Another book that would incite crazy debate here…
…and which I have not yet read, is David Shields' REALITY HUNGER: A MANIFESTO, which is comprised entirely of other people's writing. That could be a fun one for this scene.

I'm definitely not basing my opinions of Mormons and Mormonism on just Beck and Romney, though Mormons sure seem to embrace those two.

That article about Ezra Taft Benson you posted was interesting, and thanks for that, but I have to say, for all the Church's ambivalent disapproval of his far-right paranoia, they never chastised Benson outright, they never removed him from leadership altogether, and eventually, with a unanimous vote, they put him…

@ Dumdumdumdumdum—You're of course right that there is a real spectrum of belief within the Mormon Church, and that many of the people are wonderful people who are often even fairly intelligent (excepting their beliefs in Mormonism). You're also right that there's a fair amount of misinformation out there about…

Yeah, I know. I took a long time writing the comment, and something clicked over while I was doing it.

@ WBlake

You also wrote about the BOOK OF MORMON not being taken so literally now, but we all know that it's been taken very literally since the Church's founding (see the above Kimball quote), and that it's the same progressive social values and indisputable science that are forcing the Church to backpedal on those issues,…

Then, there's Ezra Taft Benson, the "Prophet" when I was a young teenager, who was a total racist jackass, who opposed the Civil Rights movement as a secret Communist plot, openly hated on Martin Luther King, Jr., and was a staunch segregationist.

@Dumdumdumdumdum: Thanks for the long and thought-out comment, but I have to say I think it's a bit dishonest. First of all, you never explicitly state whether or not you are a Mormon or an ex-Mormon or whatever—you merely "grew up Mormon." That puts your comment in a weird sort of Nowheresville, leaving us not…

My thoughts exactly. And this reviewer's too, kind of.

THE INVENTION OF LYING was a far-from-perfect film, but as an act of subversion I think it was absolutely brilliant. Judging from all its advertising, it seemed like little more than a comedy about a world in which no one could lie. Then, once people were in the theater, comprising most of the movie's second act was…

AV CLUB—
Are you going to review Caribou's SWIM? I'm waiting! That album is amazing. At least an A.

Good idea. Have you seen John Saffran's efforts at that, knocking on doors in Utah?

I love Banksy.
If my daughter had been a son, Banksy would have been his name. Anyone who cares enough about art to be arrested for it gives it the value I think it deserves. Especially when that art is as generally solid as this guy's.

Oh come on, that's not why I posted that. This was a potentially very personal question, but the writers generally chose not reveal very much of themselves and answer with minor things that weren't really all that life-changing. That was my point. I want to hear about really life-changing works of art and how they…

Like that part in TRAINSPOTTING where the dead baby crawls on the ceiling during that nightmarish heroin withdrawal freakout? Hilarious.

53. But what a debatable list.

I think I need to hear this.

This may seem weird, but CATCH-22 literally did help me to change my life. There's a phrase in it, "tears of conviction" that really stuck with me the second time I read that book.

I want to write a novel about FA's comment.