Category Archives: Quick Review

Quick Review: The Better Angels of Our Nature

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I hadn’t looked at much from psychologist Stephen Pinker for a while but I was intrigued by his latest book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. Here are a few comments about this thought-provoking work:

1. Here is Pinker’s argument: we must just be living in the safest era in human history as violent crime is down and wars affect fewer people. If you adjust for the population on earth at the time, World War II barely makes the top 10 (while typically lists put it at #1). Since World War II, fewer people are affected by violence and most people don’t know this.

2. Best argument of this book: this remarkable peacefulness is almost completely under-the-radar and people need to recognize how much safer the world has become. (I’ve noted before the incorrect perceptions regarding crime.)

2a. Pinker marshals a lot of evidence to show the declining trends in violence. In fact, Pinker talks about this for dozens upon dozens of pages. In fact, if you went by the percentage of the book devoted to each topic, you might think Pinker is more of a social scientist who studies violence and who is most interested in how societies and cultures have changed in such a way as to deincentivize violence. Overall, the number of wars have decreased, the number of wars involving great powers has decreased, the number of soldier and civilian deaths has decreased, and the length of wars have decreased. Pinker is, of course, building upon the work of many others but there are a lot of charts and figures here that I find quite convincing.

2b. Several periods were key to this change: the Enlightenment which didn’t necessarily limit violence but brought about ideas and values that eventually contributed and the post-World War II era when the world responded to the horror by promoting international peace and human rights.

3. The catch: Pinker is committed to going beyond a social explanation in the decrease in violence and wants to argue that this has trickled down to individuals. On one hand, you could imagine a number of sociologists making this argument: changes in society and culture influence the choices available to and made by individuals. On the other hand, Pinker wants to go further and even suggest that humans have evolved away from violence. Making this connection between social and individual change is tougher to do and Pinker relies a lot on social psychology experiments such as Prisoner’s Dilemma and the Ultimatum Game. The social and cultural change arguments are convincing but taking this next step to the individual level is more problematic. Part of the problem here might be that Pinker is so committed to his own perspective that he is determined to push his points about rationality further than they can go.

4. An interesting issue: Pinker argues that one way in which violence can get out of hand is that it requires a powerful ideology. One type of ideology that Pinker makes clear he does not like is religion which he argues is false and generally contributes to violence. In his historical overviews, Pinker makes clear that religion only contributes to and legitimizes violence and may not do any good. Additionally, the revolutions in values happened solely in the secular sphere and humans today are much more able to be rational (and religion is not that).

Overall, this is an interesting, long book that presents several intriguing arguments. Pinker provides a service in helping to fight the narrative that violence is spiraling out of control and yet has more difficulty in showing how humans have evolved into more rational beings.

Quick Review: Boomerang

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Michael Lewis’s latest book, Boomerang, gives the current economic crisis some international context. In an entertaining and somewhat breezy manner, Lewis investigates why countries as disparate as Iceland, Greece, Germany, and the United States all fell into the economic mess. Here are a few thoughts about his take:

1. My overwhelming thought about Lewis’s explanations is that he wants to delve into different cultural approaches to the world of finance. Lewis’s argument goes like this: even though these countries have very different histories and cultural mindsets, somehow they all got involved with bad debt in the 2000s. This same topic could spark a fascinating economic sociology or cultural sociology manuscript.

2. Unfortunately, Lewis either doesn’t have much time to spend with each country (he admits the book began as he was working on understanding the US system, which became The Big Short or he doesn’t want to delve deeply into his thin arguments. For example, in Germany he tries to tie their fondness for following rules (which means Germans were the last people to be being disastrous American CDOs) to their fondness for scatalogical humor (which Lewis bases on one anthropological study). While there is a lot of potential here for showing how different cultures can be tied together by a global finance market, Lewis needs a lot more evidence to construct a convincing argument.

3. I found the last chapter to be both exhilarating and depressing. Lewis comes back to the United States in the final chapter and describes how this could all play out. Here is what Lewis suggests: while the centralized governments of Europe struggle, the problem in the US is pushed down the road because the federal government can push off more and more obligations on state and local governments. If this plays out as Lewis suggests (though there is debate over whether it will be as bad as Meredith Whitney suggested), local governments will continue to feel the pain of the economic crisis for years to come and the results may not be pretty.

Summary: I think Lewis is on to something here but I would like to see the topic covered with more depth and include more research.

Quick Review: Bertrand Goldberg retrospective

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The Art Institute of Chicago currently has a Bertrand Goldberg retrospective, the first of its kind. Goldberg is well known in Chicago for several works of architecture: Marina City on the north bank of the Chicago River as well as the Prentice Women’s Hospital, which has been in the news lately because of a discussion about whether it should be preserved.

Here are a few photos from the exhibit:

A few thoughts about Goldberg’s work:

1. His primary design form, concrete cobs or wavy walls around a circular core, are quite unique. However, I can’t imagine any building today being built in this style. This has definitely aged.

2. The exhibit portrayed him as a visionary because of his interest in reviving the city through large, self-contained developments. This sort of sounds like New Urbanism but the scale is quite different as are the aesthetics with large concrete surfaces. This reminded me more of Le Corbusier or the arcologies found in Simcity. The self-contained nature of these developments might stop people from fleeing to the suburbs but it wouldn’t necessarily push them to interact with the wider city.

3. Goldberg is known for a few high profile works but also designed a number of other things as well including lots of hospitals, some houses, public buildings, and household items like chairs.

4. My biggest critique of the exhibit: the buildings and designs are given without context. Take Marina City. It definitely is iconic and interesting. Yet, how did it get built? How was the land acquired and the project pushed through the city government? How did it affect the surrounding neighborhood? What is its legacy beyond its walls? For example, the developer for the project was Charles Swibel, a man well-connected to Mayor Richard J. Daley and an unsavory character when it came to things like public housing. While the exhibit suggested Goldberg was trying to help the city, did he really do so in the long run? What was needed was the perspective of an urbanist who could provide some commentary about the overall effect of these buildings. While the exhibit mainly focused on design elements, it really is also an opportunity to assess how Goldberg’s design helped or hindered American cities.

Quick Review: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold

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I recently viewed the latest (April 2011 release) Morgan Spurlock film The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. Here are a few thoughts about this film which could be a nice conversation starter for a number of sociology courses.

1. If you know of Morgan Spurlock and his “formula” (Supersize Me, the TV show 30 Days), you won’t be surprised by how this film goes as Spurlock tries to finance his documentary about product placement (“brand integration”) by having corporations pay to sponsor it. Even though the process may not be a surprise, the movie still feels fresh in a way that many documentaries can’t match.

2. At the most basic level, this film is about raising awareness regarding advertising. It treads some familiar ground about how companies are really selling images or aspirations and how Americans are bombarded with these ideas. While Spurlock doesn’t offer much of a solution at the end (go out into nature for a little?), he certainly is drawing attention to an issue worth paying attention to.

3. Here are a few of the more intriguing sociological insights I picked out of the film:

3a. Spurlock wants to pull back the curtain on product placement and marketing but interestingly, the big companies don’t want to participate. In the end, he catches the attention (and money) of mostly smaller/challenger brands who don’t have the big marketing budgets. From a Marxist perspective, we could suggest that the big companies want to continue to “hoodwink” consumers while the challengers are really interested in doing anything to get product exposure, even exposing their marketing tactics.

3b. Spurlock spends some time in Sao Paulo, Brazil, a city that recently banned outdoor advertising. The mayor and residents talk about how this helps eliminate “visual clutter.” Could we imagine this ever happening in an American city? How many of our famous spaces, like Times Square or Las Vegas, would no longer be famous spaces if advertising was not present?

3c. One marketer suggests Spurlock could play off religious imagery, perhaps portraying himself at the Last Supper surrounded by a bunch of companies who want to use him or to show Spurlock carrying a cross covered in advertising stickers (like a stock car in NASCAR). While the marketer suggests this might be considered blasphemous, it would also get a lot of attention. Later in the film, another insider says to Spurlock regarding marketing his film that “the path of salvation” is to “Sell! Sell! Sell!” in America. What does this commentary suggest about the role of religion in marketing and selling “Christian products”?

4. Spurlock leaves us in a tough spot: can we do marketing with integrity? Can one really “buy in” without “selling out”? The answer is unclear but Spurlock provides us an entertaining venue for starting to think about answers to these questions.

(The movie received fairly good reviews from critics: it is 71% fresh, 77 out of 109 reviews were fresh, on RottenTomatoes.com.)

Quick Review: Stellet Licht/Silent Light

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(This is a guest post written by Robert Brenneman, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Saint Michael’s College in Colchester, Vermont. His book Homies and Hermanos: God and Gangs in Central America (Oxford University Press) will be released in October.)

A well-regarded sociologist who studies Latin America and publishes regularly in the area of theory and qualitative methods recently recommended that I watch the film “Stellet Licht” / “Silent Light” (2007). The film takes an existential approach to explore the tension between morality and desire in a conservative community of Mennonites in rural Mexico. I had not heard of the film until David Smilde recommended it to me, and so I was delighted to see that Netflix has made it available by streaming. I had high hopes. Smilde shows the film to his students in social theory at the University of Georgia and I am always on the lookout for films that both inspire and instruct students. Alas, watching the film was a disappointment to me as a Mennonite and as a sociologist.

First, the good. Mexican film-maker Carlos Reygadas is both talented and gutsy. Both the decision to write a film about Mexican Mennonites and his insistence that the film not rush its characters or its story paid big dividends in the realm of cinematic beauty, if not at the box office. A New York Times reviewer rightly raves about the opening scene, which gives a powerful sense of both the visual and aural beauty that surrounds–no, engulfs–the Canadian Mennonites who moved to this region in the 1940s in search of religious freedom and the right to educate their children in non-state, German-speaking schools. Reygadas shows us some of the power and the glory of rural Mexico in this story of piety and pleasure. But unlike the rural Mexican “whiskey priest” in Graham Greene’s classic novel, Reygadas’s protagonist is neither compelling nor instructive. That is not a criticism of Cornelio Wall Fehr’s portrayal of Johan, the Mennonite father torn between his love for his family and his desire to be with his mistress Marianne. In fact, most of the actors carry out their roles with impressive ability and subtle grace. Opting to fill the major roles with Canadian Mennonites, not professional actors, was another bold move, and one that allowed Reygadas to film almost entirely in the same low German dialect spoken by the Mexican Mennonite communities themselves. Indeed, when the attention is on the actors, it’s easy to forget that the film was shot on-site in Chihuauhua, Mexico.

The problem here is not in the direction, which is unusually bold and beautiful, incorporating long, still shots and unconventional camerawork to patiently unfold the narrative, but rather with the story itself. Reygadas does not understand the community he has entered and wishes to narrate. I do not make this accusation lightly nor out of a suspicion that the director/writer had some sort of voyeuristic desire to expose or profit from a tightly-knit, little-understood community. In fact, I think Reygadas does the best he can to develop his characters as individuals. But ultimately, the story fails because the lives led by these individuals make little sense absent the backdrop of a tightly-knit community that holds to a particular religious narrative–one that derives ultimate meaning from submission to God and to the community of faith. Mennonites (whether in Mexico, Canada, or the United States) believe that their Christian faith cannot be lived out in solitude but relies upon active participation in a community that seeks to model Jesus’ non-violent love by living simply, non-violently, and without the status-judging of hierarchies of title or prestige. Of course, ideals do not easily translate to reality and so conservative Mennonites and their religious cousins, the Amish, have relied on explicit rules and strict measures of social control in order to enforce simplicity and “right living.” Sociologists like Peter Berger have pointed out the irony of a pacifist religious group that practices excommunication through shunning–one of the harshest penalties imaginable given the social world of those who grow up in such a community. But rule following and and punishment for violators must be understood through the lens of belief in a God that entrusts discipline to the community itself. Sociologically speaking, discipline ensures the future of a community with such high ideals. In some cases, it also protects the weak. Take Esther, Johan’s unlucky, even pitiable wife, whose suffering is only enhanced by her husband’s unbelievable commitment to honesty about his on-going affair. Such commitment is beyond belief not because no Mennonite could do such a thing, torn by a belief in truth-telling and a desire to experience love, but rather because no Mennonite community would allow it. Extra-marital affairs do happen, even in very conservative Mennonite communities, but when they do, the leadership of the community moves with exceeding swiftness to expose and discipline them. I once witnessed such discipline when I visited my grandmother’s church in Middlebury, Indiana. The disciplinary service actually replaced the sermon–this was serious business as far as the church was concerned. It was seen as an assault not just on a family but on the whole community. The service was videotaped and a copy was sent to the violator, who was not in attendance despite the multiple pleadings of the church leaders. I was told that the individual repented and later returned to his family.

The point is not that conservative Mennonite or Amish communities are idyllic or that “the ban” is not so onerous, but rather that strict piety and even its enforcement can have the effect of protecting not just communities but families and individuals. Specifically, the proscription of extra-marital affairs protects women from suffering in ignominy and silence of the way portrayed by Johan’s wife. Ethical misconduct of this magnitude would never stay put in a densely-networked Mennonite community. It has a way of getting round to the light of day. And when they do, their protagonists are not given Johan’s luxury of ponderous indecision at the expense of a tortured-but-submissive wife. Reygadas’s film, because it focuses only on individuals and never moves beyond the scope of the family, cannot hope to capture the sense of what it is like to grow up–or grow old–in a dense, strict religious community. The longish final scene of a funeral is a perfect example of the director’s myopic misunderstanding.* In the scene, Johan and his family is surrounded by a handful of resigned family members, shell-shocked but stoic in the midst of their tragedy. I have never heard of a tiny, sparsely-attended Mennonite or Amish funeral. They are actually very large social affairs, with tons of food and hundreds of guests. I once spent a weekend in the home of some elderly conservative Mennonites in Belize (an off-shoot of the Mexican group) who told me that they were spending much of their time going to the funerals of friends and family in Belize and Canada. Nor are conservative Mennonites heroes of emotional stoicism like Esther’s children, who gaze perplexedly at her coffin, almost in wonderment.

In short, I found Reygadas’s film disappointing and the story unconvincing because I saw little evidence in it of the network density that characterizes typical conservative Mennonite communities. That density can be oppressive for sure, but it does not leave individuals alone, in existential wasteland, in their suffering. Johan and Esther (not to mention Mistress Marianne) are adrift in this film. If I had to put it in sociological terms, I would say that the film lacks “understanding” of the Mennonite social world or what Weber called “Verstehen” and therefore fails to meet the criteria for good classroom film–film that helps students understand a social world that is distant from their own. I’m disappointed to report that I won’t be showing it to my students any time soon.

*I recognize that this scene is intended to recall a similar ending in the film Ordet by Carl Theodor Dreyer, so I won’t critique the bizarre nature of the conclusion in the scene. In any event, any film should stand on its own strengths.

Quick Review (recent reads): The Social Animal, Love Wins, Connected, In the Garden of Beasts, Heat Wave, Travels with Charley

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As the summer ended and school started, I was able to get through a backlog of intriguing books. Here are quick thoughts on this varied collection:

1. The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement by David Brooks. I thought I might not like the “story” that Brooks uses to convey research findings but I found it a helpful way to think about the growing body of research about how our brains and emotions affect our lives. Overall, I like Brook’s argument that we should pay more attention to the British Enlightenment than the French Enlightenment emphasis because of how much humans are truly influenced by their emotions and subconscious and not just reason and rationality. I’m not quite sure what Brooks wants us to do with this information in the end (and why use the term “the big shaggy” to describe our subconcious?) but I do enjoy Brooks skewering certain groups in hilarious paragraphs that mirror some of his commentary in earlier books like Bobos in Paradise. And perhaps I’m required to say this as a sociologist but I think Brooks gives short shrift to the role of culture plays in shaping the subconscious. (See a preview post about the book here.)

2. Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived by Rob Bell. This book created quite a stir in evangelical circles earlier this year as some, like John Piper, essentially kicked Bell out of their circles. On the whole, I would say the book is uneven: some chapters are quite orthodox in their understanding of God, love, and evangelism while other chapters stray and Bell is not as careful with his words as he pushes boundaries. Also, the book seems aimed less at the general population and more at disaffected evangelicals, an interesting group to address, who can’t come to grips about their beliefs about hell rather. Taking a broader view, the book and the debate around it illustrates several interesting sociological issues: subcultures and drawing symbolic boundaries about who is in and out as well as the how theology and culture influence each other. As a follow-up, I ran into these two videos: MSNBC’s Martin Bashir asks Bell some tough questions (considering the issue of media types asking people about religion, Bashir’s Wikipedia profile includes a quote saying he is a “committed Christian”) in contrast to a fluffier interview with George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America.

3. Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives by Nicholas Christakis and James H. Fowler. This text could serve as a general audience introduction to the study of social networks. Many of the examples in the book are physiological as these researchers are known for their work on how things like obesity, emotions, and diseases are spread throughout social networks. The takeaway of the book: three degrees of separation is what connects us (those are your friends of friends of friends) and the actions and emotions of those people trickle down to us. I like the emphasis on how people seemingly beyond our immediate control have an influence on us.

4. In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and An American Family in Hitler’s Berlin by Erik Larson. This book provides a look at Hitler’s Germany in the 1930s through the eyes of American ambassador William Dodd and his daughter Martha. The story of Germany is of course fascinating: Hitler consolidates power while hardly anyone inside or outside the country challenges him. However, Dodd and his daughter figure it out but they are marginalized, Dodd because he won’t live the opulent lifestyle most US ambassadors were accustomed to and Martha because of her romantic forays and developing ties to the USSR. Even though you know the outcome of the larger story, the story is still interesting as an American academic tries to sound the alarm about the rising tide of Nazism.

5. Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago by Eric Klinenberg. I’ve been meaning to read this for some time as it concerns the 500+ deaths that occurred as the result of a heat wave in Chicago in 1995. Klinenberg performs a “social autopsy,” looking at the various factors and institution involved in the situation. The elderly who were alone were susceptible, particularly in neighborhoods without much street life, the morgues were unprepared, the media was behind in covering the story, and the City of Chicago and Mayor Daley tried to pass the blame. A lot went wrong in this situation, leading to one of the most deadly natural disasters in American history. (Perhaps this book was ahead of its time in looking at the sociology of disasters.)

6. Travels with Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck. I like Steinbeck and regard The Winter of Our Discontent and East of Eden as two of the best books I have read. However, this travelogue seems the opposite of his best novels: Steinbeck rambles around the country and offers some disconnected commentary. It seemed like he was trying to not do what he does in his novel: offer sweeping stories with big points about American life and culture. The only part that really grabbed my attention: Steinbeck passed through New Orleans during protests against the integration of New Orleans’ schools in 1960 (immortalized in a Norman Rockwell painting President Obama recent selected to hang in the Oval Office) and talked with some of the residents.

Quick Review: ASA 2011 Las Vegas

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The 2011 American Sociological Association meetings are still going on in Las Vegas. While I was only out there for the first half of the meetings, here are a few thoughts on the annual convention:

1. Las Vegas presents a series of contradictions and this irony should not be lost on sociologists.

1a. When you fly in and out, you really see how the city rises right out of the desert.

1b. I stayed a little bit off of The Strip and this daily walk was interesting in that the landscape several blocks away was really empty, desert lots and more rundown facilities. The airport backs right up to the south end of The Strip.

1c. The opening plenary session on Friday night included discussions of different sociological traditions including feminism and Marxism. The reception afterwards included a greeting from a Las Vegas girl in a feathery costume and a Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. impersonator providing entertainment. Can one easily go from discussing inequality and oppression to enjoying the fruits of capitalistic success? The answer appeared to be yes.

2. Some of the main themes I heard at the sessions I attended: an interest in explaining the Tea Party; some nervousness (?) about the reelection prospects of President Obama; explanations that Democrats won the recent recall elections in Wisconsin (despite media reports to the contrary).

3. The conference is being held at Caesar’s Palace, just a gargantuan facility. The main conference hall must have been at least 1,500 feet long. Two downsides to the conference setting: a lack of nearby coffee shops (the closest one had ridiculous lines on both Saturday and Sunday mornings) and it was difficult to walk to other nearby attractions. One thing I noticed: while typical ASA meetings tend to tie up the facilities in one or perhaps even two big city hotels, we were just a drop in the bucket of Caesar’s Palace.

4. The Strip has to be one of the most fascinating streetscapes in the world. The combination of heat, casinos, people drinking while walking, families, the homeless, and more is a sight to behold. Of course, it is more interesting because it is all inauthentic: this isn’t a neighborhood where people live but it is an endless stream of visitors.

5. I know the country is experiencing economic difficulties but I don’t think you could tell this by simply looking at The Strip. There were plenty of people of all ages and backgrounds walking around and spending money. If you wanted to find a place to study consumption and/or tourism, this would be it.

6. One thing I just cannot understand: why is there not public transportation from the airport to The Strip? While there is a monorail that runs behind the hotels on the northern end of The Strip, one has to take a shuttle or a taxi from the airport. I don’t know if these private firms have a lot of political clout but it seems like the city would want to help people get from the airport to The Strip as quickly and cheaply as possible.

7. People say the heat is a “dry heat” – I do think it makes a difference. While it was roughly 103 degrees during the days I was there and it was still 94 degrees at 10 PM one night when I was out walking, I definitely felt the humidity in Chicago on Sunday night.

Quick Review: Universal’s Islands of Adventure & The Wizarding World of Harry Potter

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We recently were in Florida and spent a day at Universal Studio’s Islands of Adventure. While this is more of a theme park than the regular Universal, it also includes the 1 year old Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Here are some thoughts on this park with pictures:

1. I’ll start with Harry Potter. This area was a lot of fun: from the ride (more of a Universal type ride than a roller coaster) to Hogsmeade to seeing Hogwarts from a distance, it was exciting. By far the best overall area of the park. In addition to the main ride (which was fun but we only did it once), there are two dueling roller coasters, the Hungarian Horntail and the Chinese Fireball, that were the second and third best rides in the park (and I went on each of these twice).

We spent a good amount of time in Hogsmeade. The scene of a small village in the snow looked good even on a 90 degree day and Hogwarts looks imposing off in the distance. While Olivander’s wand shop was overrated (and the longest wait of the day at 45 minutes), Zonko’s, Honeyduke’s, and The Three Broomsticks were worthwhile. The butterbeer was tasty.

This was the most crowded part of the park and we went there at least four separate times to try to avoid some of the crowds.

2. The best roller coaster in the park is The Incredible Hulk. While it is not the tallest or fastest coaster in Florida, it has some good features: you are shot out of the tunnel, the first turn/corkscrew is great, and it has an interesting part where it goes through some mist and under a bridge. The waits weren’t that long and I rode three times.

3. The park has three water rides which we rode all in a row. The Jurassic Park ride was entertaining (an extended big boat ride with the big drop at the end). The best was Dudley Do-Right’s Ripsaw Falls which was whimsical, wet, and had a couple of small gotcha drops.

4. Other parts of the park I liked:

-Perhaps other parks have this now but all of the rides had lockers that were free and locked/unlocked by your fingerprint. We didn’t have to pay anything for this all day, the lockers were conveniently located near every ride, and we didn’t have to worry about a key.

-The Dr. Seuss area was fun to walk through but the rides are for kids. Humorously, we saw a brochure in the Orlando area that claimed one of the tram rides from this area was actually in Disney World.

-Spiderman was okay – a typical Universal ride with lots of noise, lights, a 3-D screen. Doctor Doom’s Fearfall could have been taller but at least the line was short.

-We saw three shows: the BMX/skateboarding/motorcycle stunt show was fun while Poseidon’s Fury and the Eighth Voyage of Sinbad were lame.

-The food wasn’t bad. We ate at The Three Broomsticks for lunch and Mythos for dinner. Mythos claimed to be at the top of theme park food and I can’t say that I disagree.

5. Some things I would change:

-There are a few areas that need to be spiced up: Jurassic Park and The Lost Continent. Perhaps this has changed recently with more resources and space going to Harry Potter but these areas were noticeably lacking.

-The park needs one or two good rides to be fantastic. Another roller coaster would be fantastic. We had ridden all three roller coasters (and The Hippogriff kiddie coaster doesn’t count) and all three water rides within four hours of being in the park.

6. A note: we stayed in a Universal hotel the night before and it seemed to pay off. Though the hotel was pricey, we were able to get into the park an hour early (and therefore had no line for the Harry Potter ride) and also had an Express Pass so we could bypass some of the lines. The longest wait we had for a ride all day was probably twenty-five minutes and this was to be in the front row of The Incredible Hulk.

On the whole, we enjoyed the day. All amusement parks these days are expensive but I found this to be more interesting than Disney World, Epcot, or the regular Universal Park. Compared to the other nearby options, this park has exciting rides and doesn’t have to rely on characters, tradition, and tricks. With a little bit more, this park could be fantastic and I would then enjoy returning.

Here is the official website and the Wikipedia overview.

(Side note: the Harry Potter souvenirs were flying off the shelves including wands and school robes. With this success, how come some park hasn’t shelled out big bucks for a Lord of the Rings theme?)

Quick Review: American Grace

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I recently wrote about a small section of American Grace but I have had a chance to complete the full book. Here are my thoughts about this broad-ranging book about religion in America:

1. On one hand, I like the broad overview. There is a lot of data and analysis here about American religion. If someone had to pick up one book about the topic, this wouldn’t be a bad one to choose. I also liked some of the historical insights, including the idea that what we see now in American religion is a fallout of action in the 1960s and two counteractions that followed.

2. On the other hand, I’m not sure this book provides much new information. There is a lot of research contained in this book but much of it is already out there. The authors try to produce new insights from their own survey but I this is an issue in itself: after reading the full book, it was somewhat unclear why the authors undertook two waves of the Faith Matters Survey. The questions led to some new insights (like feelings toward the construction of a large religious building nearby) but much of it seemed duplicated and the short period between the waves didn’t help.

3. There is a lot of talk about data analysis and interpretation in this book. While it is aimed for a more general audience, the authors are careful in their explanations. For example, they are careful to explain what exactly a correlation means, it indicates a relationship between variables but causation is unclear, over and over again. Elsewhere, the authors explain exactly why they asked the questions they did and discuss the quality of this data. Some of these little descriptions would be useful in basic statistics or research classes. On the whole, they do a nice job in explaining how they interpret the data though I wonder how this might play with a general public that might just want the takeaway points. Perhaps this is why one reviewer thought this text was so readable!

4. Perhaps as a counterpoint to the discussions of data, the book includes a number of vignettes regarding religious congregations. These could be quite lengthy and I’m not sure that they added much to the book. They don’t pack the same punch as the representative characters of a book like Habits of the Heart and sometimes seem like filler.

5. The book ends with the conclusion that Americans can be both religiously diverse and devoted because of the many relationships between people of different faiths and denominations. On the whole, the authors suggest most people are in the middle regarding religion, not too confident in the idea that their religion is the only way but unwilling to say that having no religion is the way to go. I would like to have read more about how this plays out within religious congregations: how do religious leaders then talk doctrine or has everyone simply shifted to a more accomodating approach? Additionally, why doesn’t this lead down the path of secularization? From a societal perspective, religious pluralism may be desirable but is it also desirable for smaller groups?

On the whole, this book is a good place to start if one is looking for an overview of American religion. But, if one is looking for more detailed research and discussion regarding a particular topic, one would be better served going to those conducting research within these specific areas.

Quick Review: Those Guys Have All the Fun, Part 2

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In Part 1 of my review of Those Guys Have All the Fun, I commented on some of the things I liked and didn’t like. In Part 2, I want to tackle what I saw were two main themes: the business side of ESPN and ESPN personalities.

The authors provide some guidance in pointing out the steps that ESPN took to achieve global dominance. Like all TV networks that want to compete, ESPN had to pay big money for league packages and it took until the late 1980s for ESPN to even acquire a piece of the almighty NFL. I was surprised by the strong relationship between ESPN and NASCAR (perhaps because I am not a big fan): ESPN was willing to take a shot with racing in its early days when other networks were not so the two entities grew in popularity together. And one prominent negative for the network came when they finally acquired Monday Night Football only to find that the NFL and NBC had worked out a better deal for Sunday nights.

But like all businesses, ESPN needs to generate money. The key to this is that from its early years, ESPN charged cable services a per-subscriber fee. As it added content, particularly the NFL, ESPN raised these fees and now the book suggests something like around $4 of every cable bill goes toward ESPN. With advertising and subscriber revenue, ESPN was able to build its company.

Also from the early years, ESPN aimed for a particular corporate culture that valued the company above individual stars. Once ESPN became more popular, this became more difficult as certain individuals, like Keith Olbermann, who is featured a lot in this book, wanted to do things their own way and also wanted to make more money. While some of the executives seem to suggest that this corporate culture was about creating a tight-knit family, it also sounds like this was a business decision as it would help keep salaries down.

Even within this culture, I was surprised by the amount of sniping between personalities. This takes place in all companies, particularly in high-pressure situations, but some of it seemed silly here. Certain personalities, like Bob Ley, were cited as respected team players while others, like Mark Shapiro, were depicted as divisive. But there were a number of stories about yelling and aggressive behavior that made it sound like work life at ESPN could be quite unpleasant at times.

Another point of contention amongst the personalities was the strong emphasis on journalism, primarily attributed in this book to John Walsh. Many of the interviewed on-air personalities suggested they thought of themselves more as journalists in wanting to accurately and quickly report a story. Some personalities had some other thoughts and ended up leaving. Employees generally sounded like they didn’t get wrapped up or emotionally invested in individual stories, which I found a little surprising since the network seems to thrive on covering particular prominent athletes like Michael Jordan or Lebron James.

But this issue of journalism is where ESPN often seems to get into trouble these days: are they a news organization that just happens to only cover sports, or are they an entertainment company? The lines are blurred when ESPN becomes the story rather than reports the story and this seems to happen a lot. I understand why ESPN would want to appear more objective and ethical but I think they also need to acknowledge that they entertain and viewers are drawn to interesting voices and ideas.

(A side note: frankly, I am glad that the 1990s Chicago Bulls won their championships then compared to the over-analyzed and over-covered sports world of today. What might have ESPN done with such a dominant team and stories like Jordan’s gambling if their current form existed then? Back then, it seemed to be more about highlights than analysis – but I suppose they would argue that people can find highlights all over the place and so ESPN has to give them something else.)

These two issues, the business side and personalities, raise some questions:

  1. What would it take for ESPN to begin a decline or lose its prominence in the sports world?
  2. Why hasn’t there been a better competitor to ESPN over the years? (Perhaps they couldn’t access subscriber fees?) Ted Turner is portrayed as a competitor at times for league packages but he ends up fading away.
  3. How is ESPN viewed by other networks? There is some of this in the book but it is limited.
  4. Is ESPN’s corporate culture similar or different compared to other TV networks and other firms in other industries?

On the whole, I found this book to be quite engaging. If you are familiar with some of ESPN’s key shows and personalities, there is a lot of interesting material here. But if you want to better understand how ESPN became the behemoth that it is today, this is a good place to start.