Went to the Greg Epstein “Good Without God” talk at the Universalist Unitarian Church, wasn’t impressed. I was on the fence before, but his talk seemed scattered and with little content. So… boring speaker in a beautiful building on the worlds most uncomfortable seats… sounds like I was at any church on any Sunday… empty fluff… he paused as much as he spoke, and he was all over the place. Okay, so it’s his first book and therefore his first book tour… but he’s a Secular Jewish Rabbi and a Humanist Chaplain. He should have his patter down. He wasn’t presenting facts, so at least he needed to tell a compelling story… it was a mess.
I listened to the episode of Freethought Today that he was on while driving there. Why I haven’t unsubscribed to that show, I don’t know.. I’m going to fix that tonight. Annie Gaylor said her mom requested more “dance music” on the show. That makes me think the old lady is senile, but they spent the first half of the show playing Dan Barkers crappy music anyway. It’s like the guy let go of god and the church, but wanted to keep that terrible music they harass you with. Anyway, because old lady Gaylor wanted “dance music” on the show, they ended up cutting off Epstein right at he was about to possibly say something interesting because they were at the end of the show.
Anyway, Epstein at some point in the lecture made reference to his pal Van Jones and quoted him… yeah, the 9-11 Truth petition signer, Marxist and racist Van Jones that was the “Environmental Czar” until his past caught up with him. In fact, Epstein made quite a big deal about Van Jones being a pal of his. I can’t decide what was worse, his playing up of his commie race agitator pal or when he tried to “connect” with the audience by quoting lyrics from rap songs. Blegh… he just lo0ked uncomfortable more than “hip”. Considering most of the audience had a head of grey hair, what was the point?
I recorded the event to go back and listen to to write a blog about it. It was a waste of time, and I can’t imagine going back to sift through it for any reason.
It wasn’t a total waste of time though, as I was able to swing by the Enoch-Pratt library during the tail-end of their book sale. I won’t go into the mad-house of people streaming in and out of the place with boxes, the security guards who had to yell at the patrons to keep under control, but I will say that there was one or two neglected tables with a few books left on it, ignored by the masses… and to the shame of the hundreds and possibly thousands of Baltimorons that passed through the doors, but to my delight, I found a small selection of Saint Mencken, a Hecht, and passed on two old biographies of Jack London (I haven’t read the two I already have yet).
Ben Hecht “Charlie, The Improbable Life of Charles MacArthur” (First edition, 1959)
HL Mencken “A Mencken Chrestomathy” (2nd printing, 1949)
Banjamin de Casseres “Mencken and Shaw, The Anatomy of America’s Voltaire and England’s other John Bull” (1930)
HL Mencken “Prejudices, Fifth Series” (1926)
HL Mencken “Prejudices, Fourth Series” (First edition, 1924)
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