BOOK COLLECTOR

If you had a vague but unverified sense that Scientology was a bit odd, unhinged, or unearthly; just wait till you hear about “Operating Thetans” (OTs), the intergalactic dictator Xenu and how the Earth is a slave planet for humans who were brought here billions of years ago while cryogenically frozen, dropped into volcanoes, and blown up with hydrogen bombs. And don’t even ask about O-T-T-R-Zero & “exteriorization” during auditing! I might be getting some of my “ theology ” wrong here but then again, that’s why you’ll want to see Alex Gibney’s newest documentary, Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief . Based off Pulitzer Prize winning author Lawrence Wright’s newest non-fiction, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood & the Prison of Belief , Gibney’s adaptation seems determined to include as much of the book’s content as possible, which, makes for a superbly in-depth, re-watchable experience (not unlike his other first-rate documentaries: Enron , Mea Maxima Cul...

For those not yet caught up in this week’s media outrage-pocalypse, let’s brush up on one that’s currently ablaze all over social media and news sites--weighing in among them The New York Times ,  Salon , HuffPo , The Washington Post , CNN, Fox, Slate, The Daily Beast ,  Aljazeera , Washington Times, Politico, Politifact , The New Republic , and many more. Strangely, last Friday’s episode of Real Time with Bill Maher spawned a 10 minute-clip of an exasperated Ben Affleck and a staid Sam Harris arguing on misaligned frames of reference about what constitutes fair criticism of islamic dogma and what crosses that line into liberal outcries of “Islamophobia”. The issue, in general that seems to divide people on this topic is a conversational misalignment. Simply put, liberals on both sides aren’t arguing about the same thing and it’s about time we all get on the same page.  Harris puts it succinctly: “The crucial point of confusion is that we have been sold this meme of I...