Times Incites Brouhaha Among Loyal Readers

The liberals who are accustomed to getting their daily dose of left-wing politicultural pap from the New York Times found a bug in their oatmeal this morning. I don't know if there's actually a storm in a teacup about this, but I suspect a lot of folks in Gotham swore into their coffee this morning upon reading David Brooks' opinion piece fisking psychobabble and saccharine spirituality. I, of course, thoroughly enjoyed it, and it's the Times' ability to allow only the best of conservative writing through that makes them such a serendipitous read on occassion.

In [the heaven constructed by author Mitch Albom], God and his glory are not the center of attention. It's all about you. Here, sins are not washed away. Instead, hurt is washed away. The language of good and evil is replaced by the language of trauma and recovery. There is no vice and virtue, no moral framework to locate the individual within the cosmic infinity of the universe. Instead there are just the right emotions — Do you feel good about yourself? — buttressed by an endless string of vague bromides about how special each person is, and how much we are all mystically connected in the flowing river of life... Reading "The Five People You Meet in Heaven" is a sad experience because it conjures up a mass of people who, like its hero, feel lonely and unimportant. But instead of offering them the rich moral framework of organized religion or rigorous philosophy, instead of reminding them of the tough-minded exemplars of the Bible and history, books like Albom's throw the seekers remorselessly back upon themselves.

It makes me want to read a good book, if anyone is still writing those.