Update: Dan Brown Still Sucks

Now, I don't care if he's an anti-feminist or a plagiarist or an heretical insurgent* or whatever. He's a hack. A hack who sloppily wrote a very silly book that made whacking great gobs of the cold and hard.

But that's not why I am mad at Dan Brown.

I am mad at Dan Brown because twice (TWICE!) today I encountered the word "symbology." I smacked my head and said, "But...but that's not even a thing! There's no such thing as symbology. Surely not."

I am not a pedantic martinet, mind you, the kind who coughs ever so slightly upon hearing "contact" used as a verb. I get that the language evolves. But SYMBOLOGY??? It just sounds icky. It's both vague and pretentious, weighted down with self-importance and a superfluous suffix.

There are, of course, scholars who study semiotics or iconography, but they actually know stuff and do reasearch and don't often solve murders. And they especially do not treat the complexities of history, art, and literature as puzzles that can be solved by pulling the right lever. Real scholars know that the more one knows about signs and symbols, the more complex they become.

*I can't remember if it's ok to use this word at all anymore. But "enemies of the legitimate Catholic hierarchy" just seemed awkward. Rumsfeld, if you're reading (and I suspect you are), shoot me an email and let me know what I can say today. Peace out.

UPDATE:
I was watching tv last night and an ad came on for one of those vocational colleges. They were offering to train folks to become--hold on to your hats--"medical technologists." I blame Dan Brown.

The Gospel According to Saul

The state of California executed Tookie this morning.

They killed him despite the truces he brokered. Despite his five nominations for the Nobel Prize. Despite his personal transformation. None of that mattered. What mattered were his crimes.

Stanley Williams's crimes were legion. Destructive. No one thinks we should forget them. But to not acknowledge his rehabilitation is deliberately blind. Murderously blind.

The President, too, is an admitted criminal. Leaving aside his morally criminal activities in the White House, he is on record as a criminal: a cocaine user and a drunk driver. But he cuts off all discussion of his former activities by invoking the code words: "born again."

Being "born again" allows Bush to dissociate himself completely from that other guy who liked to drink, score some blow, and make it with the townie girls that the Skull and Bones brought in.

This born again rhetoric comes from Paul. Before Paul's conversion, he had been Saul, a Pharisee who tortured, imprisoned, and murdered religious minorities. After his conversion, he devoted his life to ministry. The story of the conversion and the idea of Pauline grace is the touchstone of evangelical Christianity. Paul took his spiritual second chance and committed himself to preaching to often hostile audiences.

Like Paul, Stanley Tookie Williams has also walked the walk. His "conversion" wasn't simply a personal revelation or a rhetorical tool. It transformed him and he gave his life over to ministry.

Unlike Bush, who after his conversion, started to torture, imprison, and murder religious minorities. Saul would be proud.

Rest in Peace, Stanley Williams.