I agree with what you say about her Harper's piece. For those of you who haven't read it, at one point she takes a job as a waitress. This caused me to laugh out loud:
"The worst [customers], for some reason, are the Visible Christians--like the ten-person table, all jolly and sanctified after Sunday-night sevice, who run me mercilessly and then leave me $1 on a $92 bill. Or the guy with the crucifixion T-shirt (SOMEONE TO LOOK UP TO) who complains that his baked potato is too hard and his iced tea too icy (I cheerfully fix both) and leaves not tip. As a general rule, people wearing crosses or WWJD? (What Would Jesus Do?) buttons look at us disapprovingly no matter what we do, as if they were confusing waitressing with Mary Magdalene's original profession."
A friend of mine who resides in North Carolina recently visited and we laughed about the fact that he has an old friend/acquaintence who has become increasingly religious and who has made a killing off selling WWJD? bracelets. EVERYONE is wearing them, my non-religious, good-humored southern pal tells me. He also said this Christian entrepreneur smokes pot fairly often. So my friend and his other friends give this guy shit all the time. "Should we light another joint? What would Jesus do? Want to order a pizza? What would Jesus do?" Ecetera.
Louis, about "her nutty thesis on the origins of warfare in fear of man-eating animals" what would you suggest in its place? Do you feel nothing cultural is "hard-wired" into our brains, that we're much more nurture than nature? Or do you think war is a consequence of male agression? First of all, she goes out of her way to qualify the fear thesis, something scientists are wont to do. I thought the book offered up some interesting questions and paths to follow.
For instance, elsewhere she wrote, commenting on Clinton's bimbo explosions/those rockets in his pockets: "War becomes spectacle, entertainment, or what the social scientists call a "rally event" for its unifying effect on the populace. Note our progressive congressmen, including Jesse Jackson Jr, rallying along with the reactionaries to the December bombing. Yuck."