long river?)

This one features Mark Twain in his efforts to build a riverboat to make it to the headwaters of the River and solve some mysteries.

Among the things I found strange was the people’s ability to build some fairly extensive technology from raw materials, including, most amazingly, video screens.

An okay read.

—–
On the Reading Table: Nothing! Arg!

“What Do You Care What Other People Think?” (Further Adventures
of a Curious Character by Richard P. Feynman

The first half of this book is more adventures akin to the first Curious
Character book. Sad and witty in equal parts.

The second half recounts his adventures as a member of the
Challenger disaster investigatory commission. This was
fascinating. I hadn’t really followed the story in detail… I had
vaguely heard of the infamous “failed o-ring”.

But Feynman’s account from within the investigation is very disturbing.
You see a lot of the same bureaucracy going on that appears in other
technical companies of much less importance (no lives at stake).

I went back a re-read the results of the Columbia disaster
investigation and saw those findings in a sadder light after having read
Feynman’s actual appendix to the Challenger report, which he had to
fight so hard to have included. There simply could not have been a
clearer warning of exactly what lead to the Columbia disaster:
complacency over failure. “Well, yes, the design didn’t work the way we
liked, and could fail, but it didn’t last time, so we’re good to go!”

had said in a prior post or comment that the
whole shuttle system should be mothballed. At the time I read his
comment, I thought that was extreme. But now I’m of the same mind.
Feynman’s investigation showed that the shuttle was not designed following
the good practices used in comparable endeavors like airplanes. It’s
filled with hardware bugs (though Feynman praises the software
development).

Scrap it, start over, do it right. Or let private industry do so.

In the meantime, keep sending those cool Mars images.

To Your Scattered Bodies Go (Riverworld Series Book 1) by Philip Jose’ Farmer

Scenario: You’re dead. But you wake up naked next to a bunch of other people, next to a river, a plain, and impassable mountain ranges on either side. There’s a mushroom that provides food, smokes, and clothing. As far as you can tell, everyone who ever lived has also appeared next to this extremely long river. Also, everyone is 25 years old or younger.

What’s up with that?

told me of this series many years ago, but I just got around to borrowing it from him (it’s never available in a bookstore when I think to browse for it). It’s a good read.

I see from the bio that Philip Jose’ Farmer was born in 1918 in Terre Haute, IN, which is 5 years after and 20 miles from the time and place when my grandfather, Floyd Lucas, was born. I wonder if they met at a barn dance.

I’ve got Book 2 queued up. says the series’ conventions kind of go off the rails after that.

Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis by Jimmy Carter

“It is much easier and more convenient to focus on sins of which we are
not known to be guilty.” -Jimmy Carter, on the Christian Right’s attacks
on homosexuality to the exclusion of other topics closer to home, like
adultery and divorce.

Jimmy simply savages the current administration in this book. I’ll
bet he doesn’t get invited to many of their parties.

Endangered Values is an overview of Carter’s worries on America’s
current trajectory in several realms, kind of an extended opinion piece.
He warns in the introduction he’s going to be mixing politics and
religion, but that he does so as a private citizen.

Given that his motivations are fairly different than mine (his reasoning
comes from his religious beliefs), we both end up at the same conclusions
most of the time. He’s a good guy.

I am wary, however, when people get too “Good Old Days” on me. I question
his assertion that the country is more sharply divided along partisan
lines than they used to be in his day. I don’t know for sure… I wasn’t
even remotely clued in to politics before the mid-90’s, to be honest. To
me, it was always just a bunch of people in suits squabbling with each
other. But I thought people got up in arms on both sides of that Vietnam
thing, and perhaps Reagan raised some hackles here and there.

At any rate, it’s a fine little opinion piece, and he scored points with
me for quoting both Warren Buffett and Stephen Jay Gould.

Freakanomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

I’m probably one of the last people in america to read this book.

I read it this past weekend while we were up visiting my parents in
Kentucky. I had given it to my father for Christmas and he had spoken
glowingly of it; This made it significant, because he is one difficult
person to shop for.

It’s certainly a short read, as evidenced by the fact that I read it in
bits and pieces between Friday morning and Saturday night.

It’s an interesting tome. Most of the critiques of this book seem to
center around a lack of rigor or failure to demonstrate in detail the
analysis behind the assertions. But given that it’s written as a “pop
economics” book for mass appeal, this doesn’t really surprise or bother me
overmuch.

While I wouldn’t take any of the conclusions as gospel truth, it’s got a
bunch of fun stuff to think about, which is probably all it was meant to
be.

“Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!” (Adventures of a Curious
Character) by Richard P. Feynman

Delightful book. Stories from a wacky Manhattan Project physicist.

In the beginning I was sort of non-plussed… early stories from his
childhood that were not so amazing because they were comparable to stories
I or people I know could tell. Ho-hum, I ain’t no brilliant physicist.
But people I respect highly recommended this book, so…

Later he emerges as an amazing man who got himself into interesting
adventures, largely through extreme curiosity and bravado and often with
famous historical figures.

Also, a womanizer. There’s something darkly funny about a brilliant
physicist who expends a lot of energy trying to score with show girls
(and, by his account, succeeding).

Highly recommended for just about anyone.

Currently Reading:
The Best American Essays 2003