The Dawn Treader

I have never heard of Alex Jones in my life. Drudge linked him this morning, so I went and watched his Youtube video about the nation's sick obsession with Lebron James.

Given my worldview convictions about God's sovereignty, I don't freak out about the U.S. collapsing the way Jones does and some of my conservative and libertarian leaning friends do.  The state of our nation and our world is, and always was, in God's capable hands.  Even Rome in 410 A.D. was in God's hands, right?  Nevertheless, there is a grain of truth in what Jones is saying about the state of our nation.

I agree with Jones that we are largely a nation of non-thinkers who would rather worship and obsess about Lebron James than spend the time to read a book or think critically about life.   Sports (and celebrity worship, did you hear the latest about Lindsay Lohan?) has become the major religion of culture.   It is what people use to fill the hours and escape the boredom and in some cases pointlessness of reality.

By far, the most disturbing part of Alex Jones' video was seeing the governor of Ohio serenade Lebron James to stay in Cleveland.  That "we are the world" moment was unsettling at best and nauseating at worst.  Did that really happen?

Song : Slide

Song Writer : John Rzeznik

Group : Goo Goo Dolls

The group has sold nearly nine million albums in the U.S. alone.  While not a huge Goo Goo Dolls fan, I enjoy their ballads (e.g. Iris, Slide).  Recently I was learning to play the bass line to Slide.  It is a hooky (i.e. catchy) song and the upbeat chord progression is played in a beautiful A# minor pentatonic.  The song reached number one in 1998 and 1999.

I never closely listened to the lyrics, however.  I thought the song was a love ballad about two young people falling love and wanting to get married, mainly because of the words "I wanna wake up where you are" and "Do you wanna get married?".

The key to the song lies in the second verse.

Outliers, the story of success.  Written by Malcolm Gladwell (author of Tipping Point and Blink).

The Gist:

Gladwell explores what makes extraordinarily successful people extraordinarily successful.  He discovers that it is not sheer intelligence or sheer determination or sheer anything.  It is a combination of things including, well, basically luck. 

He does a particularly good job of making a case for the power of cultural legacies as he calls them.  Cultural legacies are those racial, ethnic, cultural forces which help shape who we are.  Is it prejudiced to say Asians are generally better at math and playing the violin?  Some would say yes.  Gladwell offers a compelling theory to explain why, by and large, they are.