Just remember, kids, be sure not to mistake parity for parody.

A Confederacy of Dunces
As you may have read in the news, the president of Harvard University, Lawrence Summers, made a controversial speech in which he hypothesized women may simply be inferior to men when it comes to math. Thus, women are not as suited as men to careers as mathematicians and scientists. Wow. While Summers has apologized and said he was merely summarizing some preliminary research, you would have to be an incredible jackass to say what he said under any circumstances. It is disheartening to know such chauvenism still thrives, and as now be dressed up as "science." (It reminds me of those racist bastards who wrote The Bell Curve in the '90s. Remember that? It was Aryan pseudoscience all over again.) In any event, the most shocking aspect of this whole mess has been some of those who have risen to defend Summers, including Newsweek's George F. Will and Fareed Zakaria. Also, Meine Vater, who says that we should not silence intellectual debate, no matter the topic. So, hurray, in addition to being a religious bigot and a paranoid (from the frequency with which he talks about the threat of Communism, you'd think it was 1948), he has now established himself as a misogynist, too. I really should send him and Summers some Eminem CDs as presents....

I've wanted to read Keith Bradsher's High and Mighty - SUVs: The World's Most Dangerous Vehicles and How They Got That Way since it was first published in 2002, because I hate SUVs as much as the next guy. But Bradsher has so villified everything about and everyone around SUVs that I'm almsot feeling sympathetic to SUV owners. (Note that I said "almost." All SUV owners are assholes, most truck owners, too.) Basically, he's a sanctimonious s.o.b. who fawns over Bill Ford to such an extent that I'm shocked he didn't dedicate the book to him. Still, the book is greatly informative and a valuable read.