What else could you call "Big Babies Or: Why Can’t We Just Grow Up? Michael Bywater, London: Granta Books, 2006. "

A useful review is here:

Sadly though, what Bywater finds most disturbing about modernity are its gains, including material prosperity and the ease and efficiency of consumerism. He caricatures our healthy materialist impulses as ‘I want it now!’ tantrums of impatient toddlers, demanding our next fix of ‘punching, attention, drink, oblivion, money, novelty, success… Now!’ The desire for more and better consumer goods is, for Bywater, sinisterly instilled by ruthless big business forces and the vultures in the credit industry, rather than evolving from a sound urge to improve our material circumstances.

Courtesy of Dean Koontz (yes, the thriller writer -- did you think his books were ALL suspense?)

Is this really a wise strategy for living? Insisting that most of life isn't to be taken seriously. Relentlessly viewing it as a cosmic joke. Having only four guiding principles: one, do as little harm to others as possible; two, be there always for your friends; three, be responsible for yourself and ask nothing of others; four, grab all the fun you can. Put no stock in the opinions of anyone but those closest to you. Forget about leaving a mark on the world. Ignore the great issues of your time and thereby improve your digestion. Don't dwell in the past. Don't worry about the future. When life throws a hard punch, roll with it -- but roll with laughter. Catch the wave, dude.

From Fear Nothing (Check out the interview. Do most authors work this hard?)

This isn't the only one presented in his books, or even in this book.

Ah, but then your friends are attacked. Those who attack them say that they are going to cut off your head for living like that. What do you do then?

They're elegant in their black bindings, true enough. But the problem is that occasionally I assume that if it's in the Library of America, it must be worth preserving in good bindings and acid free paper. So I picked up and read John Dos Passos' USA.

It's dreck.

Sigh.

Every now and again I have to do it: read a book just for laughs. The candidate: Bush on the Couch, an ostensibly serious book about George Bush by a Washington DC psychiatrist.

Reason it was funny? Well, as demonstrated in study after study, Freud's psycoanalysis isn't a help to people, and yet, here, we have a true believer. Oddly enough, he's a true believer in something else, as well: no reputable psychiatrist engages in analysis with a patient who is not in the office, and no one with a medical degree attempts to diagnose, and publicly discuss, someone who is not a patient. But he believes in the editorial page writers' grasp of the facts, and motives, of George Bush, and he pays no attention to the thought that maybe there are other perspectives. Result? Well, a careful reader can find out volumes about the weaknesses and idiosyncrasies of the author, but any reasonable news reader knows more about George Bush.

Rating: unintentionally funny, speaks volumes about the author, tells little to nothing about George Bush.

There it is, or isn't: in the first description of the job that humans are to do. We are to have dominion over " the fish, the fowl and over the cattle". Nowhere on that list does it say "other men". TO the literalist, who views this as something said in a story with only two human beings, this doesn't seem extraordinary, but for those of us who subscribe to the idea that the Bible was addressed by its author to us, its readers, that is not a limitation that can apply. Abraham Block summarized this by saying: "Any act which disregards the rights of other people constitutes an unlawful exercise of dominion."

What implications would that have for my behavior?

This thought courtesy of my latest book A Code of Jewish Ethics Vol 1, by a Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, which has proved a fascinating read, though it is not usually the kind of thing I pick up in the bookstore (see, friends recommendations DO count, and I mean you, Dennis!). My favorite quote so far: "When I was young I admired clever people. Now that I am older, I admire kind people." Connects to one of my favorite movies, Harvey with James Stewart, who, as a genial drunk, attempts to explain things to a young couple: "Years ago my mother used to say to me, she'd say, "In this world, Elwood, you must be" - she always called me Elwood - "In this world, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant." Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. And you may quote me."